Arts & Sciences

Christine Floss, research professor in the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died April 19, 2018, in St. Louis. She was 56. Floss was a leader in the university’s Laboratory for Space Sciences.

How Peter Delaney, who will graduate from Washington University with a degree in global health and the environment in Arts & Sciences, turned a passion for innovation and medicine into an emergency medical system for an African community. And that’s just some of what he did as a student here.

University Libraries has selected the winners of the 2018 Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition. The Neureuther competition offers prizes to both undergraduate students and graduate students who write short essays about their personal book collections.

Washington University in St. Louis sociocultural anthropologist John R. Bowen and David H. Perlmutter, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, join the likes of President Barack Obama, actor Tom Hanks and Supreme Court Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor as newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Michael Wysession, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been appointed executive director of the university’s Teaching Center, effective July 1.

Warmer summer and fall seasons and fewer winter freeze-thaw events have led to changes in the relative numbers of different types of bugs in the Arctic, says Amanda Koltz, a postdoctoral fellow in Arts & Sciences. The study relies on the longest-standing, most comprehensive data set on arctic arthropods in the world today: a catalogue of almost 600,000 flies, wasps, spiders and other creepy-crawlies collected at the Zackenberg field station on the northeast coast of Greenland from 1996-2014.

Sarah C.R. Elgin and Samuel I. Achilefu will receive Washington University in St. Louis’ 2018 faculty achievement awards, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced. Also, William A. Frazier III, professor emeritus, will be honored for innovation and entrepreneurship.

Washington University faculty and students will moderate panels at the Saint Louis Climate Summit, hosted by Saint Louis University. Students, faculty and staff can attend an evening with Bill Nye of “Science Guy” fame and environmentalist Carl Pope on April 23 for free by showing their IDs at the ticket booth.

The prospects for improved law enforcement-community relations in St. Louis and beyond will be explored as the “Color of Policing Symposium (COPS): Youth, Education and Activism” brings together urban scholars and city leaders for a two-day symposium April 19-20 on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

News is for fools. Kindness is a lie. Killing, to our animal nature, is simply enjoyable. Wallace Shawn’s “Aunt Dan and Lemon,” which the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will stage April 13-22, explores the fragility of civilized society, and how easily cultured masks slip before the face of power.