Skip to main content Skip to navigation
CAS in the Media Arts and Sciences Media Headlines

Graduate students win NSF research fellowships

Three Washington State University College of Arts and Sciences students have been chosen for National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships. The prestigious awards have trained generations of American scientists and engineers, including Nobel laureates.

The College of Arts and Sciences’ honorees are:

Avery Anne Lane, an anthropology student from Tucson, Ariz., who is working on a master’s in Courtney Meehan’s biocultural anthropology lab.

Shawn Trojahn, a biology master’s student from Virginia Beach, Va., who is looking at the global decline in biodiversity in the vulnerable mangrove forest, a habitat affected by logging and water pollution.

Lindsey Marie Lavaysse, a psychology master’s student from San Francisco, is focusing on occupational health and safety threats to vulnerable populations like pregnant and minority workers.

Find out more

WSU News

Plant inner workings point way to more nutritious crops

Michael Knoblauch, biological sciences
Michael Knoblauch

Almost every calorie that we eat at one time went through the veins of a plant. If a plant’s circulatory system could be rejiggered to make more nutrients available – through bigger seeds or sweeter tomatoes – the world’s farmers could feed more people.

Washington State University researchers have taken a major step in that direction by unveiling the way a plant’s nutrients get from the leaves, where they are produced through photosynthesis, to “sinks” that can include the fruits and seeds we eat and the branches we process for biofuels. The researchers found a unique and critical structure where the nutrients are offloaded, giving science a new focal point in efforts to improve plant efficiency and productivity.

“If you can increase the sink strength by 5 percent, and you get 5 percent more product, you’d be looking at a multibillion dollar market,” said Michael Knoblauch, a professor in the WSU School of Biological Sciences.

Find out more

WSU News

Dramatic evolution within human genome may have been caused by malaria parasite

Omar E. Cornejo
Omar E. Cornejo

A genetic mutation that protects people from a common form of malaria spread like wildfire in sub-Saharan Africa about 42,000 years ago, according to a new study.

To learn more about how and when this mutation spread, Omar Cornejo, a population geneticist at Washington State University in Pullman, and colleagues analyzed full genome sequences from 1000 modern individuals from 21 population centers in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The researchers then employed a computer-based simulation that predicts how certain genetic variants spread throughout a population over time given the region’s known demographics and various selective pressures.

Based on rates of genetic change, the simulation suggests the most recent common ancestor of living Africans who possessed the DARC mutation lived about 42,000 years ago, the team reports this month in PLOS Genetics.

Find out more

Science Magazine

Undergraduate researchers win national awards

Three Washington State University undergraduates won national awards and cash prizes recently for outstanding presentations at the 2016 Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in Tampa, Fla.

Marleny Garcia, a senior zoology and pre-medicine major from Mattawa, Wash., won in the cell biology category for her research poster, “Kallikreins in Female Reproductive Tract: New Players in Semen Liquefaction.” Carlie Knox, a senior neuroscience and psychology major from Federal Way, Wash., won in the neuroscience category for her poster, “Sex Differences in Opioid-cannabinoid Interactions on Chronic Inflammatory pain.”

Find out more

WSU News

WiSTEM encourages, mentors WSU women in STEM

Elizabeth Magill
Magill

As a sophomore transfer student, Elizabeth Magill wanted to start on the path to graduate school right away.

“I was really passionate about my zoology studies but didn’t know how to get involved outside of class,” she said. “In my junior year, I met two female graduate teaching assistants. They gave me direction, helped me get a job in a zoology lab and are still my friends and mentors today.”

In appreciation for that guidance, Magill is helping other students by participating in the WiSTEM initiative – Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – at Washington State University.

The School of Biological Sciences (SBS) launched the effort this fall to connect young women interested in STEM careers with mentors, networking opportunities and a supportive community of like-minded individuals.

Find out more

WSU News