Arts & Sciences

In an effort to increase diversity in the neurosciences, Washington University in St. Louis has received a five-year, $1.5 million federal grant to participate in a national pipeline program with that mission.

A new publication, “Who’s Who Diversity in Color,” recently released its inaugural edition. The publication highlights minorities from the St. Louis region who have positively influenced their workplace or community, and eight faculty and staff members of Washington University in St. Louis are featured in the publication.

Thomas Ferkol, who graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in May with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in Arts & Sciences, and studied writing and music throughout his undergraduate career, was accepted into the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM)’s summer film-scoring program.

​Costas Azariadis, PhD, an economist at Washington University in St. Louis, is currently in Greece. A native of Athens, Azariadis emailed his observations and insights into the turmoil and what might be next.​

For 20 summers now, students of all ages and from all walks of life have gathered on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis to write, read, write, read and write some more. The Summer Writers Institute, an intensive, two-week writing seminar that is part summer camp, part MFA-level instruction, is thriving after two decades.

As floodwaters surge along major rivers in the midwestern United States, a new study from Washington University in St. Louis suggests federal agencies are underestimating historic 100-year flood levels on these rivers by as much as five feet, a miscalculation that has serious implications for future flood risks, flood insurance, and business development in an expanding floodplain.

At the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees meeting May 1, several faculty members were appointed with tenure or promoted with tenure, effective July 1 unless otherwise indicated.

World-renowned author William H. Gass, the David May Distinguished University Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, recently was awarded the William Dean Howells Medal for his novel “Middle C.”

New Horizons will fly through the Pluto system on July 14 at an angle of 46 degrees to the plane of the dwarf planet’s orbit, then turn to use sunlight reflected from Charon, Pluto’s biggest moon, to image areas of Pluto now in continuous darkness. Your host for the WashU Pluto watching party will be Bill McKinnon, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, who will be commenting from mission headquarters at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.

In 1999, Danish scientist Per Bak made the startling proposal that the brain remained stable for much the same reason a sand pile does; many small avalanches hold it at a balance point, where — in the brain’s case — information processing is optimized. Now scientists have shown for the first time that a brain receiving and processing sensory input follows these dynamics.