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WSM staff

Book - Briefly Noted
Fall 2017

Briefly noted

 

The Positive Leader: Five Leadership Strategies for Attaining Extraordinary Results

Howard Gauthier ’81

Sports Leadership Publishing Company: 2016

Through a series of parables, this book gives leadership strategies designed to build successful teams in the workplace, on the playing field, or in the boardroom. Gauthier is a former college basketball coach and athletic director, and is currently an associate professor of sports science at Idaho State University-Meridian.

 

Midwives and Mothers: Medicalization of Childbirth on a Guatemalan Plantation

Sheila Cosminsky ’64 MA

University of Texas Press: 2016

In this exploration of birth, illness, death, and survival on a Guatemalan sugar and coffee plantation, Cosminsky … » More …

Book - Briefly Noted
Summer 2017

Briefly noted

 

Atomic Geography: A Personal History of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation

Melvin R. Adams

WSU Press: 2016

One of the first environmental engineers at Hanford recalls his two decades of study of both the toxic soil and water at the nuclear site, and the wildlife and plants that thrive on the 586 square miles of central Washington desert. Adams helped determine the initial scope of the soil cleanup at Hanford, among other projects there. He shares his perspectives on leaking waste storage, the obsession with safety, and the paradoxical nature of a place that’s a sprawling wildlife refuge and one of the most complex environmental … » More …

Class Notes
Summer 2017

Class notes

1960s

Carol Lemon Allen (’61 English) and her husband Jim have both received Writers of the Year Award from the Arizona Game and Fish Department for their print and online publications Arizona Boating & Watersports/Western Outdoor Times.

Retired hotel developer and manager Larry Culver (’64 HBM) was honored with the WSU Alumni Achievement Award in recognition of his career as an innovative leader in the hospitality industry and his service to WSU. After managing hotels and restaurants throughout the United States, he helped found Innco, a developer and manager of hotels in the Midwest. He later founded InnVentures, a hotel development and management company with … » More …

In Memoriam
Summer 2017

In memoriam

1930s

Louise Kahse Spinning (’31 Hum.), 102, November 12, 2011, Davenport.

Frank Platt (x’34 Busi.), 102, December 5, 2016, Shoreline.

Geraldine “Jeri” Kerr (’37 Pharm.), 100, November 28, 2016, Newport.

Nadene Denison Hunter (’39 Zool., Kappa Alpha Theta), 98, September 12, 2016, South Dansville, New York.

1940s

Charles O. Lutton (’40 Busi.), 101, October 23, 2016, Portland, Oregon.

Beulah “Betty” J. Wills (’40 Bacterio.), 98, December 27, 2016, Spokane.

Albert James Low Jr. (’41 Chem. Eng., Phi Delta Theta), 98, December 22, 2016, Richland.

Mary McFarland (’41 Music), 95, October 28, 2016, Sandpoint, Idaho.

Blanche A. King (’42, ’46 MA Home Econ.), 99, August 12, … » More …

John Yeager
Summer 2017

John Yeager ’06, ’08 MS, ’11 PhD

John Yeager wants to know what happens to materials all the way down to the nanoscale, even when they detonate. His curiosity led to three WSU materials science degrees, and a recent award.

Yeager ’06, ’08 MS, ’11 PhD, now works for the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s High Explosives Science and Technology group in New Mexico. He received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in January.

Established in 1996, the Presidential Early Career Award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers in the early stages of their independent research careers. Yeager is among … » More …

grape vine illustration
Summer 2017

Hanging a left at wine

The allure of winemaking has attracted a menagerie of professionals to the business. Washington State University’s Viticulture and Enology Program has lured aerospace engineers, Army medics, apparel designers, scientists, and many others to the field. Here, we bring you a few of the stories of those who have changed careers by hanging a left at wine.

After years of dissecting rat brains, Berenice Burdet had had enough.

The Argentinian neuroscientist was untangling stress’s web of physiological effects on the hippocampus. The stress we feel in a crammed subway train, Burdet says, affects our behavior by dampening affect. We become depressed, and activity levels decline. … » More …

Talk Back
Summer 2017

Talkback for Summer 2017

 

Waste not

I enjoyed reading “Waste Not” in the Spring ’17 issue of Washington State Magazine. I learned a lot and was especially intrigued by the part about microwave sterilization and preservation.

I thought I would clarify to readers that, while composting food waste still releases greenhouse gasses, if treated properly with balanced carbon-to-nitrogen ratios, aeration, and moisture, decaying food waste favors carbon dioxide and releases less methane than that same material would in a landfill, where moisture, aeration, and the rot recipe are far from optimal. Methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Animal husbandry is the missing … » More …

Talk Back
Spring 2017

TalkBack for Spring 2017

 

Where would the wood?… 

I enjoyed the article “Wood Takes Wing” in the Winter 16 edition of Washington State Magazine on the many possibilities for wood as a new source of carbon molecules for all of those polymers we take for granted. Technologies that allow us to reduce burning of fossil fuels for energy recognize its highest value. The potential for atmospheric carbon reduction is a plus.

But there was an unasked question hanging behind the article—where will the timber come from to fill the old mills? The same environmental groups who just say no to transporting or burning fossil fuels also eagerly block … » More …