Research Wire

Some plants like ginkgo trees have either male or female flowers, not both. Susanne Renner, honorary professor of biology in Arts & Sciences, reviewed the genetic basis of sex determination in plants for Nature Plants and will guest-edit a special issue of a Royal Society journal on the topic.

The Bellwether Foundation Inc. has awarded Olin Business School and the Brookings Institution a $750,000 grant to improve the quality of life for people in St. Louis and across the country.

Macy Sprunger, a graduate student in Meredith Jackrel’s lab in the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, won a three-year $136,560 National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Such fellowships support predoctoral students conducting research in scientific health-related fields.

Michael Nowak, research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, is co-author of a study in The Astrophysical Journal Letters that shares unprecedented observations of the black hole in the galaxy M87.

John E. McCarthy, the Spencer T. Olin Professor of Mathematics and chair of mathematics and statistics in Arts & Sciences, received a five-year $450,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop new tools to deal with complexity in the design of systems such as those used in automatic pilots and self-driving cars.

Abhinav Jha, assistant professor at the McKelvey School of Engineering, has received a four-year $1.83 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He will develop a new framework to evaluate quantitative imaging methods and help doctors make better decisions.

Claire Masteller, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, won a $149,417 grant from the U.S. Army Research Office’s Early Career Program.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded Vijay Ramani and co-investigators $500,000 to integrate batteries designed in the Ramani lab into power plants.

The fluorine isotope is the fifth new isotope that Robert J. Charity, research professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, and Lee G. Sobotka, professor of chemistry and of physics, have discovered together. They reported their observations in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Ruopeng An, assistant professor at the Brown School, has received a $90,000 three-year grant from the Egg Nutrition Center for a project titled “Influence of Whole Egg Consumption on Diet Quality and Cognitive Function among U.S. Older Adults.”