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College of Arts and Sciences Graduate student

If these walls could talk

Aerial shot of historic WSU Pullman campus.The University’s Historic Preservation Committee recently launched a new website that provides the first comprehensive online history of WSU Pullman’s buildings and landscapes.

Developed as a teaching tool and an eventual community history repository, the WSU Building and Landscapes website features photographs, maps and plans from the WSU Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections (MASC).  Currently, the website includes entries for 161 buildings on the Pullman campus, including 39 buildings » More …

Defining his own non-traditional path

graduate with familyFamily is core to who Geoff Schramm is as a friend, a person, but especially as a father and husband.

It’s the reason why he decided to go back to school at Washington State University Tri-Cities in his late 30s – a decision that led to many people asking him, “Why?”

» More …

Dr. Universe: What would happen if we had three hearts and one of them stopped?

Dr. UniverseIt’s hard to say exactly what would happen if you had three hearts and one of them stopped. Humans, and cats, have just one heart, so we have no experience with this. Octopuses, on the other hand, do have three hearts.

When I called my friend Kirt Onthank, a professor at Walla Walla University who studies how octopus bodies work, he told me all about the three hearts. Before becoming a professor, he also studied biology here at Washington State University.

Onthank says the answer to your question depends on which of an octopus’s three hearts stops working. » More …

Physics research heads to International Space Station

Rocket on lauchpad in the distance, seen against setting sunWSU physicists have a new laboratory in outer space. On May 20, the Cold Atom Laboratory (CAL), a remotely operated research platform, blasted off for the International Space Station (ISS) where it will be used by researchers to probe quantum phenomena that would be impossible to observe on Earth.

Professor Peter Engels and graduate student Maren Mossman will use CAL remotely » More …

2018 CAS awards honor faculty, staff, grad students

Fourteen faculty, three staff, and five graduate students were honored for outstanding achievement at the 2018 College of Arts and Sciences Appreciation and Recognition Social last week.

Regents Professor Kerry W. Hipps, an international leader in chemistry, and Barry Hewlett, a veteran anthropologist with a global reputation, received the top two faculty awards. Patricia Thorsten-Mickelson, a financial and personnel manager with more than three decades of experience at WSU, was honored with the outstanding staff career award.

“Our annual awards recognize individual achievement and are a wonderful opportunity to bring the college community together to celebrate » More …

NEH grant to create national humanities education model at WSU

NEH Announces Next Generation Humanities PhD Grant RecipientsA new National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) grant catalyzes a year of discussion and planning at Washington State University aimed at creating a national model for connecting graduate education in the humanities to rural and underserved populations.

Funded by the NEH’s NextGen Ph.D. program, the grant will bring together more than 20 faculty, staff, graduate students, and recent graduate alumni from across WSU to consider how graduate education in the humanities can better support the university’s land-grant mission of improving access, inclusivity, and » More …

New Schnitzer Museum hosts MFA exhibit

Crimson building at WSUSeven fine arts graduate students are among the first to have their work on display in the newly opened Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at WSU.

The Master’s of Fine Arts Exhibition opened in early April and includes pieces some students have been working on for years.

Jared Boorn, whose art is on display, was inspired » More …

Grad student selected as AAAS Congressional Science Fellow

Kathryn Harris Kathryn Harris, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Anthropology, has received an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy Fellowship for the 2018-19 year.

Fellows are provided a transformative career opportunity within the federal policy arena that includes not only hands-on work with policymaking, but also a series of trainings and » More …

2018 CAS graduate student award recipients

CAS logo on white with borderEvery year, the College of Arts and Sciences recognizes outstanding achievement by graduate students, both at the master’s and the doctorate level. Congratulations to our five awardees for 2018: » More …

eDNA: An early warning system for deadly pathogen

A mountain yellow-legged frog. Photo credit: Michael Hernandez A new technology being developed at Washington State University could help save amphibians around the world from deadly pathogens like Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), a particularly nasty type of fungus that attacks the skin of frogs and salamanders.

The new tool, know as environmental DNA, or eDNA, detects telltale bits of genetic material that living creatures shed into their environment, and enables wildlife scientists to confirm the presence of a wide variety of aquatic organisms without the hassle of finding them. » More …

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