Arts & Sciences

Albert Baernstein, professor emeritus of mathematics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Tuesday, June 10, 2014.  He was 73.

Washington University in St. Louis postdoctoral research associate Aubreya Adams went to Antarctica in January and February 2014 to help with routine maintenance of seismic stations on the West Antarctic ice shelf. But nothing in the southern continent is ever routine. In her short stay, she experienced extreme weather, saw a rare mirage, visited bizarre ice vents on the volcanic Mount Erebes and saw first hand the effects of the warming that recently made front page news in The New York Times.

Faculty members Darren Dochuk, PhD, and Nancy Reynolds, PhD, will delve into new experiences thanks to awards they received this spring. Dochuk received a residency in China, and Reynolds won a New Directions Fellowship, which allows faculty to train outside their own area of interest.

In preparation for an upcoming summit on working families, Robert Pollak, PhD, an expert on family economics, recently attended a meeting at the White House with other academic leaders and senior administration officials. They gathered to discuss the implications of demographic and other changes for 21st-century workplaces.

Noted American essayist and culture critic Gerald L. Early, PhD, has fond remembrances of when he introduced Maya Angelou before one of her three speaking engagements at Washington University in St. Louis. She delivered talks in Graham Chapel in 1981, 1984 and 1990.

“The Surrounding Game” is a documentary film about the game of Go co-directed by WUSTL graduate student Cole Pruitt. It follows two of America’s top young players as they compete to obtain professional rank in this subtle and elegant game. Implicit in the story is a larger question: Can a game this subtle and difficult, which has been pursued as a fine art in Asia for millennia, be transplanted to America, which does not have the culture or the training system to support it?

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton presented Helen Kathleen Cook, PhD, of the Department of Anthropology, with the Gloria W. White Distinguished Service Award. The recognition was part of the annual Staff Day activities May 19. 

It’s been a good run, but eventually the house lights come up. Since 1973, the Edison Ovations Series has brought nationally and internationally known performing artists to Washington University in St. Louis and the community. But the 2014-15 season will be the Ovations’ last.

A project to provide low-cost eyeglasses for people in the developing world and one to develop a cell-death detector will share $25,000 to further develop their projects as winners of the 2014 Discovery Competition. Washington University in St. Louis’ School of Engineering & Applied Science created the competition in 2012.

That the WUSTL-connected contingent comprises 40 percent of this year’s Arch Grant winners is no surprise to H. Holden Thorp, PhD, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs.