Biology students win Spector Prize

Erica Blatt, Douglas Ramsey and Meenakshi Rao, graduating seniors in biology, have been named recipients of the Marian Smith Spector Prize in Biology for 2000. The students will be honored at a May 17 reception along with other honors students.

Blatt, Ramsey and Rao, whose work was judged best among more than 25 honors biology graduates, presented research talks on their work at a special biology department seminar Monday, May 1.

The Spector Prize, which began in 1974, is an annual award for academic excellence and outstanding undergraduate achievement. It was established in memory of Marian Spector, a 1938 graduate of the University. Spector studied zoology here under Viktor Hamburger, Ph.D., who is now the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biology. She participated in Hamburger's highly acclaimed research in embryology.

Blatt performed her studies in the laboratory of Steven Brody, M.D., assistant professor of medicine in the School of Medicine. Her work on the expression of a particular transcription factor during development suggests that it is a key element in the differentiation of ciliated epithelia. Blatt plans on attending graduate school in public health this fall.

Click to see entire article

Robert Snarrenberg named chair of music

Robert Snarrenberg, Ph.D., associate professor of music, recently was named chair of the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences. Snarrenberg, who also heads the Division of Music Theory and Composition, succeeds Hugh J. Macdonald, Ph.D., the Avis Blewett Professor of Music, who had led the department since 1997.

Snarrenberg, who arrived at the University in 1989, has written widely on the work of music theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935), including the book "Schenker's Interpretive Practice" (1997), which won the Society for Music Theory's 1998 Young Scholar Award. The volume -- the first comprehensive study of Schenker's criticism -- examines the theorist's humanist roots and situates his analytical methods within the broader context of a desire to portray the richness and particularity of musical experience.

In its award citation, the Society for Music Theory praised "Schenker's Interpretive Practice" as "an elegantly-composed study ... that draws together close reading, historical detail and critical insight," adding that "Schenker is recreated as a very human, poignant figure."

Click to see entire article

Campus Authors

Attractively illustrated with more than 100 halftones and drawings, this volume presents a series of vibrant profiles that trace the evolution of our knowledge about the brain.

Beginning almost 5,000 years ago, with the ancient Egyptian study of "the marrow of the skull," Stanley Finger embarks on a fascinating journey from the classical world of Hippocrates, to the time of Descartes and the era of Broca and Ramon y Cajal, to the lives of modern researchers such as Roger Sperry. Here is a truly remarkable cast of characters. We meet Galen, a man of titanic ego and abrasive disposition, whose teachings dominated medicine for 1,000 years; Vesalius, a contemporary of Copernicus, who pushed our understanding of human anatomy to new heights; Otto Loewi, pioneer in neurotransmitters, who gave the Nazis his Nobel Prize money and fled Austria for England; and Rita Levi-Montalcini, discoverer of nerve growth factor, who in war-torn Italy was forced to do her research in her bedroom.

Click to see entire article

Obituary

Andrew D. Dimarogonas, Ph.D., the William Palm Professor of Mechanical Design, died at his University City home Sunday, April 23, 2000, of cancer. He was 61.

Dimarogonas came to Washington University in 1986 as head of the mechanical design program in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Before coming to the University, he was an engineering professor and administrator at the University of Patras in Greece from 1974 to 1982. He also served as associate professor of mechanical engineering from 1972 to 1974 at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. In addition, Dimarogonas spent 10 years in industry, including five years in the large steam turbine-generator division of General Electric Co. in Schenectady, N.Y.

Click to see entire article

For the record

William R. Lowry, Ph.D., associate professor of political science in Arts & Sciences, recently was named Volunteer of the Year at the annual Campus Y banquet. Lowry, who has been an integral part of the activities of the Campus Y since his arrival at the University, has served on the board of managers for the past 10 years and as chair of the Campus Y for the last four years. The Campus Y helps get more than 2,000 students, faculty and staff involved in more than 40,000 hours of community service each year. ...

Lawrence H. Snyder, M.D., assistant professor of anatomy and neurobiology, recently received a four-year $934,210 grant from the National Eye Institute for a project titled "Visual-motor Transformations in the Parietal Cortex."