Arts & Sciences

Richard D. Vierstra was installed as the inaugural George and Charmaine Mallinckrodt Professorship at a ceremony held March 7 in Holmes Lounge. The professorship resides in Arts & Sciences and is designated for the field of plant biology, an area of great strength, and even greater potential, at Washington University. 

Raymond Arvidson, James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded the prestigious Lester W. Strock Award for his work in the field of earth and planetary sciences.

Two dozen of the world’s best memory athletes will battle head-to-head for their share of $75,000 prize money as the Extreme Memory Tournament (XMT-2016) returns to  the headquarters of San Diego-based Dart NeuroScience June 24-26. Sponsored by Washington University in St. Louis and  Dart NeuroScience, the live-streamed competition offers the internet public a chance to […]

Himadri Pakrasi, the Myron and Sonya Glassberg/Albert and Blanche Greensfelder Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences and director of the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability, presented the lead address at the “Sustainable and Affordable Energy Challenge for the World” symposium at Columbia University.

Robert Sussman, a longtime professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis and a leading scholar on the evolution of human and primate behavior, died Wednesday, June 8, 2016, at his home in Creve Coeur, Mo. He was 74.

Claire Ross, a graduate student in Germanic Languages and Literatures in Arts & Sciences, has been awarded a fellowship from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to conduct dissertation research.

Amanda Scott, a doctoral candidate in history in Arts & Sciences, is one of 20 winners of the 2016 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship. The $25,000 award is among the nation’s most prestigious for doctoral candidates in the humanities and social sciences, with a specific emphasis on questions concerning ethical and religious values.

Scientists find gravity very puzzling. For one thing, they don’t understand why it is so weak; that is, why it takes so much stuff (like a planet’s worth) to generate much gravitational force. Perhaps, they say, it is leaking out of our universe. Physicist Adam Archibald, MA ’14, explains how this could be and describes an […]

Glaciations on Mars are different from those on Earth. During a Martian glacial period, water vapor that would otherwise travel to the north polar cap instead snows out at lower latitudes, where ice then accumulates. Radargrams of the north polar region of Mars record the most recent mid-latitude Martian glacial period and the regrowth of the polar ice since then.

Paul Michael Lützeler, the Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences, has received the Award for International Exchange from the American Alumni Association of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).