Goodenough to discuss morality for Assembly Series

By Barbara Rea

Ursula W. Goodenough, Ph.D., distinguished molecular biologist and author of The Sacred Depths of Nature, will deliver a talk titled "Is It Natural to Be Moral?" for the Assembly Series at 11 a.m. March 20 in Graham Chapel.

Goodenough joined the faculty of Washington University in 1978 after teaching at Harvard University. In 1982, she became a professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, and holds a joint appointment as associate professor of anatomy in the School of Medicine.

Ursula W. Goodenough

In addition, she serves as adjunct professor of cell biology at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Goodenough has written three editions of a widely adopted textbook, Genetics, has co-written more than 100 articles and reviews for scientific journals and has served on the editorial boards for a host of professional journals.

She has served in advisory capacities for national biomedical organizations, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Research Council and the National Science Foundation (NSF). She has served as president of the American Society for Cell Biology.

In recent years, Goodenough has added another dimension to her career as a scientist that focuses on the relationship between science and religion. In 1989, she joined the Institute on Religion in an Age of Science and served on its council and as its president for four years.

In 1998, she published The Sacred Depths of Nature, a book that offers religious perspectives on today's scientific understandings of nature. The book has been both a critical and a popular success. She also serves on the editorial board of Zygon: The Journal of Religion and Science.

Goodenough earned a bachelor's degree in zoology from Barnard College, a master's from Columbia University, also in zoology, and a doctorate from Harvard University in biology.

Her research focuses on the cell biology and genetics of the sexual phase of the life cycle of the unicellular eukaryotic green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, and, more recently, on the evolution of the genes governing mating-related traits. Her laboratory is supported by grants from the NIH, NSF and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

All Assembly Series talks are free and open to the public. For more information on this and other Assembly Series lectures, call 935-5285 or visit the series Web site, wupa.wustl.edu/assembly.