Arts & Sciences

Barbara A. Schaal, the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences, was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in May. Schaal was among the first scientists to use molecular biology-based approaches to understand evolutionary processes in plants.

Biologist Matthew Austin in Arts & Sciences published a study in the American Journal of Botany that describes changes to the flowering time and other important life cycle events in Leavenworthia species, a group of small flowering plants found in glades in Missouri.

Jewish books stolen by Nazis during World War II are returned to Prague — by way of Washington University Libraries.

As a biology faculty member, Professor Emerita Ursula Goodenough invited non-science majors to understand and reflect on the history of life on Earth. The second edition of her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature: How Life Has Emerged and Evolved, brings the wondrous saga to a new audience.

The legacy of Train, a retriever who assisted in conservation research, continues with a new study and a statue in Argentina.

As reported in a paper in Nature Communications, physicist Chong Zu in Arts & Sciences and his team are finding new ways to harness the quantum power of defects in otherwise flawless crystals. 

Cindy Brantmeier, a professor of applied linguistics and global studies in Arts and Sciences, will serve on the advisory board for LANGUAGES, a language acquisition research study in England, Norway and France examining teachers’ instruction and students’ use of languages in classrooms.

Washington University researchers found that how children’s brains process emotional cues typically is set by the time they are school age. They studied brain scans from hundreds of children ages 5 to 15 who watched videos that dealt with emotional topics.

Dwight A. McBride, a leading scholar of race and literary studies, and president and University Professor at The New School in New York City, will join the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis. His appointment is effective Aug. 15.

Physicist Sheng Ran in Arts & Sciences has won a prestigious National Science Foundation award for a project investigating new quantum materials. The research has potential applications for next-generation electronics.