Arts & Sciences

St. Louis native Gus Giordano, who died in 2008, is widely considered the father of jazz dance — at once founder, teacher, popularizer and finest exemplar. At 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 10 and 11, the company he founded, Giordano Dance Chicago, returns to its roots with two shows in Washington University’s Edison Theatre.

The outcome of a duel between mathematical models supports the reigning theory of the genetics of altruism. Called inclusive fitness, it says altruism is competitive if it benefits relatives carrying the same gene as the selfless individual. Attacked by a Nature article published in 2010, it is defended by Washington University evolutionary biologist David Queller.

Wilmetta Toliver-Diallo, PhD, assistant dean in Arts & Sciences, has been appointed by the Missouri Arts Council to serve on its advisory panel for festivals. Her term runs until June 30, 2016.

The Los Angeles Piano Quartet, widely considered one of the premier  ensembles in the United States, will perform new work by Washington University composer Christopher Stark, along with pieces by Samuel Barber and Antonin Dvořák, at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 28, in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall.

Fiona Marshall, PhD, an archaeologist in the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was installed Feb. 10 as the inaugural James W. and Jean L. Davis Professor. The professorship is named in tribute to the lifelong contributions of the Davises to the university.

​Washington University in St. Louis students volunteers built homes in Oklahoma, dug fish ponds in Panama and helped establish medical clinics in Honduras, learning as much about themselves as about other cultures. Sophomore Itzel Lopez said she learned three lessons during her trip to help migrant farm workers in Texas: “The significance of being present, the gift of gratitude and hope and the blessing of acknowledgement.” 

The importance of human milk in evolution and modern health; biology and race in Ferguson; and the latest research on Cahokia Mounds will be among the presentation topics as three major human biology and anthropology professional groups converge in St. Louis for their annual scientific meetings March 24-28.

There are five regular polytopes (Platonic solids) in three-dimensional space and six in four-dimensional space. Only their projections can be built in our dimension-deficient world and that requires an act of imagination. Ivan Horozov, PhD, the Chauvenet Lecturer in Mathematics, is building the two most complex figures in this office in his spare time.

​Ireland lost 1 million souls to hunger and disease during the potato famine and another million to immigration. But that’s not all, says Peter Wyse Jackson, PhD, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden and the George Engelmann Professor of Botany at Washington University in St. Louis. Ireland also lost its connection to the many plant species that sustained its people throughout the centuries. The ethnobotanist says the study of plants is more important than ever.

Can theater movement-training techniques help real-life computer scientists improve human/robot interactions? Beginning March 26, director Annamaria Pileggi will put that theory to the test with “Sky Sky Sky,” a world premiere drama featuring three human actors and one PR2 robot. Performances take place in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre, located in Mallinckrodt Center, 6465 Forsyth Blvd.