Arts & Sciences

Three researchers at Washington University in St. Louis, Raj Jain, David Kirk and Stuart Kornfeld, are being honored for outstanding contributions to science by the Academy of Science-St. Louis.

Uncle Joe’s, Washington University in St. Louis’ confidential peer counseling and resource center, recorded 44 percent more interactions with students in fall 2017 compared to fall 2016. In honor of Mental Health Awareness Week, Uncle Joe’s co-directors share their mission and how they respond to emerging concerns.

Using new gene sequencing techniques, Washington University biologists are taking a closer look at the behavior of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, or Dicty for short.

Elizabeth S. Haswell, associate professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, has been elected as a council delegate for biological sciences for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her term began Feb. 20.

Washington University in St. Louis faculty, staff and students are mourning the death of Katrina Banks, administrative coordinator for the Office of Undergraduate Research and a student in University College in Arts & Sciences. She was 31.

Two U.S. retailers made moves this week to regulate their gun sales based on principle — moves that legislators failed to make in recent years despite public outcry following each incident in a line of mass-shooting tragedies. A pair of Washington University in St. Louis experts say that these actions represent “an expansion of corporate social responsibility,” even if the retailers financially may suffer amid something of a consumer backlash.

The Washington University Choirs, Wind Ensemble and Symphony Orchestra will join forces March 2 for the 2018 Chancellor’s Concert — the university’s largest musical event of the year.

Half-century-old advice from Billy Graham, who died Feb. 21, was in line with cultural and sexual norms of the 1950s and later decades, when many of Graham’s contemporary evangelical preachers fell from grace after widely publicized extramarital affairs, says R. Marie Griffith, director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis.

Poet Eileen G’Sell and guitarist William Lenihan will join pianist Jay Oliver and drummer Steve Davis for an evening of music and spoken word as part of the Jazz at Holmes Series.

When fading patriarch Beverly Weston goes missing, his family gathers for a reunion bordering on the apocalyptic. So begins “August: Osage County,” the Pulitzer- and Tony-winning drama by Tracy Letts. Washington University’s Performing Arts Department will present the show in Edison Theatre Feb. 23 to March 4.