Sean Carroll tells the tale of courage, creative genius, enduring friendship and insight into the human condition for Assembly Series

Sean B. Carroll, PhD, is an evolutionary biologist, popular author, educator and Washington University alumnus (LA ’79) who discovered the beauty of the humanities while studying biology as a student here. His embrace of both worlds informs his most recent book, “Brave Genius: A Scientist’s Journey from the French Resistance to the Nobel Prize,” and is the title of his Assembly Series lecture at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 6, in Graham Chapel.

Skemer will use NSF CAREER award to understand rock flow in Earth’s mantle

Philip Skemer, PhD, assistant professor in the department of earth and planetary science in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER award) from the National Science Foundation. He will use the award for a series of experiments in which rock samples will be deformed at the extreme temperatures and pressures they encounter along the boundaries where plates collide.

Announcing Washington University’s Spring 2014 Assembly Series

The Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series turned 60 in 2013, and to mark such an august occasion, it’s fitting to remember why the lecture series was conceived in the first place. The Assembly Series launched during the institution’s centennial celebration in 1953 as a way to involve the broader St. Louis community in the robust intellectual life on campus.
Strassmann installed as Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology

Strassmann installed as Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology

Biologist Joan E. Strassmann, PhD, was installed Jan. 23 as the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences in a ceremony in Holmes Lounge. Following the formal installation, Strassmann gave an entertaining talk about a high-stakes gamble she and Queller made 15 years ago: to switch from studying cooperation and conflict in social insects, famous for their complex societal arrangements, to studying it in an amoeba, whose claim to fame had been its simple lifestyle.
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