Arts & Sciences

Washington University in St. Louis graduate student Andrea Karl found herself thrust into the national spotlight this month at the St. Louis GO! Marathon when an imposter at the finish line denied Karl her first-place accolades. She got to recreate the finish at Busch Stadium. Karl is working towards a PhD in molecular genetics and genomics in the Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences (DBBS) at the School of Medicine. DBBS is in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis recognized five alumni during its 17th annual Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony, held March 19 at The Ritz-Carlton, St. Louis. Barbara A. Schaal, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor, hosted the awards dinner.

Junior Kevin Hays has set a new record for standard Rubik’s Cubes solved while underwater: eight. Hays beat the previous record of five while sitting in a dunk tank April 19 on the Washington University in St. Louis campus at the annual Thurtene Carnival. The attempt took two minutes and five seconds.

Edward S. Macias, PhD, provost emeritus and the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, will receive an honorary degree from his alma mater Colgate University in May.

Erin McGlothlin, PhD (right), associate professor of German and of Jewish studies in Arts & Sciences, was among eight faculty to receive an Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award. She is pictured with one of her graduate students who nominated her for the award, Ervin Malakaj, a PhD candidate in German.

The Department of Mathematics has announced that a Washington University team, consisting of junior Anthony Grebe, senior Alan Talmage and sophomore Jongwhan Park, placed 16th out of 431 teams in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition, the most difficult mathematics competition for undergraduates in the country. Washington University teams also took first and second place in the Missouri Collegiate Mathematics Competition.​

Amy French, a junior majoring in economics in Arts & Sciences, is a goalkeeper for the Bears varsity team. She is also an accomplished jazz singer, and keeps busy accompanying Provost Holden Thorp, a jazz pianist in his free time, at events around the country.

Ram V. Dixit, PhD, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a four-year, $1.17 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for research titled “Mechanisms for the Function and Regulation of Katanin.”

On a frosty winter’s night in 1909, five members of the Yale Glee Club convened at Mory’s Temple Bar to escape the New Haven cold. Thus was born the world’s oldest and best-known collegiate a cappella group. On Monday, April 27, the Whiffenpoofs will descend on Washington University in St. Louis for a puckish evening of traditional and popular song.

The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences will honor professor emeritus Harold Blumenfeld, who died last fall at he age of 91, with a Memorial Concert in Graham Chapel April 19. The performance will feature Blumenfeld’s settings of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and Arthur Rimbaud as well as works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Paul Hindemith and Franz Schubert.