Nine years later, the Washington University sophomore is helping sustain the life of the Missouri River.

Furthering those early-in-life lessons that she bravely confronted door-to-door back in Livonia, Mich., Nelson now is one of 71 undergraduates enrolled in the Hewlett Program in Environmental Studies.

Piloted in 1997-98 and funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the two-year program is an innovative, problem-based approach to learning that reaches across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. The basic concept is that solving environmental problems requires both a grasp of underlying scientific issues and the cultural understanding necessary to form viable policy and conservation strategies.

Fully compatible with all majors and preprofessional programs, the Hewlett Program incorporates small discussion classes, collaborative projects, lectures, field trips and cultural and social activities.

"It's really a pathway for the first two years -- with an emphasis on the first year -- that not only gets students ready to go into their major but also excites them about learning," said Raymond E. Arvidson, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts and Sciences and project leader for the Hewlett environmental program.

In the fall, first-year students begin to explore environmental questions through a central interdisciplinary course, "Land Dynamics and the Environment: Scientific, Cultural, Policy and Ethical Perspectives."

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Ackerman, who also holds joint appointments as research professor of chemistry and as professor of radiology in the School of Medicine, is known internationally for his contributions to the application and development of nuclear magnetic resonance techniques for the study of intact living systems.

Ackerman came to the University in 1979. He has published widely in the field and is the author or co-author of nearly 100 scientific manuscripts. He provides leadership across campus, serving on the executive committees of the Division of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences and numerous other panels.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton praised Ackerman's research and dedication. "Washington University is fortunate to be able to recognize Dr. Joseph Ackerman by appointing him as William Greenleaf Eliot Professor of Chemistry," Wrighton said. "Dr. Ackerman has made pathbreaking contributions in the chemical sciences and has been an extraordinary contributor to the advance of the Department of Chemistry and the University as a whole. Personally, I am grateful to Dr. Ackerman for his leadership and scholarship and for his commitment to Washington University."

Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of Arts and Sciences, announced the appointment. "Joe and I have been colleagues for over two decades and I know from my own experience that he is an absolutely first-rate scientist," Macias said. "He came to Washington University having already distinguished himself in the scientific community, and he has continued to do outstanding work in a field that has become more and more important and critical to work in many other fields.

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"This study marks the first time we've been able to peer inside someone's brain and predict on average whether or not you will later forget something you are now experiencing," said Randy L. Buckner, senior author of the article and assistant professor of psychology in Arts and Sciences. "Now, we can actually see areas of the brain as they go about the process of memorization."

Based on collaborative research by scientists at Washington University, the Massachusetts General Hospital-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center (MGH-NMR) in Boston and Harvard University, the journal article describes how levels of activity in certain brain structures can predict whether information will be retained in memory.

"One of the big questions about memory is why is it that we remember some of our experiences and yet not others," Buckner said. "We all know this fact from our daily lives, yet as a scientist studying the brain, I could until recently tell you very little about the brain basis of such a process.

"Now, by exploring brain activity associated with experiences that we will remember and comparing it to activity associated with words that we will forget, we are making progress in trying to answer this question," he went on. "What our research suggests is that certain specific brain areas in the front-most part of the brain, just above and behind the eyes, will be more active when we are experiencing a word that we will remember, and this activity may participate in one component of the process of memorization."

Although psychologists have long suspected that how we process information into memory is critically important to later remembering and forgetting, this study is the first to capture images of specific memories as they are being formed within the brain.

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