Arts & Sciences

Senior Hannah Gilberstadt leads the Jazz Band at Washington University through a rendition of Antonio Carlos Jobim’s 1962 classic “Só Danço Samba” (“I Only Dance Samba”). The Brazilian composer was among the 20th century’s most influential songwriters, and a pioneer of the bossa nova style.

Long before Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and even MySpace, early Mississippian Mound cultures in America’s southern Appalachian Mountains shared artistic trends and technologies across regional networks that functioned in similar ways as modern social media, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

The American Academy of Microbiology has named three Washington University in St. Louis faculty members as fellows: Gautam Dantas, of the School of Medicine, and Robert Kranz and Petra Levin, professors of biology in Arts & Sciences.

C. David Gutsche, professor emeritus of chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Aug. 28, 2018, in Seattle. Gutsche was 97.

Joseph Kurz, professor emeritus of chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis, died Jan. 2, 2019, at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in St. Louis County. His health had declined over the past several years. Kurz was 85. 

Ray Arvidson, professor of Earth and planetary sciences and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor, talks about the end of Opportunity’s longer-than-expected 15-year mission — he was the deputy principal investigator for the Mars exploration rover for NASA.

NASA’s Astrobiology Program has awarded $9 million to a multi-institution team for the Earth First Origins project, led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Jeffrey G. Catalano of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis is a co-investigator.

Omari Mizrahi will conduct free master classes and a Q&A on the dance style known as AfrikFusion at Washington University and COCA Feb. 20 and 21. Mizrahi, who teaches voguing and ballroom dance at the Broadway Dance Center in New York, has performed at the MTV Video Music Awards and recently was featured in Janet Jackson’s “Made for Now” video.

Two Arts & Sciences faculty members, Leigh Eric Schmidt and Thomas Keeline, have been awarded prestigious research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Performing Arts Department will debut its production of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America: Millennium Approaches” Feb. 22 in Edison Theatre. “At the heart of the play is a question about who gets to be a citizen of this country,” said dramaturg Paige McGinley. “Gay people, people with AIDS, the addicted — these are often seen as society’s most disposable. Kushner puts them at the center of the American story.”