Science research roundup: September 2020

Researchers from Arts & Sciences recently received awards from the National Institutes of Health, the American Chemical Society, and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.

Keith Hengen, assistant professor in the Department of Biology, was awarded a $1,842,189 grant from the National Institutes of Heath for a project titled "Robust Circuit Computation in Freely Behaving Animals."

Richard Loomis, professor of chemistry, won the American Chemical Society’s 2020 Saint Louis Section Award. The award is presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the profession of chemistry and demonstrated potential to further the advancement of the chemical profession. Read more from the Source.

Jeffrey Zacks, associate chair and professor of psychological and brain sciences, received a four-year $250,000 grant from the James S. McDonnell Foundation to study event cognition "in the wild." This project will take the research into the world, where people actually experience events. Key to the research is "Unforgettable," an infrastructure developed over the past decade by collaborator Simon Dennis, of the University of Melbourne, which helps people enrich and better understand their own memories while collecting data for a scientific exploration of event comprehension and memory.

Anne M. Hofmeister, research professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, won a 2020 Professional Excellence Award from the Association for Women Geoscientists. The award recognizes Hofmeister's distinguished career contributions to academia and research.

James Buckley, professor of physics, received a $150,000 award from Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory for ADMX Dark Matter New Initiatives.

Gayle Fritz, professor emerita of archaeology in the Department of Anthropology, was awarded the 2020 Mary W. Klinger Book Award for "Feeding Cahokia" by the Society for Economic Botany. Read more from the Source.

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics, won a $51,811 grant from the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for a project titled, "Distinguishing between Circumbinary and Interstellar Medium Dust Signatures in GX5-1."

Did we miss something? Contact Shawn Ballardcommunications specialist in Arts & Sciences.