Environment

Hydrologist earns NSF CAREER award

Kevan Moffett, assistant professor of environmental hydrology at WSU Vancouver, has earned a prestigious Faculty Early Career Development Program award from the National Science Foundation. Highly competitive, ‘CAREER’ awards emphasize the importance of developing academic careers in which the excitement of research is enhanced by inspired teaching and dissemination of new knowledge. Moffett’s research explores […]

15 CAS students earn leadership, engagement awards

Fifteen undergraduate students plus two faculty and one staff member from across the College of Arts and Sciences were recognized during the 2018 Leadership and Engagement Awards of Distinction ceremony on April 17. Award recipients demonstrate exceptional leadership and service to the university and the community and support the leadership development and engagement of WSU […]

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, […]

Coho salmon die, chum salmon survive in stormwater runoff

WSU scientists have discovered that different species of salmon have varying reactions to polluted stormwater runoff. In a recent paper published in the journal Environmental Pollution, scientists found that coho salmon became sick and nearly died, within just a few hours of exposure to polluted stormwater. But chum salmon showed no signs of ill-effects after prolonged […]

Director named for Meyer’s Point Environmental Field Station

Stephen Bollens, professor of aquatic ecology at WSU Vancouver, has been named director of the newly designated Meyer’s Point Environmental Field Station. Located just north of Olympia in a rapidly urbanizing area, Meyer’s Point is a 95-acre parcel of undeveloped land with 2,100 feet of Puget Sound shoreline and extensive terrestrial, wetland and aquatic habitats. […]

CAS leads top 20 WSU research stories of 2017

From rising inequality and declining Monarch butterfly populations to a particle with negative mass, news coverage about the College of Arts and Sciences research reached millions of people last year. News outlets carrying the stories ran the gamut of the nation’s most popular media, including CNN, The Washington Post and National Public Radio, as well […]

2018 CAS faculty award recipients

Every year, the College of Arts and Sciences recognizes faculty excellence in teaching, service, and career achievement. Congratulations to our 14 awardees for 2018:

eDNA: An early warning system for deadly pathogen

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 […]

Life always finds a way

For the first time, researchers have seen life rebounding in the world’s driest desert, demonstrating that it could also be lurking in the soils of Mars. Led by Washington State University planetary scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch, an international team studied the driest corner of South America’s Atacama Desert, where decades pass without any rain. Scientists have […]