Science Research Roundup: May and June 2019

Researchers in Arts & Sciences were recently awarded grants from the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, NASA, and other organizations.

Elizabeth S. Haswell, associate professor of biology, and Anders E. Carlsson, professor of physics, received a $954,779 grant from the National Science Foundation for their project titled "Pollen: A model system for computational and experimental study of plant biomechanics at the cellular scale."

James Buckley, professor of physics, was awarded $667,954 from NASA for the development of a novel imaging calorimeter for gamma-ray and cosmic-ray studies.

Bradley Jolliff, Scott Rudolph Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, received $539,932 from NASA/UNM to support his work with the University of New Mexico's Consortium for the Advanced Analysis of Apollo Samples.

Barbara A. Schaal, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, received the 2019 National Science Board (NSB) Public Service Award.

Jeffrey Catalano, professor of Earth and planetary sciences, received a $376,278 award from the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) based at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for a project titled "Reconciling prebiotic paradigms: Mapping planetary reality onto experimental strategies."

Willem Dickhoff, professor of physics, received a $330,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support his work on Green’s functions and the nuclear many-body problem.

Kenneth F. Kelton, Arthur Holly Compton Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences, was awarded $280,893 from the National Science Foundation for a collaborative research study on the connections between ordering, dynamics, and glass-forming ability in metallic liquid.

Kathleen McDermott, professor of psychological and brain sciences, won the Psychonomics Society Mid-Career Award.

Ari Stern, associate professor of mathematics and statistics, received a $212,640 grant from the National Science Foundation for a project titled "Hybrid finite element methods for geometric partial differential equations."

Philip Skemer, associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences, received a $167,000 grant from the National Science Foundation for a collaborative research project titled "Theoretical and experimental investigation of grain damage and the formation of plate boundaries."

Richard A. Loomis, professor of chemistry, received a $140,000 grant from the National Science Foundation in support of a project titled "Measuring the dynamics of excitons in 1D semiconductor quantum wires with quantum state resolution."

Caitlyn Collins, assistant professor of sociology, is one of 10 junior faculty nationwide selected as a 2019 Nancy Weiss Malkiel Scholar by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.

Tim Wencewicz, assistant professor of chemistry, was selected by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation as one of 13 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholars for 2019. The Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award recognizes young faculty in the chemical sciences who are outstanding independent researchers and educators. The award includes an unrestricted grant of $100,000 to support Wencewicz's efforts in developing new antibiotics to combat resistance and improving the organic chemistry curriculum at Washington University.

David Fike, professor of Earth and planetary sciences, received a $70,338 award from NASA's Ames Research Center for a project titled "Abiotic and biological sulfate reduction in serpentinizing systems."

Julie Bugg, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences, was elected as a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Michael Krawczynski, assistant professor of Earth and planetary sciences, and graduate student Kelsey Prissel, also in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, were awarded a $45,000 second-year NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) for a project titled "Experimental investigation of lunar iron isotope fractionation and implications for mare basalt petrogenesis."

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics, received a $44,887 grant from the Smithsonian to support a project titled "Radial density profile and onset of clumping in the stellar wind of a O61a star."

Matt Kerr, professor of mathematics and statistics, received a $42,000 grant from the Simons Foundation for a project titled "Asymptotic Hodge theory in geometry, physics, and arithmetic."

Patrick Harrington, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Physics, was selected to participate in the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany from June 30 to July 5. Twenty-one US doctoral student leaders in physics have been chosen to attend the 69th Annual Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting this summer. The Lindau meeting provides young researchers the opportunity to engage in meaningful and intellectual dialogue with experts in their chosen disciplines about cutting-edge research developments.

Chelsey Carter, an anthropology doctoral candidate in Arts & Sciences, received a $19,492 grant from the Wenner Gren Foundation. Carter’s research explores how black people with neuromuscular diseases navigate health-care spaces and experience care at medical institutions in St. Louis. The Wenner Gren award will support her research on how people of various races access information about health-care services for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Krista Milich, assistant professor of biological anthropology, received a $12,500 award from the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund to support a project on red colobus monkeys in Uganda. 

Sarah Baitzel, assistant professor of archaeology, received a $6,050 award from the Rust Family Foundation for a project titled "Andean vertical exchange after Tiwanaku (10-12th century AD): Investigation of subsistence, mobility, and social diversity in the Cabuza city of Los Batanes (southern Peru)." Her work will include excavations of household and burial features to reconstruct subsistence-related activities and dietary practices.

Five doctoral candidates at Washington University in St. Louis were inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at the annual Bouchet Conference on Diversity and Graduate EducationChelsey Carter in anthropology and in public health; Bisiayo E. Fashemi in developmental, regenerative and stem cell biology; Alex Miranda in developmental biology; Derek J. Platt in molecular microbiology and microbial pathogenesis; and Kendra A. White-Drayton in chemistry.

Did we miss something? Contact Crystal Gammon, assistant director of science communications in Arts & Sciences.