How have the lives of young people of color been influenced by the police shootings that have sparked unrest in Ferguson and across the nation? How do race, gender, inequality and sexual orientation influence the roles of young people in social movements, such as Black Lives Matter? What are the prospects for improved law enforcement-community relations in St. Louis and beyond?

These are among the questions to be explored in the “Color of Policing Symposium (COPS): Youth, Education and Activism” to be held April 19-20 at several locations on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The event is free and open to the public.

The program will feature panel discussions and presentations from an array of St. Louis community leaders and urban issues scholars from Washington University, Saint Louis University and other universities, including Emory, Toronto and Virgina Tech.

Community participants include representatives of the St. Louis Police Department, St. Louis City Citizens Officer Review Board, the Ethical Society of Police Officers and the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis.

Part of the the Edward and Ilene Katz Lowenthal Symposium series, the program is sponsored by the Arts & Sciences departments of education and sociology and the university’s Office of the Vice Provost. The Lowenthal Symposium Series is dedicated to understanding and improving the lives and educational experiences of urban youth.

More information on program presentations, panelists and venues is available at the program website: https://sites.wustl.edu/fips/symposium/. For more information, contact Candace Hall in the Department of Sociology at 314-935-5790 or hallcn@wustl.edu.

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Washington University faculty and students will participate in the Saint Louis Climate Summit, hosted by Saint Louis University (SLU). The event brings together some of today’s most authoritative minds in climate science, ecology, sustainable development and related disciplines for three days of discussion on climate change.

Washington University students, faculty and staff can get two free tickets to the keynote address with science educator Bill Nye, of “Science Guy” fame and host of “Bill Nye Saves the World” on Netflix, and Carl Pope, former Sierra Club president, at 7 p.m. Monday, April 23, at SLU’s Chaifetz Arena. Washington University community members will need to show their IDs at the ticket booth.

On Sunday, April 22, students from Washington University and SLU will host an evening screening of Leonardo DiCaprio’s “Before the Flood.” Beth Martin, associate director of the Washington University Climate Change Program, will help lead a discussion on the film, and the students will share their experiences and insights from attending the 2017 United Nations Climate Conference in Bonn, Germany. The movie and discussion are free and start at 6:30 p.m. at SLU’s Center for Global Citizenship.

On Monday, April 23, Rodrigo Reis, a professor in the Brown School, will moderate the first technical session of the day, “Setting the Stage: Global warming observations, predictions, and policy.”

Michael Wysession, a professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, will moderate a panel, titled “Whole Earth Systems,” focusing on the effects of natural resources’ destruction as a result of climate change on the functioning of the world and our economic models.

Barbara A. Schaal, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biology, will moderate a panel, “Biodiversity and Ecology,” focused on the impact of climate change on the biosphere. The panel will feature Peter H. Raven, the George Engelmann Professor of Botany Emeritus at Washington University and president emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

To register or to view the full schedule, visit the climate summit website. For more information, contact Martin at martin@wustl.edu.

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Samuel I. Achilefu and Sarah C.R. Elgin will receive Washington University in St. Louis’ 2018 faculty achievement awards, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced.

Achilefu, the Michel M. Ter-Pogossian Professor of Radiology at the School of Medicine, will receive the Carl and Gerty Cori Faculty Achievement Award.

Elgin, the Viktor Hamburger Professor of Arts & Sciences, will receive the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award.

Wrighton also announced that William A. Frazier III, a professor emeritus of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, of cell biology and physiology, and of biomedical engineering, will receive the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The three will receive their awards and give presentations of their scholarly work during a ceremony Oct. 5 at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Clayton.

“Professors Achilefu, Elgin and Frazier represent the very best of Washington University and join the distinguished company of previous winners who have worked creatively and diligently to discover and disseminate new knowledge that brings great benefit to society,” Wrighton said.

“These faculty achievement awards not only celebrate the excellence of individuals but also help create cooperative relationships across disciplinary lines and between the Danforth Campus and our School of Medicine Campus. These three professors embody the ideals of individual and collaborative excellence, and I am extremely pleased to recognize their achievements with these awards.”

Achilefu

Achilefu joined the faculty at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at the School of Medicine in 2001. He serves as chief of the Optical Radiology Laboratory and director of the Washington University Molecular Imaging Center, and is also a professor of medicine, biochemistry and molecular biophysics, and of biomedical engineering. He has mentored and trained many trainees who have moved on to excel in diverse career paths.

Achilefu pioneered the development of molecular optical imaging and therapy of human diseases using novel devices, molecular probes and light-sensitive drugs.

He led a team that developed a wearable goggle-based imaging system for guiding surgical removal of tumors. And he co-discovered a treatment paradigm for cancer that incorporates a special type of light source and nanomaterials that can find and selectively trigger cancer cell death without harming healthy tissue. He also discovered a small molecule that can selectively identify most types of cancer.

Achilefu and Gregory Lanza, MD, PhD, the Oliver M. Langenberg Distinguished Professor of Science and Practice of Medicine, established the Center for Multiple Myeloma Nanotherapy with a $13.7 million grant from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Work is underway at the center on three projects, including one led by Achilefu to develop a treatment that uses a combination of light and a photosensitizing drug to kill cancer cells while minimizing negative effects on healthy tissue. The center is one of six elite Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence supported by the NCI.

Achilefu also is the first recipient of the Breast Cancer Research Program Distinguished Investigator Award, from the U.S. Department of Defense. The award comes with $4.5 million to support his work to use light to activate drugs and the immune system in the body. He was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors in 2018 and received the 2014 St. Louis Award and the 2017 St. Louis American Excellence in Health Care Award.

The scientist and inventor holds 57 U.S. patents, including for novel methods, drugs and technologies to visualize and treat human diseases. He also is the co-leader of the Oncologic Imaging Program and a research member of Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.

Achilefu earned his doctorate in molecular physical and materials chemistry at the University of Nancy, France, in 1991. He completed his postdoctoral training in 1993 at Oxford University, in England, where he trained in the chemistry of oxygen transport mechanisms and hematology. He joined the medical school faculty in 2001, after seven years in the Discovery Research Department at Mallinckrodt Medical Inc. in St. Louis.

Elgin

Elgin, who joined the faculty of Arts & Sciences in 1981, is a molecular biologist whose research focus is on the role of chromatin structure in gene regulation. She also is known for her passion for science outreach and expanding research opportunities for students.

Elgin is a professor of biology and of education, both in Arts & Sciences, and a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of genetics in the School of Medicine.

Chromatin is the complex of DNA and the proteins that package it up so that it will fit into the cell nucleus. Using the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) as a model organism, Elgin and her research team study the chromosomal proteins that promote packaging into euchromatin or heterochromatin, alternative forms associated with gene expression and gene silencing, respectively — both critical to the health and development of multicellular organisms.

Her team at Washington University is noted for identifying and characterizing Heterochromatin Protein 1 (HP1) — a key protein found in organisms ranging from the ancient yeast S. pombe to humans — which plays a central role in silencing the transposable elements found in eukaryotic genomes.

Elgin leads a large and active research group and has taught undergraduate and graduate students and K-12 teachers courses in molecular genetics, genomics, bioinformatics and epigenetics, among other topics. She served as director of Washington University’s Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Undergraduate Biological Science Education Program from 1992-2004.

Shortly after she started working at Washington University, Elgin began a Science Education Partnership with her children’s school district in University City. The outreach program that she started is now the Institute for School Partnership (ISP), directed by Victoria May, which reaches more than 2,500 teachers, 400 administrators and 100,000 students each year. The ISP is considered Washington University’s signature effort to strategically improve teaching and learning within the K-12 education community.

Elgin has also brought her teaching outreach passion to a national collegiate program she started called the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP). Sponsored by Washington University, HHMI and the National Science Foundation, GEP is a collaboration with a growing number of primarily undergraduate institutions (last numbering around 120 schools), the Washington University biology and computer science departments, and The McDonnell Genome Institute.

Elgin has previously been honored with the Missouri Governor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and science education awards from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Society for Cell Biology, and the Genetics Society of America, among other honors. She is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Prior to joining Washington University, Elgin served on the faculty at Harvard University. Elgin graduated from Pomona College with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1967 and earned her doctorate from California Institute of Technology in 1972. In 2017, she received an honorary doctorate from Pomona.

Frazier

An expert on the cardiovascular system, Frazier studies a protein implicated in cardiovascular disease, tumor biology and immunity. In 2006, he co-founded the biotech company Vasculox, recently rebranded as Arch Oncology, to develop humanized antibodies against this protein — known as CD47 — as a potential treatment for cancer and vascular diseases.

Immune cells help protect the body against cancer by identifying and consuming cancerous cells. But when they encounter CD47 on the surface of a cell, the immune cells interpret it as a “Don’t eat me!” signal. Frazier and colleagues are developing antibodies against CD47 to block this signal and help the immune system recognize and destroy tumor cells. Some of their antibodies also kill tumor cells directly, potentially making them even more effective.

In the cardiovascular system, CD47 opposes the activity of nitric oxide, a key player in the healthy functioning of the cardiovascular system. It expands blood vessels — increasing blood flow — decreases clotting and protects against injury caused by the loss and restoration of blood flow. By hampering nitric oxide activity, CD47 can make a bad situation worse. Anti-CD47 antibodies have the potential to improve oxygen delivery after organ transplantation, heart attacks, strokes and peripheral artery disease, possibly improving outcomes for patients.

In 2013, Frazier co-founded the biotech start-up YourBevCo, LLC, which develops consumer devices to remove ingredients known to cause allergic or sensitivity reactions from beverages. The company has developed single-use stirring wands that remove sulfites from wine and is studying the possibilities of developing a similar wand to remove gluten from beer.

Frazier completed his bachelor’s degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1969 before coming to the Washington University School of Medicine, where he earned his doctoral degree in biochemistry in 1973. He then moved to California for postdoctoral training at the UC San Diego School of Medicine. He joined the Washington University School of Medicine faculty in 1976 and remained until his retirement in January of this year.

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Step aside, charismatic polar bear stranded on a melting iceberg. The springtail may be the new flag bearer of an uncertain Arctic future.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis is tracking how the tiniest Arctic ambassadors are responding to the rapid warming occurring in this region.

Warmer summer and fall seasons and fewer winter freeze-thaw events have led to changes in the relative numbers of different types of bugs in the Arctic, said Amanda Koltz, a postdoctoral fellow in Arts & Sciences. Compared with colder years in the past, there are now more plant-eating and parasitic arthropods, and fewer detritivores (the insects that literally consume the living world’s garbage). The research is published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The study relies on the longest-standing, most comprehensive data set on Arctic arthropods in the world today: a catalogue of almost 600,000 flies, wasps, spiders and other creepy-crawlies collected at the Zackenberg field station on the northeast coast of Greenland from 1996-2014.

Bugs rule the Arctic. Arthropods make up the majority of animal biomass on the tundra, far outweighing birds or mammals. They have developed all kinds of adaptations to deal with the extreme cold. For example, during the winter at Zackenberg, monthly mean air temperatures are -20 degrees C, but daily minimum temperatures often fall below -30 degrees C. Some of the local bugs are freeze-tolerant, some make antifreeze proteins in their cells, and others simply dessicate themselves so that they don’t freeze at all.

“We expect these animals to be adapted to a huge range of temperatures and extreme conditions,” Koltz said. But responses to seasonal temperature variation still vary among arthropod groups. As a result, as summers become warmer, the composition of these high-arctic arthropod communities is changing, said Koltz, who conducted this work with collaborators Toke T. Høye and Niels M. Schmidt from Aarhus University in Denmark.

“Twenty years may not be long enough to detect changes in abundances of longer-lived species, like some mammals, but because of their short life spans, it’s a pretty long time for arthropods,” Koltz said. “Still, the fact that we can detect changes over 20 years in some of these animal groups at such a coarse taxonomic resolution is remarkable.”

The changes in community composition were up to five times more extreme in drier rather than wet habitats, suggesting that water availability will play a strong role in what types of bugs will succeed in a warming Arctic.

And with species interactions and food web dynamics in flux, Koltz anticipates more ecosystem-level changes are in store. For example, more herbivorous bugs could mean more consumption pressure for Arctic plants, while the decline in detritivores could result in changes in decomposition and soil nutrient cycling.

“We often don’t pay much attention to these small animals, but there could be real consequences to their changing abundances,” Koltz said.

Funding: Support for this research came from the Aarhus University Research Foundation, U.S. National Science Foundation (DEB 1210704), and the US National Parks Service (George Melendez Climate Change Fellowship).

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Michael Wysession, professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been appointed executive director of the university’s Teaching Center, effective July 1.

The appointment is the culmination of a search process that welcomed applications from all tenured faculty at Washington University. The search committee, appointed by Provost Holden Thorp, was seeking a leader with a passion for teaching, the ability to work across academic disciplines, a track record of innovation in teaching and learning, and an interest in current pedagogical research.

Wysession, who will serve as executive director for a three-year renewable term, will oversee the center’s day-to-day management, including its budget, personnel, programs, facilities and communications, and he will manage the administration of both academic and classroom services.

“We could not have found a more capable person to take the helm of the Teaching Center at this time,” Thorp said. “I am grateful to the search committee — especially Marion Crain for her capable leadership — and to all who expressed interest in assuming this important role. Under Michael’s direction, I’m confident we will bring new ideas to fruition to take our teaching enterprise to an even higher level.”

A renowned expert on Earth’s inner structure, Wysession created one of the first maps of Earth’s core-mantle boundary, some 2,000 miles below our feet. He also is a national leader in science education and literacy, co-authoring more than 30 textbook volumes and the K-12 Next Generation Science Standards. Wysession’s research has been honored with a Packard Foundation Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and his education and outreach have been honored by the Frank Press Award from the Seismological Society of America and the inaugural Ambassador Award from the American Geophysical Union. 

Wysession earned his bachelor’s degree in geophysics from Brown University and his doctorate from Northwestern University. He has been a member of the Washington University faculty since 1991.

The Teaching Center’s mission is to improve teaching and learning  by integrating pedagogy and scholarship with classroom design. Its programs and services focus on three interconnected areas: Creating a collaborative teaching culture; advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning; and designing flexible, intuitive classrooms. Working with faculty from all schools at Washington University, the center designs and evaluates evidence-based pedagogy and provides formalized training in effective teaching for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.

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Washington University in St. Louis sociocultural anthropologist John R. Bowen and David H. Perlmutter, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, join the likes of President Barack Obama, actor Tom Hanks and Supreme Court Justice Sonia M. Sotomayor as newly elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the academy announced April 18.

Founded in 1780, the academy honors exceptional scholars, leaders, artists and innovators and engages them in sharing knowledge and addressing challenges facing the world. The new members of the academy were elected in 25 categories and are affiliated with 125 institutions.

The 238th class of new members is available at www.amacad.org/members.

Previous class members from Washington University include Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, Barbara Schaal, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences, scientific innovator Philip Needleman and the late writer William Gass, among some 52 overall.

Bowen, the Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences, is an internationally recognized scholar on contemporary efforts to rethink Islamic norms and law in Asia, North America and Europe.

His research explores broad social transformations now taking place in the worldwide Muslim community, including social challenges related to cultural pluralism, immigration, law and religion, legal reasoning, and religion and ritual. In particular, he analyzes how Muslims (judges and scholars, public figures, ordinary people) deal with diverse interpretations of the Islamic tradition and other conflicts related to local social norms, values, legal codes and decisions.

A member of the anthropology faculty here since 1985, Bowen earned his PhD in anthropology in 1984 from the University of Chicago. He also serves as a visiting professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science and as an associate professor of Groupe Sociétés, Religions, Laïcités, Paris.

Following early research in Indonesia and Southeast Asia, Bowen has shifted focus in recent decades to understanding Muslim life in western Europe, France, Britain and the Netherlands. His ongoing collaborations with students and colleagues include ethnographic research at sites across the Middle East and Africa. In recent years, his work has been recognized with prestigious Guggenheim and Carnegie fellowships.

He currently serves as director of the Trans-Atlantic Forum. He served as president of the Scientific Council of the French Network of Institutes for Advanced Study from 2008 to 2017 and as chair of the Council for European Studies (New York) from 2011-13. He is on the editorial boards of various journals, including the Political and Legal Anthropology Review and Studia Islamika (Jakarta).

Bowen is the author of numerous book chapters, journal articles and an array of critically acclaimed books. His latest book, “On British Islam: Religion, Law, and Everyday Practice in Shari`a Councils,” was published in 2016 by Princeton University Press.

His popular textbook on “Religions in Practice: An Approach to the Anthropology of Religion,” first published in 1998, is now in its seventh revised and updated edition. His 2012 book, “Islam, Law and Equality in Indonesia: an Anthropology of Public Reasoning,” received the Herbert Jacobs Book Prize from the Law and Society Association.

Other books for general audiences include “Blaming Islam” (2012), which has since been translated into French, German and Turkish; “A New Anthropology of Islam” (2012); “Can Islam Be French? Pluralism and Pragmatism in a Secularist State” (2010); and “Why the French Don’t Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space” (2007).

Perlmutter, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, is internationally recognized for his research on alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency (ATD), a genetic disorder in which the accumulation of a misfolded protein in liver cells can result in severe liver failure.

His work has led to advances in the basic understanding of how cells dispose of misfolded proteins that are toxic and cause cellular dysfunction.

To evaluate potential treatments for ATD, he and colleagues developed a pipeline of drugs that includes one in a Phase II/III clinical trial. The goal is to eliminate the need for liver transplantation, the only treatment option for patients with progressive liver disease due to ATD.

Drugs in this pipeline target and enhance a cellular degradation pathway termed autophagy, which is critical for the functioning of all cells. Because the decline in the function of the pathway during aging has been linked to degenerative diseases, these drugs represent exciting candidates for prevention of cognitive decline and other degenerative diseases of aging.

Perlmutter was trained at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Boston Children’s Hospital and has been on the faculties of Harvard Medical School, University of Pittsburgh and Washington University.

Prior to his appointment in 2015 at Washington University, he was a distinguished professor and the Vira I. Heinz endowed chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, as well as physician-in-chief and scientific director of the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).

Perlmutter is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, chair of the Medical Sciences Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, past president of the Society for Pediatric Research and a past member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

He has received numerous awards, including the E. Mead Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics from the American Pediatric Society, and the Sass-Kortsak Award for Pediatric Liver Research from the Canadian Liver Association. He has authored more than 200 scientific publications and holds nine U.S. patents or patent applications.

The new class will be inducted at a ceremony in October in Cambridge, Mass., and join the academy members who came before them, a list that includes: Benjamin Franklin (elected 1781) and Alexander Hamilton (1791) in the 18th century; Ralph Waldo Emerson (1864), Maria Mitchell (1848), and Charles Darwin (1874) in the 19th; and Albert Einstein (1924), Robert Frost (1931), Margaret Mead (1948), Milton Friedman (1959) and Martin Luther King Jr. (1966) in the 20th.

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University Libraries has selected the winners of the 2018 Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition.

The Neureuther competition offers first and second prizes, of $1,000 and $500, to both undergraduate students and graduate students who write short essays about their personal book collections.

Paul Tran, who is pursuing a master’s degree in poetry, took first place in the graduate category for “I Want to Say It Plain.” Ena Selimovic, a doctoral candidate in comparative literature, won second place for “Ja, Ben, I, Je : A Book Collection in Translation.”

In the undergraduate category, Misael de la Rosa, who is majoring in comparative literature and Spanish, won first place for “Coleccionista de Recuerdos: Memories of a Collector.” The second place award went to student Natalie Snyder, who is pursing a bachelor’s of fine arts, for her essay “The Messy Truth: A Portrait of a Girl through her Books.”

Learn more and read the essays on the Libraries website.

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Peter Delaney got his start as an innovator as a high school student, in the unlikely field of urinal technology. Disgusted by the filthy urinals in a turnpike bathroom, Delaney set out to solve the stubborn problem of urinal backsplash. His answer: the “Pee-flector.”

“I designed a finned device that sent urine down these angled planes instead of back on your pants,” Delaney said. “I was pretty excited about the device and winning a regional entrepreneurship competition, and even got it patented.”

Delaney continued innovating as a student at Washington University in St. Louis. In his four years here, he designed a sustainable emergency medicine curriculum in a country with no ambulances; he launched a successful business that helps health care startups raise capital; and currently he is developing a new software that may revolutionize hospital billing.

“To me, being an innovator isn’t about what you build; it’s about how you think,” said Delaney, who is set to earn his degree in global health and the environment in Arts & Sciences from Washington University in St. Louis on May 18. “I try to bring an innovation mindset to everything I do.”

The trainer 

Born in Ireland and raised in Cleveland, Delaney is part of the university’s Honorary Scholars Program, having earned the prestigious Moog Fellowship for Biological Sciences and Chemistry.

Always interested in medicine, Delaney developed a passion for trauma medicine after joining Washington University’s Emergency Support Team (EST), an extremely competitive and demanding program for student first-responders. After completing EST’s rigorous training his freshman year, Delaney went on to earn his certification as a Red Cross first aid/CPR instructor. That’s when a friend told him about Uganda, a country with no ambulances and no 911 notification system.

“You have to rely on friends or bystanders to carry you or to put you on the back of a motorcycle to take you to the hospital,” Delaney said. “That doesn’t bode well for victims of traumatic injury. Studies have shown survival rates fall off dramatically for those who are not treated in what doctors call ‘the golden hour,’ the first hour after a traumatic injury.”

Delaney’s innovative mindset kicked into action. Could he create a first-aid program for lay people in a country with few health care providers and resources? In a wonderful bit of serendipity, Delaney learned that Shanti Parikh, associate professor in anthropology in Arts & Sciences and the faculty fellow in his freshman residence hall, had been conducting research in Uganda for more than 20 years. The more they talked, they more he wanted to test his idea.

With a plane ticket and $4,400 in grant money from the Office of Undergraduate Research and from the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, Delaney set off the summer after his sophomore year for the Ugandan town of Iganga, population 100,000. He hired a research assistant from the local university, Busoga University; interviewed more than 60 residents about their notions of trauma; and analyzed 26 months of injury data from the 58 health care facilities.

His research confirmed what many residents instinctively knew: half of all traffic accidents involved motorcycle taxis the locals call “boda-bodas.” Boda-boda drivers are notoriously reckless, driving too fast for the town’s decrepit roads while carrying up to four passengers on the backseats of their motorcycles.

Confronted with those facts, most of us would call for the government to fix the roads and ticket the drivers. But Delaney came up with a solution as surprising as it was sustainable: Train the boda-boda drivers in first aid.

“There’s a stigma to being a boda-boda driver, and a lot of them would be turned away if they showed up at the emergency room,” Delaney said. “They would say to me, ‘They think that I’m unsafe, but in reality, I’m 50 years old and this is how I feed my family.’ Training them has a way for a lot of these guys to help treat the injury burden created by their associates and improve their standing in their community.”

Delaney developed a five-hour curriculum that taught drivers how to control a scene, stop bleeding, manage airways and breathing, transport victims and splint fractures.

“Often, it’s the simplest interventions that can make the biggest difference,” Delaney said. “You don’t need state-of-the-art technology or a lot of equipment to save someone’s life.”

Delaney supplied every driver with a first-aid kit — a computer bag packed with a reflective vest, gloves, wooden splints, gauze, bandages and another Delaney innovation: a bath towel.

“You can use the towel as a blanket to keep warm someone in shock; roll it up and wrap it around a neck and under the armpits for C-spine immobilization; or use it to lift and carry an injured patient,” Delaney said.

“When you are in a setting without a lot of resources, you have to work with the existing infrastructure and supplies and look for alternatives,” he said. “If you can’t make a program like that sustainable, it will just fall apart when you leave.”

He trained 154 drivers in three months. Two years later, the boda-boda drivers still are practicing the lessons Delaney taught them, and the local government is working to expand the program regionally. In January, Delaney published his research in World Journal of Surgery as first author with a Ugandan collaborator, along with fellow Washington University student Jae Lee (A&S ’16).

This summer, Delaney is collaborating with an international research team that includes Canaan Hancock, a Washington University sophomore in Arts & Sciences, to establish a similar lay first-responder system in Am Timan, Chad. He is also finishing a systematic review of the literature around lay first-responder system development in low- and middle-income countries with physicians from the University of California San Francisco and Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The connector

There’s more: Delaney also is co-founder of Bear Studios, an undergraduate-run business development services firm that offers strategy consulting and design services to early-stage startups and faculty members who want to commercialize novel research.

Since the company’s launch in 2015, Delaney has managed 44 undergraduate student fellows with skills in business, design and technology and has overseen more than 80 projects, more than half in the field of healthcare.

“A lot of scientists and physicians have phenomenal ideas,” he said, “but get so focused on their research that they don’t communicate the other essentials to investors — things a student in Management 100 would learn on the first day, such as assessing a target market, or if there is a market for your technology in the first place.

“We help them craft a narrative that is both cogent and visually compelling,” Delaney said. “Our work has results. So far we have helped raise $300,000 in seed funding.”

Wowed by Delaney’s team, the university’s Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship now provides competitors in its tri-annual LEAP Inventor Challenge the opportunity to work with Bear Studios to develop their ventures. Those who take up the offer often win.

“Everyone benefits,” Delaney said. “We are able to provide students unique experiential learning opportunities, who are then able to help scientists bring their research to market and improve human lives.”

It was during a Bear Studios consultation with a surgeon at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis that Delaney came up with his latest innovation — a software platform that may revolutionize hospital billing through artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing.

Currently, human coders must flip through a thick book of almost 100,000 five-digit codes to match the procedure noted in a surgeon’s lengthy post-operative note to the corresponding reimbursement code. The process is as inefficient as it is flawed. In some hospitals, the error rate tops 40 percent.

“This is a problem that just screamed, ‘AI, AI, AI,’” Delaney said. “So now we’re developing a software that uses natural language processing to recognize textual patterns and identify text that indicates a certain code and then applies that code to post-operative notes automatically.” The company is called OpCoder AI.

His technical co-founder is his roommate William Luer, who also will graduate this May with a masters degree in computer science from the School of Engineering & Applied Science. Together, they are applying for grants through the Discovery Competition, which is funded through the School of Engineering & Applied Science; Global Impact Awards, which is funded through the Skandalaris Center; and Arch Grants, which is funded by a not-for-profit corporation that supports local entrepreneurs.

Beyond that, medical school is still on the horizon. Delaney will be graduating cum laude from the College of Arts & Sciences and after that intends to apply to medical schools, including Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

“This community has an innovation mindset,” Delaney said. “I like that.”

Read more about the Class Acts of 2018 here.

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Christine Floss, research professor in the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, died April 19, 2018, in St. Louis. She was 56.

Floss was a leader in the university’s Laboratory for Space Sciences. Her research focused on using extraterrestrial material such as meteorites, lunar rocks and interplanetary dust to illuminate the origin and evolution of the early solar nebula. She served as a research adviser to several graduate students and was recognized with the 2014-15 Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award. She also mentored undergraduate students.

“Christine was a highly regarded and successful principal investigator on numerous NASA research proposals, particularly ones involving innovative research using state-of-the-art technologies such as nanoscale isotopic and elemental analysis,” said Thomas J. Bernatowicz, professor emeritus of physics.

“In all of these endeavors, she was cherished as a thoughtful, kind and talented colleague,” Bernatowicz said. “Not only was she one of the few women serving as a research professor in the physics department, but she also devoted her energies to the promotion of women in STEM fields at the university.”

Floss earned a bachelor’s degree in German at Purdue University in 1983 and a bachelor’s in geology in 1987 from Indiana University. She earned her PhD in geochemistry at Washington University in 1991. Her thesis work focused on understanding the origin and formation of moon rocks known as ferroan anorthosites and an unusual group of enstatite meteorites known as aubrites.

“She was definitely one of our best students, and I wondered how she managed to complete her PhD in only four years while at the same time raising two young girls,” said Ghislaine Croaz, her PhD adviser. “The answer is simply superb organization, which she also demonstrated later by organizing a workshop highlighting the career of my husband, the late Robert M. Walker, as well as the memorial in his honor.”

Floss then spent five years as a research scientist at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik in Heidelberg, Germany. She returned to Washington University as a research scientist in 1996 with her husband and colleague, Frank J. Stadermann, and was named research associate professor in 2006.

Floss was preceded in death by her husband, Stadermann, also a member of the Laboratory for Space Sciences. After his death, she increasingly focused her research on the use of isotopes to study a variety of primitive solar system materials, was promoted to research professor, and participated in the 2014-15 Antarctic Search for Meteorites expedition.

In her private life, she was an avid member of the Ethical Society of St. Louis, dedicated time to assisting in medical missions in Haiti, and was a devoted mother and grandmother. She was passionate about the outdoors, reading and world travel, and she gave generously to others in every aspect of her life.

She is survived by her three daughters, Alisha Erin (Jeff) Hillam of Westford, Mass.; Ashley Heavilon of Seattle, Wash.; and Amanda Stadermann, a 2016 graduate of Washington University and a PhD candidate at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory; three grandchildren; parents, Heinz and Inge Floss of Bellevue, Wash.; brothers Peter (Barbara) Floss of Littleton, Mass., and Helmut Floss of Carnation, Wash.; and sister Hanna Floss (Tony Andrews) of Bellevue, Wash.

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m., Wednesday, April 25, at the Ethical Society of Saint Louis, 9001 Clayton Road.

In lieu of flowers, donations in her memory may be made to the Ethical Society of Saint Louis or Friends of the Children of Haiti.

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Monique A. Bedasse, of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, recently received the top book prize from The National Council for Black Studies (NCBS).

Bedasse, assistant professor of history and of African and African-American studies, published “Jah Kingdom: Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization” (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). The book won the Anna Julia Cooper & CLR James Award for outstanding scholarly publication in Africana studies.

NCBS is the leading organization of black studies professionals in the world, driving the development of black and Africana studies as a respected academic discipline.

Bedasse specializes in modern Caribbean history, the African diaspora, modern Africa and transnational history.

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If you ever find yourself in Rebstock 133, you can expect to be greeted by a tall man wearing bell-bottoms and aviator sunglasses. On some days, he wears a baseball hat that has a snout in the front and a pigtail sticking out from the back. He wears it backwards.

Meet Gerry Rohde, who works in the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Stockroom manager and lab safety officer by day. St. Louis Public Radio host by night. And collector of classic automobiles.

Despite his easygoing nature, Rohde takes his responsibilities seriously. As the lab safety officer, he ensures sharps, chemical waste and biological waste are disposed of properly.  He writes a “Safety Spotlight” for the Biologue, the department newsletter, to keep the community up to date on topics related to laboratory safety. And he serves as the liaison between Environmental Health and Safety and the department.

Rohde started his 25-year career at Washington University in 1993 when he took a position working in the stockroom in the Department of Chemistry. Four years later, he transferred to the Department of Biology, where he manages the stockroom and ensures the community is adhering to lab safety practices.

The department’s stockroom fulfills multiple purposes. First, it stocks common laboratory supplies and chemicals, offering a convenience to scientists who may realize mid-experiment they don’t have enough of a critical reagent. Waiting even one day for the replacement to arrive could ruin the experiment. “We are a recharge center,” Rohde said. “The stockroom has 480 or so items in stock at any given time.”

Second, it takes care of the time-consuming administrative efforts that entail purchasing laboratory supplies and chemicals from outside vendors. “We purchase anything from bullfrogs to restriction enzymes. There is no way that we could possibly stock all of this stuff,” Rohde said.

Besides purchasing, the stockroom is also the receiving and redistribution center for the biology department. When shipments come in, the stockroom staff check the packing slip against the contents and the purchase order. Laboratory staff have to sign for their purchases.

The four-member team also serves as the point of contact for receiving and distributing common supplies such as dry ice, liquid nitrogen and compressed gases.

All of the office supplies run through the stockroom; not every department does this. Because the biology department is so large and accountable for many laboratories, years ago administrators decided to offer office supplies through the stockroom to ensure that they were charged to the department and not to government grants.

One could argue departments don’t really need a stockroom, but the numbers say the opposite. “When I first started in the biology department’s stockroom, there were about $80,000 worth of yearly sales. Today, we get $130,000 worth of yearly sales,” Rohde said.

The community appreciates the service — and his personality. Rohde is quick to welcome his customers. If his outfit does not spark your interest, perhaps his St. Louis Public Radio nametag will.

Rohde has been with Public Radio 90.7 KWMU since 1985. For years, he did an overnight jazz show, along with some classical music announcing and programming during the day.

“It was the age of the audio cassettes, when you couldn’t listen to music on the computer,” Rohde said. Radio played a major role in bringing music to its listeners. But in the ’90s, it became clear that the landscape was changing. With advancements in technology, radio no longer was the primary mechanism for listening to music.

Public Radio adapted by running more shows and less music. As did Rohde. Since 1996, he has been the evening host and runs the programming weeknights from 7-11 p.m. He also manages station breaks every 10 to 15 minutes. “You will hear me on the air. I will do the weather a couple times an hour. I will keep an eye on traffic,” Rohde said.

As the years go by, Rohde has asked whether there still is a role for radio in society. “Among young people, there has been a drop-off in radio ownership in the household by 38 percent.” But he believes that radio is a public necessity for those who do not own a phone. “And our membership is up and just surpassed 26,000 people; there is a role.”

For Rohde personally, radio has and will always play an important part role in his life. Being raised in Bremen, Germany, Rohde recalled listening to his dad’s radio.

“It got stuck on the American Forces Network, which was broadcasted in American English, playing American music. As a little kid, I was glued to the radio. I had a real love for American English and the music,” Rohde said.

“It is funny that it combined later in life. I am not only working in radio, I am doing it in America,” Rohde said with a laugh.

It was also in America that Rohde developed an interest in cars. “American cars were so much larger than German cars. They really fascinated me,” he said.

When he moved to the United States to attend the University of Missouri- St. Louis, he bought a 1971 Ford Torino four-door. He paid $75 and half the driver’s door was rusted away; out of necessity, he started learning how to fix that car. Today, he owns an award-winning 1971 Lincoln Mark III show car, a 1976 Lincoln Continental daily driver, a 1989 Suburban 4×4, and a 1981 4×4 four-door pickup.

“And the rest is history,” Rohde said with a smile.

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Visions of the future can shape how we see the present.

On Friday and Saturday, April 27 and 28, local and nationally known artists, architects, poets and scholars will gather in St. Louis for “Dwell in Other Futures.” Sponsored as part of Washington University’s Divided City initiative, the two-day event will explore how collisions of race, urbanism and futurism might spark fresh ideas about the city that is and the city that is to come.

“Speculating about the future helps us to understand that we’re not on an inevitable trajectory,” said Tim Portlock, associate professor at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis. “Speculation can provide a sort of roadmap for getting to the future that we want.”

Portlock co-organized the conference with Rebecca Wanzo, associate director of the Center for the Humanities and associate professor of women, gender and sexuality studies in Arts & Sciences; and Gavin Kroeber, founder of the Studio for Art & Urbanism.

Guest speakers are scheduled to include: legendary science fiction author Samuel Delany, one of the first African-American writers to find popular success in the genre; Treasure Shields Redmond, the St. Louis-based poet and activist; and Sophia Al-Maria, the Qatari-American artist, writer and filmmaker who coined the phrase “Gulf Futurism” to describe aesthetics and popular culture of the post-oil Persian Gulf.

“Afrofuturism and St. Louis are definitely starting points, but we also want to think nationally and globally,” Portlock said. “How can cities around the world continue to survive and thrive — not just materially, but also socially?”

“The Autumnal City”

“Dwell in Other Futures” will begin at 7 p.m. Friday at the Kranzberg Arts Foundation’s .ZACK arts facility, 3224 Locust St. Delany is scheduled to lead a conversation on “The Autumnal City,” followed by a pop-up exhibition featuring new commissions from Damon Davis, Sam Fox School alumna Addoley Dzegede and the collaborative duo Basil Kincaid and Reuben Reuel.

The festival will continue at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, 3716 Washington Blvd. Events are to include “You’re the Only Reason I’m Staying Here,” a new commission by artist Katherine Simóne Reynolds; Autumn Knight‘s performance “The La–a Consortium”; and an artist talk by Mendi + Keith Obadike.

Events will conclude at 5 p.m. with a series of performative “Manifestos for a Future St. Louis.” Presenters are to include: the art collective ARTC; urbanist Michael R. Allen, senior lecturer in the Sam Fox School; performer Maxi Glamour; musician ICE; poet Alison C. Rollins; and designer and Washington University alumna De Nichols, now a lecturer in the Sam Fox School.

“Dwell in Other Futures” is free and open to the public, but capacity is limited and attendees are encouraged to register in advance. For a complete schedule or to RSVP, visit dwellinotherfutures.com.

Sponsors

“Dwell in Other Futures” is sponsored by The Divided City — an urban humanities initiative at Washington University in St. Louis funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — and presented in partnership with the Center for the Humanities, the university’s Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program, Fabricatorz Foundation, Kranzberg Arts Foundation, the School of Law’s Law, Identity & Culture Initiative, projects+gallery, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Saint Louis Fashion Fund, Saint Louis University and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

“Dwell in Other Futures” is made possible by the generous support of Adrienne Davis, Ken and Nancy Kranzberg, and Susan Sherman.

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A new collaborative research and teaching agreement between anthropology and archaeology programs at Washington University in St. Louis and Sichuan University in Chengdu, China, will expand student and faculty exchanges and increase cooperation in field and laboratory research, according to a memo of understanding signed April 25 by  Washington University Provost Holden Thorp.

“The archaeological program at Sichuan is among the very best in China, and they are developing innovative projects coupled with cutting-edge research methods to do remarkable research that has global relevance,” said T.R. Kidder, the Edward S. and Tedi Macias Professor and chair of anthropology in Arts & Sciences. “Our faculty and graduate students will benefit greatly from the opportunities provided by this arrangement, and I look forward to deepening our collaborations across southwest China.”

Among Sichuan University dignitaries who traveled to St. Louis to sign the agreement are Huo Wei, who directs its museum, and Lu Hongliang, professor of archaeology. Wei said the agreement will “open a new chapter in China-U.S. collaborations in archaeological investigations to the mountainous regions of West China.” Hongliang said the partnership “will certainly promote the studies of prehistoric populations in mountainous China to a new level.”

Xiny Liu, assistant professor of anthropology at Washington University, said faculty and students from both universities already are working together to explore key questions about ancient subsistence, economy and other social processes in the hilly regions of  southwest China. Ongoing collaborations include field excavations atHaimenkou in Yunnan Province; Zhaoguodong in Guizhou Province and Bangga in Tibet.

“The unique topography and hydrology of China’s southwestern highlands hold the key to understand a number of significant issues in Eurasian prehistory, including what agriculture and pastoralism is actually about,” Liu said. “We are thrilled to develop this project with our colleagues at Sichuan University.”

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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 graduate who studied zoology under the late Viktor Hamburger.

This year’s recipient is Jordan Shaker, who worked in the laboratory of Michael R. Bruchas, the Henry E. Mallinckrodt Professor in anesthesiology and neuroscience at the School of Medicine. Next year, Shaker plans to continue working in the Bruchas laboratory while he applies to MD/PhD programs.

His thesis, titled “Endogenous Opioidergic Circuits Involved in Thermoregulation,” won praise for the experiments’ design, the technical excellence with which they were carried out and Shaker’s incisive interpretation of results.

The Spector Prize, first awarded in 1974, recognizes academic excellence and outstanding undergraduate achievement in research. Students are nominated by their research mentors for outstanding research that has made substantial contributions to a field.

Shaker will receive the prize at a biology awards ceremony May 16.

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The Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis announced a new student ticket policy. As of the fall 2018 semester, admission to PAD productions will be free to all full-time Washington University students, as well as University College students who have been admitted into a degree or certificate program.

The department made the change because leaders believe theater is more than entertainment and that theater’s role is to inform, question and engage the world around us.

Seating for all PAD productions will be general admission. Students can pick up tickets in advance of any show or the day of by showing their student IDs.

Learn more on the PAD website or contact Mary Clemens at mclemens@wustl.edu or 314-935-7025.

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Three scientists at Washington University in St. Louis are among the 84 new members and 21 foreign associates elected May 1 to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Election to the academy is considered one of the highest honors accorded a U.S. scientist or engineer.

Washington University’s new academy members are all in the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences. They are Sarah C.R. Elgin, the Viktor Hamburger Professor of Arts & Sciences; Jonathan B. Losos, the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professor; and Richard D. Vierstra, the George and Charmaine Mallinckrodt Professor of Biology.

With these three new members, Washington University now has had 56 faculty members elected to the prestigious academy.

“I am delighted to congratulate Sally, Jonathan and Richard upon their election to the National Academy of Sciences. This important recognition adds to the excellent reputation of the Department of Biology and signals the high quality of our faculty working at the forefront of important areas of research,” said Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

“I am thrilled at this news and extend my warmest congratulations to Sally, Jonathan and Rick for this well-deserved recognition,” said Barbara A. Schaal, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor. “An extraordinary result like this in one year shows the depth of talent within the Department of Biology.” Schaal has been a member of NAS since 1999, and she served as NAS vice president for eight years.

Elgin

Elgin joined the faculty of Arts & Sciences in 1981. She is a molecular biologist whose research focus is on the role of chromatin structure in gene regulation. She also is known for her passion for science outreach and for expanding research opportunities for students.

Elgin is a professor of biology and of education, both in Arts & Sciences, and a professor of biochemistry and molecular biophysics and of genetics in the School of Medicine.

Chromatin is the complex of DNA and the proteins that package it so that the DNA will fit into the small nucleus of each cell, while maintaining functional organization.

Elgin and her research team study the chromosomal proteins that promote packaging into euchromatin or heterochromatin, alternative forms associated with gene expression and gene silencing, respectively — both forms critical to the health and development of multicellular organisms.

Her team at Washington University is noted for identifying and characterizing Heterochromatin Protein 1 (HP1) — a key protein found in organisms ranging from the ancient yeast S. pombe to humans — which plays a central role in silencing the transposable elements found in eukaryotic genomes.

Elgin is also an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. She has received several other university, state and national science and teaching awards — including most recently the university’s Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award.

Prior to joining Washington University, Elgin served on the faculty at Harvard University. She graduated from Pomona College with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1967 and earned her doctorate from California Institute of Technology in 1972. In 2017, she received an honorary doctorate from Pomona.

Learn more about Elgin in The Source.

Losos

Losos is the inaugural holder of the William H. Danforth Distinguished University Professorship, established in 2016 by the university in honor of Danforth, the former chancellor, on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Losos leads the Living Earth Collaborative^TM, headquartered at Washington University.

An internationally renowned scholar in the field of evolutionary biology, Losos recently returned to Washington University, where he has deep roots and a long history, including as a member of the faculty from 1992-2006.

He previously served as the Lehner Professor for the Study of Latin America, professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, and curator in herpetology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University.

Losos’ study of the behavioral and evolutionary ecology of lizards has taken him around the globe and firmly established his position as a leading international expert on the biodiversity of species.

The Living Earth Collaborative^TM is a joint effort among the university and two of the nation’s leading institutions in the study and preservation of plants and animals: the Missouri Botanical Garden and the Saint Louis Zoo. Together, they are creating a new academic center dedicated to advancing the study of biodiversity to help ensure the future of Earth’s species in their many forms.

Losos earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Harvard University in 1984 and a doctorate in zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1989.

Learn more about Losos and his work in Washington magazine.

Vierstra

Vierstra, recognized as one of the world’s leaders in plant science, joined Washington University in 2015 after 30 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he and his research team unraveled the secrets of plant pathways that destroy unwanted proteins and allow plants to sense daylight, so that they know when to germinate and flower.

At Washington University, Vierstra is the inaugural holder of the George and Charmaine Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professorship.

Vierstra’s lab group is interested in the control of processes that regulate growth. Scientists have long known that the creation of proteins is crucial for most, if not all, aspects of plant biology, but only recently have they begun to understand that protein destruction is equally important.

Vierstra’s lab studies the ubiquitin-26S proteasome and autophagy systems, the main recycling routes in animals and plants. Disruptions in either route are one of the prime causes of many human diseases, including cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS.

Another major area of research for the Vierstra lab is phytochrome, a light-sensing pigment found in the leaves of most plants that allows them to detect the time of day and the season. Here, Vierstra’s team is using structural approaches to understand how these photoreceptors work at the atomic level.

Vierstra is a fellow of the American Society of Plant Biologists and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from the University of Connecticut in 1976 and his doctorate in plant biology from the Department of Energy’s Plant Research Laboratory at Michigan State University in 1980.

Learn more about Vierstra in a Washington People profile in The Source.

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Alex Chen and Yixi Wang, seniors majoring in biology in Arts & Sciences, have been awarded the 2018 Ralph S. Quatrano Prize.

Established through a generous donation by Katherine Day Reinleitner, the Quatrano Prize is awarded to the thesis showing greatest evidence of creativity in design, research methodology and/or broader scientific implications. The award is given in honor of Ralph Quatrano, the Spencer T. Olin Professor Emeritus and former chair of biology.

Chen’s thesis work explores representations of familiarity and novelty in the early olfactory system of the American locust and is titled “Encoding the expectation of a sensory stimulus.” His mentor was associate professor Barani Raman, associate professor in the School of Engineering & Applied Science. Chen is graduating with a double-major in biology, in the neuroscience track, and mathematics, as well as a minor in the medical humanities.

Wang’s thesis, titled “Development of diabetic zebrafish model for genetic screening,” was based on her work in the laboratory of Colin G. Nichols, the Carl F. Cori Professor at the School of Medicine. Wang’s work lends further support to the use of zebrafish in research about metabolic diseases such as diabetes, including research into disease modifiers that could someday benefit human patients. Wang is graduating in May with a major in biology, in the ecology and evolution track, and minors in art and in Chinese language.

After graduation, Chen will pursue a PhD in neuroscience at Harvard University. Wang will attend medical school, but she has not yet committed to a program. The two will receive their prize during a biology award reception May 16.

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With its complex structure, harmonic depths and propulsive momentum, Claude Debussy’s “Pour le Piano” (1902) was a compositional revolution — a work dedicated, in the words of one critic, “not to the instrumentalists, but to the instrument itself.”

In this video, Washington University in St. Louis student Yihan Li, a senior majoring in biochemistry and in music, both in Arts & Sciences, performs the Prelude to Debussy’s musical manifesto in the 560 Music Center’s historic E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall.

Li, who began studying piano at age 5, won the Department of Music’s 2016 Friends of Music Award, the 2016-17 Friends of Music Concerto Competition and the 2018 Antoinette Dames Award. Earlier this spring, she performed the Prelude, along with works by Beethoven and Chopin, as part of her Senior Honors Recital. She is currently studying under the instruction of Annette Burkhart, teacher of applied music.

After graduating in May, Li will attend pharmacy school with her dog, Daisy, by her side.

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Emily Haussler has been awarded the 2018 Harrison D. Stalker Award from the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

The award honors the late Harrison D. Stalker, a renowned evolutionary biologist and a world-class photographer. The award is given annually to a graduating biology major whose undergraduate career combines outstanding scientific scholarship with significant contributions in the arts and humanities.

Haussler is majoring in biology and in dance, both in Arts & Sciences. She conducted her biology thesis work, titled “Identifying novel epigenetic dependencies in pre-leukemic hematopoietic stem cells,” under the direction of Grant Challen, assistant professor at the School of Medicine.

Haussler studied dance under Christine Knoblauch-O’Neal, David Marchant, Cecil Slaughter, Mary-Jean Cowell, Antonio Douthit-Boyd and Kirven Douthit-Boyd. She spent a semester abroad in London, studying dance at University of Roehampton. As a choreographer, her works have been selected for the university’s Student Dance Showcase, Young Choreographer’s Showcase and Dance Collective. To learn more, visit emilyhaussler.com.

Haussler will dance for the Nashville Ballet this summer.  She hopes to continue dancing professionally for three to five years, and then pursue a PhD in molecular biology, cancer biology or a related field.

Haussler will receive the Stalker Award during a biology awards ceremony May 16.

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Before the campaign promise, the policy change or the tax proposal, there is the data point.

As a student at Washington University in St. Louis, Channing Hunter has helped municipal leaders in Phoenix, Milwaukee, Cincinnati and St. Louis inventory and understand their carbon emissions data so they can launch policies that improve the environment, human health and the economy. Phoenix, for instance, has adopted solar energy, replaced diesel buses with those fueled by natural gas and has incentivized development along its light rail system.

“Most of us can agree that, yes, we want clean air and clean water,” Hunter said. “But how do we reach those goals? It all starts with the data. Policy makers are saying, ‘Show me the numbers.’ They want to know what the implications are for a given strategy — the implications for the environment, the budget, the taxpayers, different people in communities. Before you can make a good decision, you need good data.”

Hunter graduates from Washington University in St. Louis May 18 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in Arts & Sciences and a master’s in environmental energy and chemical engineering from the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

He already has obtained a certificate in renewable energy and the environment through Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center (PARC). And after a gap year, Hunter plans to enroll in a PhD program in either engineering or mathematics to further study the intersection of statistics, engineering and sustainability. His passion for data sets reflects a commitment to equality.

“Everyone is a person,” he said. “Whether you are American, Saudi Arabian, Mexican, German, Japanese. And everyone has right to basic human resources such as a reliable fresh food source and water — let me refine that — clean water.

“Data can help us address those issues and, just as importantly, point out inequalities people don’t want to talk about,” Hunter said. “But that’s only if the data are transparent and shared in a way that people can understand.”

Take, for instance, the West Lake Landfill in nearby Bridgeton, Mo. For decades, residents have urged the Environmental Protection Agency to remove the radioactive waste, a byproduct of St. Louis’ role in uranium enrichment during the Manhattan Project, at the Superfund site. Hunter helped provide data analysis to the local advocacy group Just Moms STL and submitted documents to the EPA. 

Just as important, he met community members to see if their experiences jived with government findings that the site was safe. They did not. 

“If the data does not match a community’s experiences, then we have to see where the data has gaps,” said Hunter, who is a member of the student advocacy group Green Action. “That’s where we, as data analysts, have to be advocates. The data tells us part of the story, not all of the story. We have to put the numbers and the experiences together to get the full picture.”

In what is considered a major step forward, the EPA proposed earlier this year removing 70 percent of the nuclear waste. After graduation, Hunter will continue to support Just Moms STL in their effort to find safe and permanent solution to the crisis.

“West Lake is a perfect example of what not to do with data,” Hunter said. “Clearly, the government knew what was happening at the site, but refused or hesitated to be transparent with the data. This caused compounding issues that will have long-lasting effects on Bridgeton, the greater St. Louis region and the surrounding areas in North County.”

Hunter also is playing a big role in the work of Washington University’s Office of Sustainability to better understand energy usage on campus, collecting 60 data points from 200 buildings. The massive data set, which is part of the EPA’a Energy Star Portfolio Manager initiative, will be released publicly. It also supports the Department of Energy’s Better Building Challenge and a new St. Louis ordinance that requires to report the energy usage of its facilities.

Like the municipalities Hunter has served, the university will use this information to reduce emissions. Phil Valko, assistant vice chancellor for sustainability and Hunter agree: regions, cities and businesses are driving innovations in emissions reduction.

“He’s created for us a powerful tool that will tee up the next suite of changes,” Valko said. “Without data, we’re flying blind. We don’t know if we are focusing on the right thing or using resources strategically.”

When Valko and Hunter aren’t evaluating plug load energy efficiency or lighting retrofits, they are imagine a just world where everyone has access to clean air and water.

“There is nothing like sitting down with Channing and talking about the big picture,” Valko said. “He really is a systems thinker and understands how pieces of the broader equation connect. He understand the interplay between transportation, how we build, where we work and how that impacts humanity. He sees the whole puzzle.”

Read more about the Class Acts of 2018 here.

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