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CAS in the Media Arts and Sciences Media Headlines

CAS faculty receive Office of Research awards

The WSU Office of Research presented awards to eight faculty members, including three in the College of Arts and Sciences, for their outstanding achievements in research, as part of opening ceremonies for WSU Research Week.

Kimberly Christen.
Kim Christen

The Creative Activity, Research and Scholarship Award went to Kim Christen, professor in the Department of English, director of the Digital Technology and Culture Program, director of the Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation, and director of Digital Initiatives for the College of Arts and Sciences.

Christen has generated more than $4 million in external funding, including WSU’s first institutional grant from the Mellon Foundation. She has leveraged this support to create and sustain interdisciplinary projects and workspaces, most prominently establishing with WSU Libraries the new Center for Digital Scholarship and Curation.

She directs several digital humanities projects, including the Plateau Peoples’ Web Portal, a collaboratively curated site of Plateau cultural materials; Mukurtu CMS, a free and open source content management system and community digital archive aimed at the unique needs of indigenous communities; and the Sustainable Heritage Network, an online community of people dedicated to making the preservation and digitization of cultural heritage materials sustainable, simple, and secure.

Tammy Barry.
Tammy Barry

An Exceptional Service to the Office of Research Award went to Tammy Barry, professor in the Department of Psychology. Barry co-chairs the Research and Arts Committee & the Centers, Institutes, or Laboratories task force, and provides outstanding support for the many Office of Research initiatives.

Peter Reilly.
Peter Reilly

The awards included a prize for submitting the best idea to the National Science Foundation’s 2026 Idea Machine, a competition to help set the U.S. agenda for fundamental research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and STEM education. The winner of this award is Peter Reilly, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry, for his idea “Ultra-High Mass Spectrometry: The Next Frontier.”

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Renewable energy offers common ground for Democrats, Republicans

As the battle lines are drawn for next month’s hotly contested midterm elections, some Americans may be comforted to know there is at least one area of common ground for Democrats and Republicans.

Christine Horne.
Horne

Regardless of political standing, age or gender, U.S. voters are in favor of renewable energy, according to research by Christine Horne, professor of sociology at Washington State University.

Horne and Emily Kennedy, a former WSU sociology professor now at the University of British Columbia, are the authors of a new study in the journalEnvironmental Politics that shows while conservatives and liberals tend to disagree on many environmental issues, they both view the development of solar power and other forms of renewable energy as financially savvy and a step towards self-sufficiency.

The research identifies an area where policymakers on both sides of the aisle could work together. It also could have important implications for utility companies and other businesses involved in the manufacture and sale of renewable energy technologies.

“I think anyone who is paying attention to our current political climate might be interested to see there is an area of common ground,” Horne said. “Marketing renewable energy as a way to be more self-sufficient is a message that would appeal to both liberals and conservatives.”

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WSU faculty member, students to perform at Carnegie Hall

Washington State University students Francis Fay and Gordon Shaw, and faculty member Ruth Boden will make their debut in Carnegie Hall on Nov. 3 in Manhattan, New York.

The three will perform with international cellist Mischa Quint and the InterHarmony Cello Ensemble.

Two musci students and their professor with their instruments.
Francis Fay, Gordon Shaw and Ruth Boden, l-r, to appear at Carnegie Hall. The invitation came as a result of their participation in the InterHarmony International Music Festival this summer in Aqcui Terme, Italy.

The invitation was extended to the trio as a result of their participation in the InterHarmony International Music Festival this summer in Aqcui Terme, Italy, where Ruth Boden was on faculty, and Francis Fay and Gordon Shaw were students.

Fay is a junior music major studying cello performance, and Shaw is a sophomore music major studying music composition, cello and guitar. Boden is an associate professor in the WSU School of Music where she teaches cello, bass, music theory and coordinates the chamber music program.

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Grant supports improving cider industry—‘Apple to Glass’

A new group, led by WSU researchers, will work with orchardists and cider makers to develop the best apples for cider.

Hard apple cider is growing in popularity around the country, and craft ciders from small cideries are the fastest growing segment of that market.

Equipped with a grant from the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, a new group, led by Washington State University researchers, will work with orchardists and cider makers to develop the best apples to make the tasty libation.

The $500,000 grant, called “Apple to Glass: Improving orchard profitability through developing regional craft ciders” covers three years of funding.

Marcia Ostrom.
Ostrom

“We want to make sure our orchards and cider makers benefit from this new market,” said Marica Ostrom, a professor in WSU’s School of the Environment and the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources. “We’re aiming to help family-scale orchards and cideries, with the idea being to provide benefits to both groups.”

WSU scientists will work with colleagues in Michigan, Vermont and Wisconsin on the grant. They will conduct needs assessments with orchardists to find out what barriers exist for producing cider apples. They also will host focus groups with cider makers to see what they’re looking for when selecting cider apples.

In addition, researchers will conduct research with consumers to try and understand how to communicate cider features produced in a particular place, much like the concept of “terroir” in wines.

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Researcher warns of possible reprise of worst known drought, famine

A Washington State University researcher has completed the most thorough analysis yet of The Great Drought — the most devastating known drought of the past 800 years — and how it led to the Global Famine, an unprecedented disaster that took 50 million lives.

She warns that the Earth’s current warming climate could make a similar drought even worse.

Deepti Singh.Deepti Singh, an assistant professor in WSU’s School of the Environment, used tree‑ring data, rainfall records and climate reconstructions to characterize the conditions leading up to the Great Drought, a period of widespread crop failures in Asia, Brazil and Africa from 1875 to 1878.

“Climate conditions that caused the Great Drought and Global Famine arose from natural variability. And their recurrence—with hydrological impacts intensified by global warming—could again potentially undermine global food security,” she and her colleagues write in the Journal of Climate, published online Oct. 4. The paper comes as a United Nations report this week predicts that rising worldwide temperatures will bring about more frequent food shortages and wildfires as soon as 2040.

The Global Famine is among the worst humanitarian disasters in history, comparable to the influenza epidemic of 1918‑1919, World War I or World War II. As an environmental disaster, it has few rivals. Making matters worse were social conditions, like British colonialists hoarding and exporting grain from India. Some populations were particularly vulnerable to disease and colonial expansion afterwards.

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