David Balota, PhD, a leader in the study of cognitive breakdowns that occur in Alzheimer's, and Steven L. Teitelbaum, MD, a world-renowned bone biologist, will receive Washington University in St. Louis’ 2014 faculty achievement awards, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced.

Balota, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences and professor of neurology in the School of Medicine, will receive the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award.

Teitelbaum, the Wilma and Roswell Messing Professor of Pathology and Immunology and a professor of medicine, will receive the Carl and Gerti Cory Faculty Achievement Award.

They will receive their awards and give presentations of their scholarly work during a Dec. 6 program.

“Professors Balota and Teitelbaum represent the very best qualities of Washington University faculty,” Wrighton said. “Both have made significant contributions to the university and within their respective fields. I am pleased that we are recognizing these two very distinguished scholars with the 2014 faculty achievement awards.”

David Balota

Balota

Balota, a member of the faculty here since 1985, is a cognitive psychologist known for his work on the critical role of attentional control systems in memory, language, and in age-related changes in cognition in healthy aging and in individuals who have developed (or are likely to develop) dementia of the Alzheimer's type.

In collaboration with researchers at the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, his work has recently demonstrated sensitivity of attentional control measures to biomarkers that are accumulating in individuals before the onset of dementia.

A native St. Louisan, Balota earned a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 1976. He received a master's degree in experimental psychology in 1978 and a doctoral degree in 1981, both from the University of South Carolina in Columbia, S.C.

He is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the esteemed Society of Experimental Psychologists. He is a former chair of the Psychonomic Society, the leading society of experimental psychologists, former editor of the society’s flagship journal, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, and president of the Experimental Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association.

Balota has contributed to important methodological advances in cognitive science. He developed the English Lexicon Project, a widely used megadatabase of more than 40,000 words and nonwords, including millions of behavioral responses. He also has shown that measures of variability in performance can be particularly important in discriminating among cognitive theories above and beyond mean level performance.

At WUSTL, he has been pivotal in leading the Aging and Development program, which is one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s first training grants related to aging and psychology, and until recently he directed the Linguistic Studies program. He has served on many university committees, including as a member of the promotion and tenure committee for Arts & Sciences.

In 2011, he received the David Hadas Teaching Award in Arts & Sciences and twice has received the Graduate Student Mentor Award. 

Steven Teitelbaum

Teitelbaum

“My father had this image that there would be this cliff with dragons as you crossed the Ohio River,” he said.

Instead, Teitelbaum found opportunities to train with world-class researchers like Louis Avioli, a pioneering scientist regarded by many as the father of modern osteology, the science of bones.

More than 50 years later, Teitelbaum is still a St. Louis resident and has his own record of groundbreaking insight into bone biology. To keep the skeleton strong, the body regularly demolishes and rebuilds its bones.

Teitelbaum has produced an extensive collection of important discoveries about the cells and regulatory factors that control this renewal process.

Teitelbaum also has been a leader in development and adaptation of new techniques for diagnosis and treatment of bone disease. When French physicians developed the first technique for extracting bone samples to diagnose disease, he traveled to France to learn the technique and brought it back to St. Louis.

He also has been a strong advocate for scientific freedom, speaking out often about the potential benefits of stem cells and cloning and opposing legal prohibitions on the use of these and other scientific tools and techniques.

Teitelbaum received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia College in 1960 and his MD from Washington University in 1964.

He has served as president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

In 2010, the NIH gave Teitelbaum a MERIT (Method to Extend Research in Time) award, which is used to provide long-term grant support to outstanding investigators.

Teitelbaum laughs at his early misconceptions about St. Louis and the medical school, the eventual epicenter of his life's work.

"My career never would have been what it has had it not been for this institution," he said. "Washington University gave me a sense of excellence and possibility."

Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis recognized a beloved faculty member, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a driving force in continuing education, a devoted advocate, and entrepreneurs in energy and public relations during its 16th Annual Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony, held April 24 at the Hilton Frontenac Hotel.

The school presented four Distinguished Alumni Awards, one Early Career Achievement Award and one Dean’s Medal.

The 2014 Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award recipients are:

Joe Daniels (AB ’94)
(Early Career Achievement Award)
Daniels is president and CEO of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center Foundation.

Carol Epstein (BS ’08, MA ’08)
Epstein is a well-known community volunteer, lifelong learner and activist for animal welfare and humane education.

Gayle Jackson (MA ’69, PhD ’72)
With more than 38 years in the international energy industry, Jackson has become an expert on global fossil-fuels markets and government relations strategies for energy companies.

Hank Klibanoff (AB ’71)
Klibanoff is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.”

Ken Makovsky (AB ’62, JD ’65)
Makovsky founded a top public relations firm and won the Stanley M. Isaacs Human Relations Award for distinguished leadership in forging ties between the Jewish people and other peoples of the world.

Professor Murray Weidenbaum
(Dean's Medalist)

Weidenbaum, PhD, the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences and honorary chairman of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy, was honored posthumously. He died March 20 in St. Louis.

A highly influential economist and policy adviser, Weidenbaum, 87, has a legacy in the academic and governmental realms that began in the early 1960s. He served as the first chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers.

For biographies and videos on each of the awardees, visit here.

Sid Hastings/WUSTL Photos

David Fike, PhD (left), WUSTL associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, explains the new secondary-ion mass spectrometer (SIMS) to Jerrold Grossman and Matthew Grossman during a gathering April 25 to dedicate the Grossman Family SIMS Laboratory. The build-out of the laboratory was funded by a gift from Jerrold and Marsha Grossman and their son and WUSTL alumnus Matthew Grossman and his wife, Katalin French. 

Washington University in St. Louis recently hosted a gathering to dedicate the laboratory space for a fabulous new analytical instrument, naming it for the family whose gift funded the build-out. The Grossman Family SIMS Laboratory houses the Cameca SIMS ims7f-geo, a state-of-the-art secondary-ion mass spectrometer tailored for the analysis of geological samples.

In a sense, the SIMS is just a microscope, not unlike the ones in high school biology labs, but it is a microscope so powerful it lets scientists “see” the chemical composition of samples no bigger than a red blood cell.

Inside the instrument, a beam of charged atoms (called primary ions) knocks atoms out of the sample under study. Some of these atoms are ionized in the process, and these secondary ions are sent through a mass spectrometer that allows their chemical identity and original location to be identified.

One of the 7f-geo's strengths is the ability to distinguish among isotopes, variants of the same chemical element that vary ever so slightly in mass. Many biological and geological processes "prefer" certain isotopes, and thus leave behind vital clues to events that otherwise would be lost to time.

What does every researcher need? Uninterrupted time to research and write is at the top of the list. Now, thanks to a generous and prestigious fellowship, two Washington University in St. Louis professors will have abundant time to devote to their research.

Jean Allman, PhD, and Tabea Linhard, PhD, both in Arts & Sciences, each have been named 2014 American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) fellows. The fellowship provides salary replacement for scholars who are embarking on six to 12 months of full-time research and writing.

ACLS, a private nonprofit federation of 71 national scholarly organizations, is the pre-eminent representative of American scholarship in the humanities and related social sciences. This year, 65 fellowships were awarded to faculty of all ranks and independent scholars. ACLS received more than 1,000 applications for the fellowship this cycle.

Allman

Allman— chair of the Department of History, J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities and director of the Center for the Humanities — will complete work on her book project, "An Intimate History of the African Revolution: Kwame Nkrumah and the Women in Question."

Allman will spend part of her leave in Ghana, but most of the time she will be writing in St. Louis. Her fellowship will run from January to August 2015.

Allman will produce a monograph on the role of the intimate and the affective in the consolidation, the disruption and ultimately the historical reconstruction of state power in post-colonial Africa.

Based on private papers and correspondence, newspapers and government documents, Allman’s project focuses on Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of Ghana’s independence struggle and its first prime minister and president. Nkrumah was a major theorist of pan-Africanism and arguably the most important leader of what was known in the 1960s as the “African Revolution.” 

During his rule, Nkrumah attracted around him a small cohort of expatriate women. They served in various official capacities but also became his intimate confidantes and remained so, even after the coup that ended his rule. This trusted cohort shaped in profound ways how Nkrumah is remembered today and what evidence historians have at hand to reconstruct not only the conflicted history of Ghana’s first republic, but also the story of the ill-fated African Revolution.

Linhard

Jerry Naunheim Jr./WUSTL Photos (6)

Patricia Olynyk, director of the Graduate School of Art (in red), leads the new Art | Sci Fellows Program at Washington University in St. Louis. At left is Victoria Vesna, director of University of California, Los Angeles’ Art|Sci Center + Lab. To the right are Elizabeth Schechter, PhD, assistant professor of philosophy and philosophy-neuroscience-psychology in Arts & Sciences; and Ron Leax, the Halsey C. Ives Professor of Art.

One of the first U.S. artists to hold an academic appointment in a scientific unit, at the University of Michigan, Olynyk has collaborated with particle physicists and biologists; investigated the histories of anatomical models and medical devices; and deployed scanning electron micrographs to create an installation for the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.

This spring, Olynyk, who directs the Graduate School of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, has launched the university's new Art|Sci Initiative and Fellows Program. Funded primarily by a grant from the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, the fellows program includes 14 faculty representing a wide variety of disciplines — from medicine and neuroscience to biology, psychology, sculpture, architecture, theater and philosophy — as well as three MFA graduate students.

We sat down with Olynyk, the Florence and Frank Busk Professor of Art, to discuss collaboration, common interests and the keys to making it work.

Elizabeth Schechter, an assistant professor of philosophy, listens as Ron Leax, a professor of art, speaks.

Conversations about art and science often focus on differences, but your work emphasizes commonalities. Talk about the role of inquiry.

One of the most interesting debates I ever heard was between two particle physicists. The first argued that, in conducting an experiment, one needs to remain open to any outcome. The second argued that unless one is prepared, the discovery might happen without the scientist recognizing it. So we think of science as very specific and empirical, but there really isn’t a single methodology. 

Artists don't typically start with a hypothesis, or structure their practice to prove that hypothesis. But I think that artistic practice can itself be a form of research and knowledge production. In art, the outcomes may be more open-ended, but they’re driven by a similar process of inquiry and desire for discovery.

Victoria Vensa, the subject of more than 20 solo exhibitions, frequently explores how communication technologies affect collective behavior and how perceptions of identity shift in relation to scientific innovation.

The Art|Sci Initiative is structured around research presentations by the faculty fellows and visiting speakers. What sorts of common themes or interests have you observed?

Perception, the function of the human brain and the phenomenology of sensing are topics in multiple disciplines – in art, in cognitive science and the medical humanities. The visual conception of the human body is another point of connection. Anatomists like Andreas Vesalius, Clemente Susini and Anna Morandi Manzolini have made incredible drawings and models that are fashioned to look like living, breathing human beings. They’re not just medical dummies. Their very gestures and modes of representation remind us that science and medicine are culturally constructed and that neither is value-neutral.

But whether something is art or science is perhaps the least interesting question. The more interesting questions have to do with how these images live in the world. How are they distributed, how are they shaped by context? What kind of inquiries are prompted by seeing that image in a humanities versus a laboratory setting? What is the role of aesthetics in science and medicine, and at what point does a scientific image become an aesthetic image?

Mark Rollins, PhD, professor of philosophy and chair of the Performing Arts Department, both in Arts & Sciences, listens.

The tone of the meetings seems very friendly and collegial. As the convener of the conversation, what’s the key to making it work?

Artists, scientists, humanists — we’re all engaging the world of ideas. So it's really no surprise that when you bring all three together, you get a very robust, engaged conversation. But it can’t be forced. The primary goal of the Art|Sci Initiative is simply to create a platform for cross-disciplinary conversations — to give people the opportunity to share their research and creative work, and to allow for serendipitous exchanges to occur.

It’s not about starting a business or dictating a project. The key is to adopt a kind of "risk capital" thinking, to develop stakeholders, to invest in the conversation whatever the outcome.

We’re a research institution. Ideas are the coin of the realm.

Kathryn Miller, PhD, professor and chair of biology in Arts & Sciences, participates in a session.

We’re still early in the process, so we haven’t hit any pitfalls yet! [Laughs.] But in general, one wants to avoid producing things that don't advance inquiry in either direction. In the past, artists have sometimes felt used by scientists as simply illustrators, and certainly some scientists have felt their ideas were misrepresented in an artist’s work. 

Neither scenario helps to advance reasoned debate on some of the more controversial advances in science and medicine. The point here is to create a kind of third territory.

In both art and science, it seems like half the battle is figuring out which questions to ask. The problem with a top-down approach — with mandating specific collaborations or timeframes — is that it shortchanges the process.

Absolutely. We're all coming to the table without presumption or agenda. The space is “agnostic” in the sense that it is open to everyone but owned by no one.

I think that's when the really interesting questions are formulated. That’s when knowledge and creative work are able to advance in original ways.

Pannill Camp, PhD, assistant professor of drama, discusses the importance of optical models of space to French reformers of theater space in the latter half of the 18th century.

The International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) has announced the award winners from its 2014 call for proposals. 

I-CARES supports a network of researchers who focus on renewable energy, the environment and sustainability, extending beyond Washington University in St. Louis’ seven schools, nationally and internationally. 

With the addition of the 2014 research awardees, I-CARES now supports 117 individual researchers across 84 projects.

As part of its mission, I-CARES is awarding seed funding to university faculty undertaking innovative and collaborative research in the broad areas of renewable energy, climate change and sustainability through an annual call for proposals. 

This year, I-CARES awarded funds to 13 projects involving 30 WUSTL faculty from six schools: Arts & Sciences, Olin Business School, the Brown School, the School of Engineering & Applied Science, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and the School of Medicine.

To see the full list of winning projects and faculty members involved, visit here.

"To win in these extremely selective honors is a testament to the capacity of excellence in our students as well as to the devotion and commitment of our faculty who mentor them,” said Joy Kiefer, PhD, associate dean in Arts & Sciences and director of undergraduate research. “These students will represent our institution very well on the national stage as they exemplify some of our finest student scholars."

Mahroh Jahangiri, a senior majoring in international and area studies/sustainable development, with a minor in political science, has been awarded a Carnegie Junior Fellowship. She will spend her fellowship at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington as part of the Democracy and Rule of Law Program, which examines the global state of democracy and the rule of law and international efforts to support their advance. The fellowship begins Aug. 1.

This highly competitive award offers approximately 10 to 12 one-year fellowships to graduating seniors and individuals who have graduated during the past academic year. They are selected from a pool of nominees from close to 400 participating colleges.

Carnegie Junior Fellows work as research assistants to the endowment's senior associates. Fellows have the opportunity to conduct research for books, co-author journal articles and policy papers, participate in meetings with high-level officials, contribute to congressional testimony and organize briefings attended by scholars, journalists and government officials. Jahangiri’s work will touch on multiple areas but will focus on Egypt.

Jahangiri, a John B. Ervin Scholar, received a social change grant from WUSTL’s Gephardt Institute for Public Service in 2012 and spent that summer in Cairo establishing a program at the Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt to help child cancer patients continue their education while hospitalized. She co-founded the student group WUSTL Foreign Policy Engagement. Jahangiri has conducted research on gender violence in Tahrir Square in Cairo, and she has worked at the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. She also was a finalist in 2013 for a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.

Read more about the Carnegie Junior Fellowship.

Lauren Henley, a junior majoring in history and African and African-American studies, won the Beinecke Scholarship, which will support her graduate education in history after she graduates in 2015.

Henley intends to broadly study the institutionalization of young African-American women, particularly as it relates to criminalization in the first half of the 20th century.

The Beinecke Scholarship program encourages highly motivated students to pursue a graduate course of study in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Each scholar receives $4,000 immediately prior to entering graduate school and an additional $30,000 while attending graduate school.

Each year, approximately 125 colleges and universities are invited to nominate a student for a Beinecke Scholarship, and 20 new scholarships were awarded in 2014.

Henley, a John B. Ervin Scholar and Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, is co-editor-in-chief of Gateway Journal, a publication of the Phi Alpha Theta National History Honor Society. She also was a Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program Fellow and a Ralph Bunche Award winner. In 2013, Henley took second place with “Asthmatic and Alone: How Books Became My World” in the Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition sponsored by Washington University Libraries.

Read more about the Beinecke Scholarship program here.

Seiko Shastri, a junior double-majoring in international and area studies/development and Spanish, has won the Newman Civic Fellows Award, which honors college student leaders who have demonstrated their commitment to finding solutions to social problems. Candidates are recommended by college and university presidents.

Shastri was selected as a Newman Civic Fellow for her commitment to issues of diversity, inclusion and social justice at Washington University and beyond. She is director of the campus Social Justice Center, and she contributed to the development of a center for diversity and inclusion at WUSTL as a Mosaic Project task force co-chair last fall. Shastri is a Gephardt Institute for Public Service Civic Scholar, and she will be spending this summer in Bolivia learning Quechua and working with community members to address the social impact of migration in the city of Cochabamba.

Shastri spent the summer of 2013 working with Youth Leadership St. Louis, a program run by the nonprofit FOCUS St. Louis, where she developed a participatory research action project for 160 students from 30 schools across the St. Louis region. Shastri is dedicated to pursuing a career as an activist academic, and she hopes to produce research on the connections between identity, community and intercultural communication to inform the creation of more inclusive communities.

The Newman Civic Fellows Award is awarded by Campus Compact, a national coalition of more than 1,100 college and university presidents — representing some 6 million students — who are committed to fulfilling the civic purposes of higher education to improve community life and to educate students for civic and social responsibility.

The award is named after Frank Newman, PhD, a founder of Campus Compact who had an impact on American education and its role in the development of citizens who are eager and prepared to make a difference. He dedicated his life to creating systemic change through education reform.

Read more about the Newman Civic Fellows Award here.

Brooke Husic, a 2013 WUSTL graduate who majored in chemistry and mathematics and minored in Germanic languages and literatures, has been awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship, a highly competitive scholarship awarded to outstanding applicants from countries outside the United Kingdom to pursue a full-time postgraduate degree in any subject available at the University of Cambridge.

The selection criteria include outstanding intellectual ability, leadership potential, a commitment to improving the lives of others and a good fit between the applicant’s qualifications and the postgraduate program at Cambridge for which he or she is applying.

Husic plans to earn a master's of philosophy degree with the Wales Group at the University of Cambridge, where she will apply energy landscape theory to protein folding.

While an undergraduate at WUSTL, Husic participated in the Lock & Chain and Thurtene honor societies, helped organize Thurtene, studied abroad in Germany, served as a residential adviser and held several academic mentoring positions. She currently is conducting research on protein structure prediction in the computational chemistry laboratory of Jay Ponder, PhD, associate professor at WUSTL.

Washington University has had one previous Gates Cambridge Scholar.

Read more about the Gates Cambridge Scholarship.

Courtesy photo

Spector Prize winner Deborah Huang works in the lab.

Each year, the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis awards a prize to a graduating senior in memory of Marion Smith Spector, a 1938 WUSTL graduate who studied zoology under the late Viktor Hamburger, PhD.

Hamburger was a professor of biology and a prominent developmental biologist who made many important contributions while a WUSTL faculty member.

This year, the prize has been awarded to Deborah Huang, who plans to graduate this month with a major in biochemistry and molecular biology and a minor in public health.

Huang worked in the lab of Christina Stallings, PhD, assistant professor of molecular microbiology in the School of Medicine.

The Stallings Laboratory focuses on the adaptation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the microbe that causes tuberculosis, to host-inflicted stresses and persistent infection. At least 30 percent of the world’s population is infected with latent M. tuberculosis, which in some individuals reactivates and causes disease. Globally, 1.8 million people die of tuberculosis each year. This health crisis is exacerbated by the alarming emergence of multi-drug and extensively drug-resistant strains.

Huang studied a protein involved in the stress response of  M. smegmatis, a mycobacterium that closely resembles M. tuberculosis but is not pathogenic. Huang showed that this protein is expressed in greater abundance whenever the bacterium’s DNA is damaged, either by oxidative stress or by antibiotics, and is essential to the bacterium’s survival.

In her letter of nomination, Stallings wrote that Huang “successfully learned a range of scientific approaches in her work, showing an impressive level of versatility in the laboratory. Thus, although she is still early in her scientific career, she already has an exceptional level of laboratory experience and a mature sense of research science.”

Stallings also praised Huang’s participation in the intellectual life of the lab, remarking that she asked insightful questions about her own project but also about the projects of other lab members, and she ended every day by asking others if there was anything she could do to help them before she left.

Huang said her four years in the Stallings lab gave her a chance to weave together all of the science she had learned in lectures and to connect the detailed world of molecular biology with the bigger picture of public health. “As a freshman,” she said, “I had no idea where I would be as a senior; these four years have been transformative.”

Huang will be attending medical school next year, most likely at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She plans to pursue an MD/MPH with a focus in infectious disease. Clinical and public health research will be a large part of the career that she envisions.

As part of the Biology Department’s recognition of her outstanding work, Huang will be recognized at the Biology Honors and Research Emphasis Reception, which will be held at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, in McDonnell Hall, Room 162.

For most rising college seniors, the last weeks of junior year are spent worrying about summer internships and facing the reality of post-college plans.

For Jolijt Tamanaha, her last weeks of junior year at Washington University in St. Louis were spent making a deal to sell a startup she co-founded called Farmplicity — an online marketplace that matches restaurants with local farmers — founded in a course through Olin Business School called The Hatchery.

And it’s that course — and the mentoring received at the university — that Tamanaha, a political science major in Arts & Sciences, credits for allowing her to grow and sell a successful startup while still in school.

“The Hatchery is great because it is structured in a way that provides you with enough guidance that you don’t feel like you’re completely on your own," Tamanaha said, "but enough freedom that you truly learn through experience. 

“The course taught us how to organize our thoughts and how to pitch the business,” she said. “The multiple presentations that we made about Farmplicity were excellent practice for the many times we pitched Farmplicity to judges, potential investors and customers.”

Farmplicity, started in 2013 by Tamanaha with Drew Koch and Andrew Lin, both recent alumni of Olin, currently matches 130 local farmers to more than 100 restaurants. The venture helps smooth the process of ordering locally-grown produce, fruits, meats and other food products.

Sunfarm Food Service, a leader in providing fine produce and dairy products to top restaurants, caterers, hotels and other food services, acquired the startup in early May.

“Our students at Washington University never cease to amaze me,” said Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship, director of Olin’s entrepreneurship platform and a Hatchery professor. “Farmplicity went from Hatchery class, to founding, to growth, to exit — all before the co-founder's senior year. It’s a very impressive accomplishment.

“I am pleased to see our students make a lasting contribution to the farm-to-table supply chain in St. Louis,” Holekamp said. “With the acquisition by Sunfarm, Farmplicity will have the infrastructure and sustainability to impact the community for years to come.”

The Hatchery, open to both WUSTL undergraduates and graduate students, is one of the university’s capstone entrepreneurship courses. It was one of the first business courses in the country to use multidisciplinary team collaboration, mentoring and coaching to support students as they launch enterprises while in college.

Enrolled students can work on their own social or commercial venture ideas or partner with community entrepreneurs already in development.

Starting Farmplicity “has been an amazing journey that shaped my whole experience at the university,” Tamanaha said. “Without Farmplicity, I wouldn't have registered for many of the classes I've taken or met most of the professors who have helped me.

"School work is a very different experience when you can sit in class and think ‘How would I apply this to my business?’ Through Farmplicity, I interacted with so many local professionals, which taught me to love St. Louis and all of the opportunities in this city.

“Farmplicity has the potential to modernize local food distribution so that small farmers can successfully compete with larger growers, and Sunfarm is the perfect company to turn that potential into results,” Tamanaha said.

“Sunfarm’s proven expertise in delivering food also will create a more efficient and more synchronized Farmplicity for both farmers and chefs," she said. "And most importantly, Sunfarm shares our values and belief in the importance of building a strong local food movement.”

Now that the acquisition is over, Tamanaha will focus on enjoying her senior year. But the entrepreneurship bug hasn’t left her just yet.

“I have an idea for a new marketing startup that I'm going to work on,” she said.

The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies hosts two annual business plan competitions that together award nearly $250,000: the Olin Cup for commercial ventures and the YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition for social ventures.

The School of Engineering & Applied Science hosts its Discovery Competition with the goal of promoting new and innovative solutions for real-world problems and allowing students to compete for financial resources that could help turn their ideas into businesses. The winning team is awarded $25,000. Students and alumni regularly participate in the Arch Grants competition in St. Louis.

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis selected eight sophomores for its fourth cohort of the Civic Scholars Program. With its mission “to cultivate the next generation of civic leaders,” the program seeks students with exemplary scholarship, leadership and commitment to community engagement.

Civic Scholars enroll in two years of academic coursework related to civic leadership and receive mentorship to prepare them for a life dedicated to public service. Additionally, scholars receive a $5,000 grant to complete a civic project in the summer before their senior years. Donors to the Gephardt Institute provide part of those funds.

Class of 2016 cohort of Civic Scholars:

• Shyam Akula, of Arcadia, Calif., is majoring in biology with a neuroscience focus, in Arts & Sciences. He is interested in using analytical data and the arts to strive for educational equality.

• Kierstan Carter, of Woodbridge, N.J., is majoring in American culture studies, in Arts & Sciences. She hopes to bridge academia and community action through a focused civic engagement high school summer program.

• Cameron Kinker, of Rye, N.Y., is majoring in anthropology, in Arts & Sciences. He hopes to alleviate issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth facing homelessness.

• Jagdeesh Kottapalli, of Milpitas, Calif., is majoring in biology. He intends to work with street vendors in Hyderabad, India, to create cost-saving business models.

• Brianna McCain, of St. Louis, is double-majoring in biology and in women, gender and sexuality studies, also in Arts & Sciences. She plans to address minority underrepresentation in advanced high school classes while also addressing sexual assault.

• Nick Okafor, of Dallas, is double-majoring in mechanical engineering, in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, and in sustainable development, in Arts & Sciences. He hopes to apply his academic interests to support infrastructure development in favelas, or shantytowns, in Brazil.

• Carrick Reddin, of Trabuco Canyon, Calif., is double-majoring in architecture, in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, and in international and area studies, in Arts & Sciences. He hopes to engage youth in the worldwide development agenda through urban design.

• Rachel Sumption, of Redding, Calif., is majoring in the interdisciplinary project in the humanities, in Arts & Sciences. She hopes to find a way to address the perceived gulf in understanding between people from Muslim and Western backgrounds.

Having completed their first year of coursework, the Class of 2015 Civic Scholars are about to embark on their summer projects in cities ranging from St. Louis to Cochabamba, Bolivia. Their projects have been refined through a year of preparation, during which the scholars partnered with community organizations and wrote detailed proposals. They will begin their projects as soon as this semester concludes.

Students interested in the Civic Scholars Program can apply during the spring of their sophomore year. For more information, contact Jenni Harpring, program manager, at 314-935-8182 or jharpring@wustl.edu.

More than a dozen distinguished individuals will speak at Commencement-related events this week for Washington University in St. Louis graduates and their friends and families.

The weeklong celebration culminates at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 16, with WUSTL's 153rd Commencement ceremony in Brookings Quadrangle, where about 2,800 members of the Class of 2014 will receive their degrees.

Tony La Russa, who is being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in July and is considered one of the best managers in baseball history, will deliver the Commencement address.

Jeroo Billimoria, managing director of Child and Youth Finance International, for the Brown School, at 3 p.m. Friday, May 16, at the 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave. in University City.

Bunny Burson (MFA ’05), for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ College of Art/Graduate School of Art, at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 15, in Graham Chapel.

William W. Clark, PhD, professor of otolaryngology and director of the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences, for the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences, at 1 p.m. Friday, May 16, in the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center, Connor Auditorium.

Glen Gillen, EdD, associate professor of clinical occupational therapy at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, for the Program in Occupational Therapy, at 1 p.m. Friday, May 16, in Graham Chapel. The faculty speaker is Kerri Morgan, instructor of occupational therapy and neurology. Student speakers are Sarah Hendred, candidate for a master’s in occupational therapy, and Kari Burch, candidate for a doctorate in occupational therapy.

Rodney Henmi, director of design at HKIT Architects, for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ College of Architecture/Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design ceremony, immediately following the main Commencement ceremony, in the Brookings Drive Mall. The faculty speaker is Peter MacKeith, professor. The graduate student speaker is David M. Adkin, a master’s candidate in architecture and urban design; the undergraduate student speaker is Amanda Garcia, a bachelor’s candidate in architecture.

Daniel L. Keating, JD, dean and the Tyrrell Williams Professor of Law for the School of Law recognition ceremony, immediately following the main Commencement ceremony, at Mudd Field. The student speakers are Andrew J. Liebler and Stanley A. Thompson Jr., both candidates for juris doctorates.

David A. Lawton, professor of English in the Department of English in Arts & Sciences, for the University College Recognition Ceremony, at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, in Simon Hall Auditorium. The student speaker is Mack Alan Bradley, master’s candidate in international affairs in University College.

Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, a senior fellow and director of the Health Care Innovation and Value Initiative at the Brookings Institution, for the School of Medicine, at 3 p.m. Friday, May 16, in the Ferrara Theater of America’s Center, 701 Convention Plaza. The student speaker is Philip Laurence Perez, class president, candidate for a doctor of medicine.

James V. O’Donnell (BSBA, MBA ’74), president and CEO of financial services holding company Bush O’Donnell & Co., for Olin Business School’s Graduate Ceremony, at 3 p.m. Friday, May 16, in the Athletic Complex Field House.

Mark C. Pydynowski (BSBA ’04), who leads business development and product at Capital One Labs, for Olin Business School’s Undergraduate Ceremony, at 11:30 a.m. Friday, May 16, in the Athletic Complex Field House.

Ralph S. Quatrano, PhD, dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science and the Spencer T. Olin Professor, for the School of Engineering Undergraduate and Graduate Recognition Ceremonies; the undergraduate ceremony is at 1:30 p.m. Thursday, May 15, in the Athletic Complex Field House; the graduate ceremony is at 1:30 p.m. Friday, May 16, in Edison Theatre. Student speakers for the undergraduate ceremony are Caleb Ford, a bachelor’s candidate in biomedical engineering; Kevin Kieselbach, a bachelor’s and master’s candidate in computer science and economics, respectively; and Kranti Peddada, a bachelor’s candidate in biomedical engineering.

Larry Shapiro, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine; Victoria J. Fraser, MD, the Adolphus Busch Professor and head of the Department of Medicine; and Graham Colditz, MD, DrPh, deputy director of the Institute for Public Health, the Niess-Gain Professor of Surgery and Professor of Medicine, and associate director of Siteman Cancer Center, for the programs in Clinical Investigation, Applied Health Behavior Research and Population Health Sciences, at 4 p.m. Thursday, May 15, in the King Center in the Bernard Becker Medical Library.

Jennifer R. Smith, PhD, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, for the College of Arts & Sciences Recognition Ceremony, at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, May 15, in Brookings Quadrangle. The student speaker is Michele D. Hall, bachelor’s candidate in political science and in African and African-American studies, in Arts & Sciences.

Ellen Spake, PhD, professor of physical therapy at Rockhurst University and assistant to the president in the Office of Mission and Ministry at Rockhurst, for the Program in Physical Therapy at 1:30 p.m. Friday, May 16, in the Khorassan Ballroom, The Chase Park Plaza, 212 N. Kingshighway. The faculty speaker is Susan S. Deusinger, PhD, executive director of the Program in Physical Therapy and a professor of physical therapy and of neurology. The student speaker is Matthew Leonard, candidate for a doctorate in physical therapy.

Diana Chapman Walsh, PhD, president emerita of Wellesley College, for the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Hooding and Recognition Ceremony, at 11:30 a.m. Friday, May 16, in the E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall, 560 Music Center, 560 Trinity Ave. in University City.

One of the products of this interdisciplinary collaboration is a new book, “Working and Living in the Shadow of Economic Fragility,” edited by Marion Crain, JD, vice provost and the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law, and Michael Sherraden, PhD, the George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor at the Brown School. Another result: an upcoming discussion for policymakers hosted by the New America Foundation in Washington on Wednesday, May 28.

“The shared premise is that economic fragility is linked to a set of economic and labor policy choices that structure workers’ lives,” Crain said.

In the book, published by Oxford University Press, prominent scholars of economic and social policy examine the current state of employment through historical, macroeconomic, cultural, sociological and policy lenses to address fundamental questions about the role and value of work in America today. The book offers suggestions for addressing the short- and long-term challenges of rebuilding a society of opportunity with meaningful and sustaining jobs as the foundation of the American middle class.

Extending the conversation

Using “Working and Living in the Shadow of Economic Fragility” as background, the New America Foundation’s Asset Building Program and Economic Growth Program will host a conversation to discuss economic inequality, insecurity and fragility in America from 12:15-2 p.m. EDT on May 28 in Washington.

In addition to Crain and Sherraden, panelists include: Reid Cramer, director of New America's Asset Building Program; Michael Lind, policy director of New America's Economic Growth Program; and Heather Boushey, executive director and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

“This book on fragility in employment is an excellent first step in this inquiry,” Sherraden said. “Working with Marion Crain and other scholars across the WUSTL campus has been a great pleasure and very productive.”

The May 28 event at New America Foundation, geared toward policymakers and leaders in academia, nonprofit and business, will be available online. Join the conversation on social media using #EconFragility and following @AssetsNAF and @EconomicGrowth.

The Livable Lives Initiative is committed to undertaking research and testing innovations designed to document conditions that inhibit or foster the achievement of livable lives, forming and testing innovations, designing policies and practices that may promote more livable lives, and studying the impacts of these policies and practices. The initiative, working in the context of rising inequality and fragile labor markets, will next examine housing in the U.S.

For more information, contact Crain at mgcrain@wustl.edu.

Sunday, May 18, kicks off National Prevention Week, which aims to increasing public awareness of substance abuse and mental health issues.

Project ARK, with support from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's new media project, will mark the week with a screening of the documentary “You Are Not Alone” at 6:30 p.m. Sunday, May 18, at the Missouri History Museum, 5700 Lindell Blvd., in Forest Park. Doors open at 6 p.m. The event is free, and no reservations are required.

The film will be followed by a panel discussion with Antoine Craigwell, a writer and activist who created and co-produced the film, and Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr., PhD, a Washington University in St. Louis associate professor in women, gender and sexuality studies and in performing arts, both in Arts & Sciences.

"You Are Not Alone" is a documentary about black gay men breaking their silence on depression, with personal stories, interviews with mental health professionals and community leaders, and re-enactments.

Project ARK (AIDS/HIV Resources and Knowledge) is the St. Louis area’s only organization that coordinates medical care, social support and prevention services for children, youth, young adults, women and families living with or at risk for HIV infection. It is a collaboration of Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and other area health-care providers, including the Saint Louis University School of Medicine.

Scott Solomon

A forest of the fruiting bodies of the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. An amoeba that must succeed at both single-celled and multicellular living to pass on its genes, "Dicty" allows scientists to ask questions about cooperation and cheating in multicellular organisms.

Biology researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are placing their bets on the wild side as they prepare a pack of social amoeba for competition Friday, May 16, in the first-ever Dicty World Race, an international science competition that carries a $5,000 prize for the single-celled organism deemed to be the “smartest and fastest” in negotiating a microscopic maze.

“We trust in nature’s ability to create the ultimate competitor,” writes the WUSTL team in a strategy statement posted on the competition's website. “Whether they are traversing the depths of soil to hunt the perfect morsel, or tracking a chemical signal through a synthetic maze, wild Dicty cells will crush the competition and prove that nature knows best.”

The WUSTL team is based in the lab of David Queller, PhD, and Joan Strassmann, PhD, both professors of biology in Arts & Sciences. Strassmann is the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology and Queller is the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Biology.

Other WUSTL team members include biology graduate student Tracy Douglas and three postdoctoral researchers in the Queller-Strassmann lab: Debra Brock, Susanne DiSalvo and Suegene Noh.

The competition is the brainchild of Daniel Irimia, MD, PhD, a biological engineer and molecular machinist at Harvard Medical School. Irimia is building the microscopic maze through which the single-celled organisms must race to claim the top prize and “bragging rights” for labs submitting entries.

Expected to take one or two hours to complete, the competition will be held in Boston beginning at 3 p.m. EDT Friday, May 16. The entire race will be live-streamed and blogged via the SciCast website and webcast in a frequently updated time-lapse video.

The thoroughbreds in this steeplechase are known scientifically as Dictyostelium, or “Dicty” for short. They’ve been used for years as a model organism for a variety of lab experiments, many focusing on studies of cell mobility. Strassmann’s lab has isolated numerous strains of wild Dicty that are genetically diverse and different from the domesticated clones commonly used in labs around the world.

Queller

In early betting, WUSTL’s wild Dicty are odds-on favorites to win the competition, which is expected to include at least 20 teams.

Many of the teams have outlined their race strategies  on a website dedicated to the experiment.

The race is designed to attract public attention to research on single-cell organisms and related issues of cell mobility in the human body, including important applications for the understanding of cell migration in wound healing, cancer and other diseases.

The race will pit various strains of Dicty and HL60 cells, both of which are models for studying human neutrophils, the white blood cells protecting us from infection. Neutrophils are often perturbed during disease and there are currently no known drugs capable of correcting their migrations.

According the competition website, the race will require cells to navigate a complex microfluidic maze to reach a pool of chemoattractant at the finish line. Engineered cell lines will be shipped from labs around the world and will attempt to complete the race course in the shortest amount of time and with the fewest mistakes (wrong turns). Diffusion of the chemoattractant will create a spatial gradient to guide cells along the shortest path to the finish line. The challenge is to engineer Dicty or HL60 cells to be both smart and fast.

strassmann

While Dicty cells shine in precision, they lack speed, and while HL60 are good sprinters, they lack precision. Race organizers have invited laboratories around the world to send their fastest and smartest Dicty and HL60 cells. Cells will compete against each other and against human neutrophils. The maze used in the race is manufactured in the lab at the BioMEMS Resource Center and recorded using stereomicroscope cameras.

“What we're trying to do here is to have the people from the biology side and the people from the engineering side (together) so we can bring more tools to the race,” race organizer Irimia said. “This is a way of promoting science to the general public by saying that in science, we only know this much, and we need to learn more to make an impact on health. With the whole situation with science funding today, it's an important message to get out.”

Representing social entrepreneurship, technology, business, education, biomedical science and design, eight Washington University in St. Louis-affiliated teams are among the 20 startups receiving 2014 Arch Grants of $50,000 each to start their businesses.

The WUSTL teams represent a wide variety of disciplines throughout the university, creating innovations ranging from medical devices and education outreach to data analysis and clothing design.

Fostering Inspiration: Artifox desks

Co-founded by Sarah Carpenter, a 2010 Sam Fox School alumna, Artifox "is a free-formed design team dedicated to reinventing the way we use everyday items."

More information at the Artifox website

Giving back: Made For Freedom

First-year MBA student Richard Ockers is on the management team for the social entrepreneurship company.

More information at the Made For Freedom website

Learning and creation in a box: BetaVersity

BetaVersity creates collaborative prototyping spaces out of shipping containers, where students learn by doing. It was co-founded by Blake Marggraff, a junior majoring in biology in Arts & Sciences.

More information at the Betaversity website

Analyze this: Prattle Analytics

More information is available at the Fed Playbook website

Easier relationships: Less Annoying CRM

Less Annoying CRM makes a simple customer relationship manager (CRM) for small businesses. The company was co-founded by Tyler King, who graduated from WUSTL in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, from the School of Engineering & Applied Science, and Bracken King, who earned bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering and computer science in 2004.

More information at the Less Annoying CRM website

Informed medical decisions: Nanopore Diagnostics

Olin Cup winner Nanopore Diagnostics enables physicians to make informed antibiotic decisions during their initial examination of a patient. Postdoctoral research scholar Tom Cohen, PhD, at the School of Medicine, and PhD/MBA student Benjamin Borgo founded the company.

More information at the Nanopore Diagnostics website

Easier shipping: Freight Grid

FreightGrid is a web application that manages the entire “less than truckload” shipping process, saving time and money for its customers. Partner Kris Klinkerman earned an MBA from WUSTL May 16.

More information at the FreightGrid website

A unique way to celebrate: Greetabl

Greetabl is a greeting card that quickly folds into a gift box with a personal message. The company was co-founded by Zoë Scharf, who earned bachelor’s of fine arts degree from the Sam Fox School in 2011.

More information at the Greetabl website

The WUSTL teams represent a wide variety of disciplines throughout the university, creating innovations ranging from medical devices and education outreach to data analysis and clothing design.

That the WUSTL-connected contingent comprises 40 percent of this year's Arch Grants winners is no surprise to H. Holden Thorp, PhD, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs.

"These teams represent the entrepreneurial spirit that is sweeping the country and thriving at Washington University,” Thorp said. “Creating an environment that produces these kinds of teams and ideas is among our highest priorities, and it’s great to see this high level of success for the university and for St. Louis.”

Arch Grants, first awarded in 2012, seeks to create a more robust startup culture and infrastructure in St. Louis. To increase employment growth and establish the region as a place where entrepreneurs can incubate businesses, Arch Grants offers startups funding in the form of grants and requires that winning teams remain in or transition to downtown St. Louis. 

Go up close with the WUSTL-affiliated Arch Grants winners.

Each of this year’s 20 winning teams will receive $50,000 in non-dilutive capital to start their business.

Many of the WUSTL-connected recipients credit the university’s entrepreneurial teaching and guidance as key to their accomplishment.

“Arch Grants received hundreds of applications from around the world, and the success of our students in this very competitive pool is extraordinary,” said Cliff Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School, director of the school’s entrepreneurship platform and faculty for the Hatchery, one of the university’s capstone entrepreneurship courses.

“Washington University’s students don’t just study entrepreneurship, they actually do it,” Holekamp said. “And the companies they are founding are changing the world around them. Our students are a significant factor in St. Louis’ emergence as a hub for entrepreneurship and innovation.”

Since 2012, Arch Grants has awarded money to 55 teams. Four WUSTL-connected teams won grants in 2012, and six did last year. Adding in this year's recipients, WUSTL-connected teams have been awarded more than one-third of the 55 total grants.

The 2014 WUSTL-connected winners are:

In biomedical science:

Nanopore Diagnostics, St. Louis

Nanopore Diagnostics enables physicians to make informed antibiotic decisions during their initial examination of a patient. Postdoctoral research scholar Tom Cohen, PhD, at the School of Medicine, and Benjamin Borgo, who earned a joint PhD/MBA degree May 16, founded the company. Nanopore Diagnostics won this year's Olin Cup, sponsored by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

In consumer product:

Artifox, St. Louis

Artifox is a product-design team devoted to merging quality craftsmanship with the constantly changing needs of the modern mobile professional. Sarah Carpenter, a 2010 alumna of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, co-founded the company.

Made for Freedom, St. Louis

Made for Freedom is on a social entrepreneurial mission to establish a global, online, retail/wholesale business while providing dignified employment for survivors of sex trafficking. Richard Ockers, a first-year MBA student in Olin Business School, is on the company's management team. Made for Freedom received the $25,000 Brentmoor Foundation award in this year's YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition.

Greetabl, Missouri

Greetabl is a greeting card that quickly folds into a gift box with a personal message. The company was co-founded by Zoë Scharf, who earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from the Sam Fox School in 2011.

In Education:

BetaVersity, St. Louis

BetaVersity creates collaborative prototyping facilities where students learn by doing. Blake Marggraff, a junior majoring in biology in Arts & Sciences, co-founded BetaVersity.

In Technology:

Prattle Analytics, Massachusetts

Prattle Analytics, formerly Fed Playbook, uses proprietary, patent-pending, text-analysis techniques to generate the first commercially available quantitative “Fed Watching” data. The company was co-founded by Evan Schnidman, who earned a bachelor’s degree in political science, in Arts & Sciences, in 2004, and a master’s in political economy and public policy, in 2008, from WUSTL.

FreightGrid, St. Louis

FreightGrid is a web application that manages the entire “less than truckload” shipping process, saving time and money for its customers. Partner Kris Klinkerman earned an MBA from WUSTL May 16.

Less Annoying CRM, California

Less Annoying CRM makes a simple customer relationship manager (CRM) for small businesses. The company was co-founded by Tyler King, who graduated from WUSTL in 2007 with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, from the School of Engineering & Applied Science, and Bracken King, who earned bachelor’s degrees in biomedical engineering and computer science in 2004.