Arts & Sciences

Early rice growers unwittingly gave barnyard grass a big hand, helping to give root to a rice imitator that is now considered one of the world’s worst agricultural weeds. The new research from biologist Kenneth Olsen in Arts & Sciences was published this week in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Three members of the Washington University faculty have been appointed to serve as faculty fellows in the Office of the Provost,  according to Interim Provost Marion Crain. During the 2019-20 academic year, they will focus on several high-priority academic initiatives.

As part of a federal initiative to end the HIV epidemic, Washington University in St. Louis will establish a center to provide guidance and support to local organizations working to reduce HIV infection rates in their communities. Among other things, the center will help organizations provide PrEP, a medicine that prevents HIV infection.

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, is a member of the Event Horizon Telescope collaboration that won the 2020 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. The award recognizes the team’s achievement of making the first image of a supermassive black hole, “taken by means of an Earth-sized alliance of telescopes.”

Rafia Zafar, professor of English, American culture studies, and African and African American studies, challenges stereotypes surrounding black American cooking with her new course and book.

In her research on mothers, Caitlyn Collins, Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, has found that moms in the U.S. (and dads) are struggling to feel like good parents when they don’t get any mandated parental leave.

Psychologist Kristina Olson, BA ’03, wins one of science’s most prestigious awards for her research on identity.

Pamela Meyer, BA ’80, is founder and CEO of Calibrate, a corporate training company that specializes in deception detection. She is author of the 2010 book Liespotting: Proven Techniques to Detect Deception, and her 2011 Ted Talk, “How to Spot a Liar,” has more than 22 million views. Here she talks about deciphering deception.

Recently appointed to the university’s board of trustees, alumna Vicki Match Suna serves the university in numerous ways. She has particularly enjoyed being involved in the university’s recent capital project to transform the east end of the Danforth Campus.

Max Klapow is a William H. Danforth Scholar and research assistant in the Diversity Sciences Lab. The Class of 2021 Arts & Sciences student presented at TEDxWUSTL about radical empathy in April 2019.