Former WSU art professor and alum Patrick Siler ’61 has painted a fantastical mural that covers a wall in downtown Pullman. It’s his way of creating “visual fireworks” in the town he taught in for 32 years. Watch a video about the mural and its creation at Washington State Magazine.
By Eric Sorensen, WSU science writer
Since the 1960s, when the defoliant Agent Orange was widely used in Vietnam, military, industry, and environmental groups have debated the toxicity of one of its ingredients, the chemical dioxin, and how it should be regulated.
But even if all the dioxin were eliminated from the planet, Washington State University researchers say its legacy would live on in the way it turns genes on and off in the descendants of people exposed over the past half century.
Writing in the journal PLoS ONE, biologist Michael Skinner and members of his lab say dioxin administered to pregnant rats resulted in a variety of reproductive problems and disease in subsequent generations. The first generation of rats had prostate disease, polycystic ovarian disease, and fewer ovarian follicles, the structures that contain eggs. To the surprise of Skinner and his colleagues, the third generation had even more dramatic incidences of ovarian disease and, in males, kidney disease. Continue story →
Thanks to grants from the Smith Teaching and Learning Endowment, thousands of undergraduates are benefiting from new or revised classes and teaching innovations at Washington State University.
“We are very pleased by the innovations developed by these skilled and thoughtful educators with the funding from the Smith grants,” said Mary F. Wack, vice provost for undergraduate education and dean of the University College. “They each made a great difference to academic experiences of the undergraduates in their classes and programs. And they serve as models to other faculty at WSU and nationally.”
The most recent six $5,000 grants allowed seven faculty members to implement their ideas to improve educational programs, including David Leonard (critical culture, gender, and race studies), Pamela Lee (fine arts), Allyson Beall (environment), and Tom Dickinson (physics and astronomy). They addressed either of two issues of importance at WSU today: improving student engagement in large classes and integrating environmental sustainability concepts into courses. Continue story →
Shoresh Shafei has been awarded a 2012 scholarship from the International Society for Optics and Photonics (SPIE) for his potential contributions to optics, photonics, or a related field.
Shafei is a graduate student of physics at Washington State University. Under the supervision of professor Mark Kuzyk and in collaboration with adjunct professor Rick Lytel, he is working on nonlinear optical properties of nanoscale quantum graphs as the molecules for future optical device materials.
Shafei is a reviewer for several journals, including the Journal of the Optical Society of America B and New Journal of Physics and was a founding member and president of the SPIE and OSA student chapters at WSU. Based on his leadership and research accomplishments, he received the 2012 President’s Award for Leadership at WSU.
SPIE awarded $350,000 in scholarships to 140 outstanding individuals. SPIE has distributed more than $3.3 million dollars in scholarships, reflecting the society’s commitment to education and to the next generation of optical scientists and engineers around the world.
Television personality, author, and Washington State University clinical associate professor of English Buddy Levy will appear at all three days of Emerald City Comicon, the largest comic book and pop culture convention in the Pacific Northwest. The gathering will be March 1–3, 2013, at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.
Levy is a co-star of the hit television series “Brad Meltzer’s Decoded” on The History Channel. The show finds Levy and company traveling the globe in search of answers to longstanding mysteries and legends, including the Lincoln assassination, the D.B. Cooper skyjacking, UFOs, and secret societies.
Levy also is an established author and freelance journalist.
Also appearing at Comicon will be Sir Patrick Stewart (Capt. Jean-Luc Picard in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”), Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian from “Star Wars” films), and Walter Koenig (Chekov from “Star Trek”).
Get tickets and more information at the Emerald City Comicon website.