Arts & Sciences

Graduate student groups and individual leaders at Washington University in St. Louis who help “bridge the gaps” between graduate and professional students from diverse areas of study throughout WUSTL’s seven schools were recognized during a recent awards ceremony and reception. The Graduate Professional Council’s Bridging GAPS (Graduate and Professional Students) Awards Ceremony was held April 9 in the Danforth University Center’s Goldberg Formal Lounge.

The Advisory Committee for the Diversity and Inclusion Grants has awarded eight grants totaling nearly $174,000 to Washington University faculty and administrators for initiatives that improve the university environment for women and members of underrepresented minority groups.

The Department of Mathematics has announced that a WUSTL team, consisting of senior Alex Anderson and juniors Tom Morrell and Ari Tenzer, placed 28th out of 460 teams in the demanding William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition. Two WUSTL teams also took first and third place in the 17th annual Missouri Collegiate Mathematics Competition. The winning team consisted of freshman Alan Talmage, and juniors Tom Moreel and Ari Tenzer.

The 2012 Spector Prize, which recognizes outstanding undergraduate acheivement in research, has been awarded to Paul Fahey, who graduated in December 2011 summa cum laude with a degree in biology. Fahey worked in the lab of Karen O’Malley, PhD, professor of neurobiology in the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at the School of Medicine. His thesis focused on Fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation.

Five Arts & Sciences juniors have been awarded prestigious national scholarships. Winners of the Goldwater Scholarship are Rachel Greenstein, a biology major, Jennifer Head, who is majoring in chemical engineering, and Jenny Liu, who is majoring in electrical and biomedical engineering. Madeleine Daepp, majoring in economics and mathematics, and Jeremy Pivor, majoring in environmental biology with a minor in public health, won the Udall Scholarship.

Two Washington University in St. Louis professors have been elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.The new fellows are Sarah C.R. Elgin, PhD, the Viktor Hamburger Professor of Arts & Sciences; and Alan R. Templeton, PhD, the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences.

Take three parts standard operatic repertoire, add two contemporary masterpieces, one not-so-standard bel canto and a dash of musical theater. The result is Opera Scenes, the semester-end program by Washington University Opera. This year’s performances, directed Tim Ocel, will take place at 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday, April 24 and 26, in the Ballroom Theatre of the 560 Music Center.

A memorial for Burton M. Wheeler, PhD, will take place at 3 p.m. Tuesday, April 24, in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall. A reception will follow. Wheeler, professor emeritus of English and of religious studies, both in Arts & Sciences, and a beloved teacher and former dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died Friday, Feb. 17, at his home in Warson Woods, Mo., after a long battle with cancer. He was 84.

As a Washington University undergraduate, Aimee Lagos tutored kids from East St. Louis and later interned with a neighborhood stabilization project. Now a film director based in Los Angeles, Lagos will return to campus Monday, April 23, for a free screening of 96 Minutes, her feature-length debut. Inspired by true events, the film portrays four teenagers from two different worlds — until those worlds collide in the course of a carjacking.

Paul Dowkontt (left) of the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences is congratulated by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton April 11 as he receives a wrapped silver platter in recognition of his 25 years of service to Washington University at the 2012 25th Anniversary Reception.