Arts & Sciences

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.

Arts & Sciences senior Nisha K. Chatterjee is this year’s winner of the Rabbi Ferdinand M. Isserman Prize. The annual award recognizes a student who has made a significant contribution in service and leadership to ecumenical or interfaith activities on the Washington University in St. Louis campus.

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.

Three Washington University in St. Louis scientists are among the 84 members and 21 foreign associates elected to the National Academy of Sciences this year. Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.

School of Medicine faculty member Elliot L. Elson, PhD, has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The organization was formed in 1780 to cultivate the arts and sciences and to recognize individuals who have made prominent contributions to their disciplines and to society.

Richard H. Gelberman, MD, a world-renowned expert in hand and wrist microsurgery, and James V. Wertsch, PhD, founding director of one of the most successful and innovative global scholarship programs in the world, will receive Washington University’s 2013 faculty achievement awards, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced. They will receive their awards and give presentations of their scholarly work during a Dec. 7 program.

Alena Wigodner, a junior anthropology major in Arts & Sciences, has been selected for a new National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program titled “Angel Mounds REU Site: Multidisciplinary Training for Students in Environmental and Social Sciences through Archaeological Research.”

The Women’s Society of Washington University handed out awards at its annual meeting April 17. Harriet Switzer, center, visits with the two seniors who received a leadership award named in her honor. They are Jennifer Head, far left, and Melany Lopez.

St. Louis is becoming widely recognized as a hub for entrepreneurship, and WUSTL students are taking advantage of the close proximity to great resources by starting their own business ventures — with the help of a groundbreaking class. The Hatchery, offered by Olin Business School but open to all university undergraduate students, is one of the university’s capstone entrepreneurship courses. Here, students hold the Olin Cup, the top prize in the top commercial entrepreneurship competition on campus.

This year the Spector Prize has been awarded to two students, Megan Kelly and Jennifer Stevens.The prize, given by the Department of Biology in memory of a 1938 WUSTL graduate, recognizes outstanding undergraduate achievement in research. Kelly did research on the chemical signals used by malaria parasites and Stevens on evolutionary trade-offs in weakly electric fish.