Arts & Sciences

WUSTL senior Alaina Smith works as a court advocate with the St. Louis County Domestic Violence Court and as a facilitator at RAVEN, a batterer intervention program. Smith is among this year’s Gerry and Bob Virgil Ethic of Service Award winners.

Did domesticating a plant typically take a few hundred or many thousands of years? Genetic studies often indicate that domestication traits have a fairly simple genetic basis, which should facilitate their rapid evolution under selection. On the other hand, recent archeological studies of crop domestication have suggested a relatively slow spread and fixation of domestication traits. An article in “The Modern View of Domestication,” a special issue of PNAS, tries to resolve the discrepancy.

Alex Tinianow will receive this year’s Harrison D. Stalker Award from the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. The award is given annually to a graduating biology major whose undergraduate career combines outstanding scientific scholarship with significant contributions in the arts and humanities.

William F. Tate, PhD, the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Department of Education at Washington University, has been named the next dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and vice provost for graduate education.

Groundbreaking neuroscientist Richard Davidson visited campus for two days of lectures, discussing the emotional life of the brain and how well-being can be learned.

Alumna Laura E. Knights has always been driven to help people and serve her community, a lesson instilled first by her parents and reinforced at Washington University, where Knights was an Ervin Scholar and counted the late Dean James E. McLeod among her mentors.

A WUSTL team, consisting of sophomore Anthony Grebe, junior Patrick Lopatto and freshman Jongwhan Park, placed 10th out of 430 teams in the prestigious Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition. WUSTL students also earned the first perfect score in the Missouri Collegiate Mathematics Competition.

This month marks the 450th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare. From April 17-20, WUSTL’s Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will celebrate the Bard with a new production of “Twelfth Night,” one of his most beloved comedies, in the A.E. Hotchner Studio Theatre.

Washington University will conduct a ceremonial groundbreaking ceremony for the Gary M. Sumers Recreation Center at 4 p.m. Friday, April 11.

Anthropologist Tristram Kidder, PhD, was installed April 7 as the Edward S. and Tedi Macias Professor in Arts & Sciences during a ceremony in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall. Kidder has served as chair of the Department of Anthropology since 2008.