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CAS in the Media Arts and Sciences Media Headlines

Live performance pairs music and scent

Two Washington State University departments are collaborating on an experience to have more sensory impact on a live audience. César Haas, instructor of guitar and jazz studies at the School of Music, and Carolyn Ross, professor of sensory science from the School of Food Science, have developed a sensory performance experience combining music and scent.

Cesar Haas.
Haas

“Synesthesia: Sounds and Scents of Brazil” will feature original music and arrangements of jazz and Brazilian music by Haas, a Brazilian guitarist. For each composition performed, aroma packets developed by Ross will elicit a sense of place for listening to the song, while other aromas connect more with the song itself.

The performance will also feature jazz vocalist Michalangela, along with WSU professors Austin Cebulske (saxaphone), Christian Kim (piano), Christiano Rodrigues (violin), Darryl Singleton (percussion), Dave Bjur (bass), Dave Turnbull (trumpet), and Ruth Boden (cello).

The concert will take place in the Kimbrough Concert Hall on Friday, October 14 at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.

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WSU Insider

New leaders in arts and sciences bring wealth of experience to posts

Three academic units in the College of Arts and Sciences are welcoming new leadership this fall.

Allyson Beall King.
King
Clifford Berkman.
Berkman
Keri McCarthy.
McCarthy

In the School of Music, Professor Keri McCarthy succeeds Dean Luethi as director, and in the Department of Chemistry, Professor Cliff Berkman succeeds Kirk Peterson as chair.

In the School of the Environment—which is part of both CAS and the College of Agricultural, Human, and Natural Resource Sciences—Allyson Beall King, associate professor, career track, succeeds Kent Keller as director.

“Drs. McCarthy, Berkman, and King bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to their new roles,” said Todd Butler, CAS dean. Their respective terms began Aug. 16.

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WSU Insider

Music professor to perform with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer

Jacqueline Wilson.
Wilson

When Jacqueline Wilson takes the stage Saturday night at New York City’s Whitney Museum of American Art, she will be one of 13 Indigenous women musicians performing original scores written specifically for each of them by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon.

“This is so unique that I will be standing up there with 12 other Native women representing the first Indigenous Pulitzer Prize winner in music in the history of the award,” said Wilson, a bassoonist and assistant professor of music at Washington State University. “It is by far the most special thing I’ve ever been a part of. I’m really proud of it.”

Wilson and her fellow musicians will be performing a series of 13 lithographs collectively known as “For Zitkála-Šá.” A Yankton Dakota composer and musician, Zitkála-Šá lived from 1876 to 1938 and wrote the libretto and songs for The Sun Dance Opera (1913), the first American Indian opera.

Chacon wrote the graphic scores that make up “For Zitkála-Šá” specifically for Wilson and the other contemporary American Indian, First Nations, and Mestiza women performers.

He envisions each piece as a portrait of the woman who is performing it and how they navigate the twenty-first century.

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WSU Insider

WSU students land three Goldwater Awards to support STEM research

The Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation has announced that Washington State University students John Bussey, Kalli Stephens, and Thomas Ballinger have received $7,500 awards to support their education.

Prestigious, nationally competitive Goldwater distinguished scholarships are given to high-achieving undergraduates intending to pursue careers in math, the natural sciences, or engineering (STEM). These latest awardees bring WSU’s total number of Goldwater recipients to 48 since the first in 1990.

John Bussey

Bussey, a sophomore from Olympia, is an Honors College student majoring in materials science and engineering, minoring in environmental and resource economics and mathematics, and seeking a nuclear materials certificate.

Ballinger, a junior from Reno, Nevada, is majoring in genetics and cell biology as well as music. He is in SMB’s Students Targeted Toward Advanced Research Studies (STARS) program, which allows undergraduates to earn an accelerated Bachelor of Science degree in three years—including research rotations and mentorship–and move into a doctorate path. He envisions a career investigating aging as well as synthetic biology.

A National Merit Scholar, he said he chose WSU for his education because of its genetics and cell biology program, the SMB STARS program, and the music program in piano.

Thomas Ballinger

His mentors include SMB’s Cynthia Hazeltine, Vice Provost for Academic Engagement and Student Achievement William B. Davis, the Institute of Biological Chemistry’s Philip D. Bates, the School of  Music’s Yoon-Wha (Yuna) Roh, and his Reno piano teacher Jeff DePaoli.

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WSU Insider
Big Country News

Nine faculty selected to receive seed grants

The WSU Office of Research has awarded nine faculty with 2022 New Faculty Seed Grants.

The grant program provides support for junior faculty to develop research, scholarly, or creative programs that lead to sustained professional development and extramural funding. The program is sponsored by the Office of Research and the Office of the Provost.

Since the New Faculty Seed Grant program began in 2000, junior faculty have submitted 963 proposals to the program. Of these, 279 awards were given with $4.75 million invested in the program. Over the years, seed grant winners have submitted 734 external proposals related to their projects, bringing in over $49.4 million in externally funded awards.

Jacqueline Wilson.
Wilson
Andra Chastain.
Chastain
John Blong.
Blong

The 2022 New Faculty Seed Grant recipients in the College of Arts and Sciences include:

  • John Blong, Department of Anthropology, will apply a novel suite of methods to investigate how prehistoric people in the Great Basin region of western North America maintained food systems over millennia of climate change.
  • Andra Chastain, Department of History, will research how urban air pollution is represented, experienced, and ultimately understood as a public health crisis in Santiago, Chile; Mexico City; and Los Angeles.
  • Jacqueline Wilson, School of Music, will create an album of works for the bassoon by Māori composers to bring new depth to the Indigenous representation in the bassoon repertoire, combat monolithic racial depictions, and promote artistic sovereignty.

Full descriptions of these projects are available online.