Science research roundup: July 2021

This month, researchers in Arts & Sciences received awards from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the American Chemical Society.

Michael J. Krawczynski, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences, won a CAREER Award from the National Science Foundation for research on the evolution of super-hydrous magmas in the Earth’s crust. In the project, Krawczynski will apply experimental petrology, thermodynamics, and volcanology to explore how volcanoes work, especially how water affects the evolution of volcanoes and their behavior. Read more from The Ampersand.

Hani Zaher, associate professor of biology, received a four-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, for research on ribosome stalling and the activation of stress responses.

Li Yang, professor of physics, was awarded a $375,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for condensed matter and materials theory research titled “Doping Effects on Excited-State Properties of Two-Dimensional Moiré Crystals.” Read more from the Department of Physics.

Kevin Moeller, professor of chemistry, won the 2021 Jaroslav Heyrovsky Prize for Molecular Electrochemistry. The prize is awarded annually by the International Society of Electrochemistry to a scientist who has made an important contribution to the field of molecular electrochemistry in the last five years. Moeller’s research focuses broadly on the use of electrochemistry as a synthetic tool for constructing everything from complex organic molecules to two-dimensional addressable surfaces. Read more from the Department of Chemistry.

Sarah Anderson, a postdoctoral research associate in Petra Levin’s lab in the Department of Biology, won a three-year, $200,946 award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences’ Biomedical Research and Research Training Program for a project titled “Modulation of Bacterial Cell Division by (p)ppGpp.”

David Fike, professor of Earth and planetary sciences and director of the Environmental Studies program, received a $110,000 grant from the American Chemical Society’s Petroleum Research Fund. The two-year award supports Fike’s research on “Petrographically Constrained Microscale Carbonate Carbon and Oxygen Isotope Analyses: Reconstructing Cementation Conditions and Fluid Interactions in Complex Sedimentary Carbonates.”

The Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis announced the recipients of its fourth round of seed grant funding. This year’s grant winners from Arts & Sciences include David Webb and Carolyn Cosgrove Payne in the Environmental Studies program for their project titled “Forest Park Living Lab: Exploring the biodiversity and natural history of one of the world’s great parks” and Joan Garcia-Porta and Michael Landis in the Department of Biology for their project titled “Origin and diversification of the flowering plants of the Gulf of Guinea archipelago.” Read more from The Source.

Margaret Steele, a postdoctoral research associate in the Queller-Strassmann lab in the Department of Biology, was awarded a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation for a project on the prey-to-pathogen transition among bacteria associated with a phagocytic amoeba.

Anne Hofmeister, research professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, won a two-year, $37,300 early-concept grant for exploratory research (EAGER) from the National Science Foundation to support her work on testing new formulae for pressure derivatives of specific heat, thermal conductivity, and thermal diffusivity.

Eric Conners, a graduate student in the Plant and Microbial Biosciences program in biology, received a 2021-2022 Howard A. Schneiderman Fellowship. The award recognizes “a graduate student involved in the biological sciences who is interested in the broader/societal implications” and includes a one-year stipend. Conners works in Arpita Bose’s lab on research aimed at advancing sustainable bioplastic production. Read more from the Department of Biology.

Did we miss something? Contact Shawn Ballardcommunications specialist in Arts & Sciences.