Arts & Sciences

Two WUSTL graduate students are competing in a National Science Foundation essay contest, the Innovation in Graduate Education Challenge. They propose a new course to teach graduate students how to communicate their work to the general public. Vote for their idea online now through May 29.

Bethany Ehlmann, who graduated from WUSTL in 2004 with a bachelor’s degree in earth and planetary science, has been selected as one of 17 Emerging Explorers by National Geographic. The Emerging Explorers Program recognizes and supports uniquely gifted and inspiring adventurers, scientists and innovators who are at the forefront of discovery, adventure and global problem-solving while still early in their careers.

Three WUSTL doctoral candidates were inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at the annual Bouchet Conference on Diversity in Graduate Education April 19-20 at Yale University. The Bouchet Society, named for the first African American to earn a doctorate in the United States, recognizes outstanding scholarly achievement and promotes diversity and excellence in doctoral education and the professoriate.

The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences recognized 15 teaching assistants for exemplary performance during an April 25 ceremony in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. Arts & Sciences departments and programs nominate outstanding teaching assistants for the annual award, which includes a $1,500 cash prize and certificate of recognition.

The International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) has announced the award winners for its 2013 Call for Proposals. This year, special emphasis was placed on projects related to climate change.

Renowned economists will gather Monday, May 20, at the university to pay tribute to Murray Weidenbaum, founder and honorary chairman of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, in a forum tailor-made to highlight his life-long accomplishments. A highly influential economist and policy adviser, Weidenbaum has a legacy in the academic and governmental realms that began in the early 1960s.

Andrew D. Martin, PhD, vice dean at Washington University School of Law, recently was installed as the Charles Nagel Chair of Constitutional Law and Political Science.

Arts & Sciences recognized the achievements of six alumni during the 16th Annual Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony, held April 25 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Clayton, Mo. The school presented four Distinguished Alumni Awards, one Early Career Achievement Award, and one Dean’s Medal.

Memory problems related to day-to-day activities — one of the largest complaints of people with Alzheimer’s diease — may be due to older adults’ inability to segment their daily lives into discrete experiences, suggests new psychology research from Washington University in St. Louis. How we perceive events in our current lives influences how we remember them in the future, the study finds.

The Next Generation Science Standards have been out for a month now. How are they being received? Michael Wysession, who helped lead the effort to define the national standards, says there haven’t been any major surprises, in part because there is strong economic motivation to bring American students up to the level of the scientifically literate students they will be compete with in the international job marker.