Social Sciences

Long journey of WSU’s newest student regent

Jordan Frost was a sophomore at Kent-Meridian High School when a teacher, Andrea McCormick, handed him a packet of materials to run for student body president. She already had filled them out. “You just need to sign your name,” she said. Later, she gave him a Washington State University hoodie, “which was really the first […]

FBI data show positive policing changes after cannabis legalization

WSU researchers have found that marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington has not hurt police effectiveness. In fact, clearance rates for certain crimes have improved. Clearance rates — the number of cases solved, typically by the arrest of a suspect — were falling for violent and property crimes in the two states before they authorized […]

Researcher named to Washington State Academy of Sciences

Timothy Kohler, Regents professor in anthropology, has been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences He is an eminent archaeologist and evolutionary anthropologist specializing in quantitative analyses of prehistoric behavior set in climatically accurate paleoenvironments. He is well known for his work on cooperative behaviors, wealth inequalities and their consequences, and models of pre-Hispanic […]

Arts & humanities faculty awarded 2018 fellowships

Seven College of Arts and Sciences faculty received WSU Arts and Humanities Fellowship awards through a program funded by the Office of Research. “These grants showcase the range and innovation of creative and humanistic work at WSU,” said Todd Butler, chair of the fellowship review committee. “These faculty are taking on challenging questions and demonstrating […]

Ethnic studies professor to lead new school of languages, cultures, race

Carmen R. Lugo-Lugo, a professor of comparative ethnic studies at WSU, has been named inaugural director of the new School of Languages, Cultures, and Race (SLCR) in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). She brings to her leadership role extensive experience in teaching and research as well as several years of mentoring graduate students […]

Scholarship impact: Vancouver’s “Wonder Woman”

If “life experience” were an academic program, Natalie Ewing, a social science and digital technology and culture double major, would already have her master’s degree. Like many other nontraditional students, Ewing encountered her share of detours and unexpected turns along the path to college. Raised in California, she grew up amid drugs, alcohol, physical and […]

What’s at the core of a dark personality?

Dark personality traits such as narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy are socially aversive personality styles that are often confused because of their similarities. Using a quantitative technique called network analysis, WSU psychologists David Marcus and Jonathan Preszler, along with their colleague Virgil Zeigler-Hill at Oakland University, are investigating the behaviors that make up the common core of dark personality traits.

Researchers see gene influencing performance of sleep-deprived people

Washington State University researchers have discovered a genetic variation that predicts how well people perform certain mental tasks when they are sleep deprived. Their research shows that individuals with a particular variation of the DRD2 gene are resilient to the effects of sleep deprivation when completing tasks that require cognitive flexibility, the ability to make […]

A mother’s microbial gift

Old assumptions about human breast milk are giving way to new thinking about microbes in milk and their role in children’s health and our immune systems. It happened again, most recently at a conference in Prague. After she gave her talk, a scientist came up to Shelley McGuire, a pioneer exploring the microbial communities found […]