Arts & Sciences

James H. Buckley, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, received a $700,292 award from the National Science Foundation to upgrade a ground-based telescope array for gamma-ray astronomy.

Each fall, the leaves of almost half of North America’s species of trees and shrubs turn red. Biologist Susanne S. Renner at Washington University in St. Louis helps explain why the North American fall is so red, compared with Europe, and also what changes to fall foliage we can expect under climate change.

At the university’s recent Board of Trustees meeting, numerous faculty members were appointed or promoted with tenure or granted tenure, with most new roles taking effect Oct. 1.

The Washington University community is invited to watch a livestreamed conversation Nov. 9 between former first lady Michelle Obama and college students including WashU sophomore Natasha Chisholm. 

Abram Van Engen, professor of English in Arts & Sciences, has won the Peter J. Gomes Memorial Book Prize for “City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism.”

Secret military experiments. A television star turned health-care activist. The yearslong battle to remove a Confederate statue in New Orleans. This month, the Film & Media Studies program in Arts & Sciences will screen more than 20 films as part of the 2021 St. Louis International Film Festival.

A team led by biologist Arpita Bose in Arts & Sciences modified a microbe so that it can produce a biofuel using only carbon dioxide, solar panel-generated electricity and light.

Roya Beheshti Zavareh, associate professor of mathematics and statistics in Arts & Sciences, won a three-year $203,917 grant from the National Science Foundation.

P. Roy Vagelos, MD, and his wife, Diana Vagelos, are providing $15 million to support the university’s Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences. The gift will fund undergraduate and graduate work in the life sciences. The couple made the gift to honor former Chancellor William H. Danforth, MD, who died last year.

Glenn Davis Stone, professor of sociocultural anthropology and of environmental studies in Arts & Sciences, is part of an international team of researchers funded by the European Union to study CRISPR in agriculture and food production. Stone is co-leader of the perceptions part of the study.