Arts & Sciences

Three students arrived at Washington University in the fall of 2013 with a desire to do something to help the environment. This month, sustainability champions Nick Annin, Elise Fabbro and Nicola Salzman graduate and are poised to fight the globe’s most pressing problem with a powerful tool: the free market.

Lerone Martin, assistant professor of religion and politics, has been named one of just 10 2017 Nancy Weiss Malkiel Scholars by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Katia and Marielle Labèque are “the best piano duet in front of an audience today” (The New York Times). Susan Graham is “America’s favorite mezzo” (Gramaphone Magazine). The Calidore String Quartet boasts “understated but relentless intensity” (Los Angeles Times). For its 2017-18 Great Artist Series, Washington University in St. Louis will present three affordably priced concerts by some of today’s finest performers.

As dangerous bacteria grow more savvy at evading antibiotics, researchers are seeking new ways to counterattack. Rather than design new drugs from scratch, some scientists are searching for ways to block the microbes’ evasive maneuvers. If resistance can be shut down, current drugs should remain effective. That concept is demonstrated in a new study from the School of Medicine.

Five doctoral candidates at Washington University in St. Louis were inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at the annual Bouchet Conference on Diversity in Graduate Education April 7-8 at Yale University.

Four university scientists are among the 84 members and 21 foreign associates recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Undergraduate Sakura Oyama received a 2017 Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the University of Cambridge in England. Oyama is preparing to graduate this month with a degree in biology and in anthropology, with a concentration in global health and the environment, from Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

In “Grieve,” Sagar Brahmbhatt depicts bereavement as a kind of delayed reaction — a time bomb that never really stops exploding. Evan Gates’ “Floor is Lava?” is a slyly pointed examination of adult responsibility. Later this month, both films, created entirely by Washington University students, will be screened as part of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival.

Lily Cao and Jennifer Hsu share this year’s Spector Prize, awarded annually to a graduating senior in memory of Marion Smith Spector, a 1938 graduate who studied zoology under the late Viktor Hamburger.

The American Economic Association (AEA) elected Robert A. Pollak, the Hernreich Distinguished Professor of Economics at Olin Business School and in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, a 2017 Distinguished Fellow.