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AI Predicts Infant Age and Gender Based on Temperament

It’s hard to tell the difference between a newborn boy and girl based solely on temperament characteristics such as the baby’s propensity to display fear, smile or laugh. But once babies reach around a year old that begins to change.

A new study in PLOS ONE used machine learning to analyze temperament data on 4,438 babies in an attempt to classify the infants by gender and age.

The results indicate it is far easier for computer algorithms to determine the age of a baby than it is for them to decipher a baby’s gender based off temperament data during the infant’s first 48 weeks of life.

However, once the babies passed 48 weeks of age, gender classification improved for the multiple algorithms considered, suggesting gender differences in infancy become more accentuated around this time.

Masha Maria Gartstein.
Gartstein

“It is at least suggestive of a picture where temperament begins to differentiate by gender in a more powerful way around age one,” said Maria Gartstein, lead author of the study and a professor of psychology at Washington State University.

Previous research has investigated age and gender-based temperament differences in babies, but few if any studies have looked at the two variables together.

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Neuroscience News
India Times
Mirage
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Two WSU Faculty Members Named to National Academy of Sciences

Tim Kohler.
Kohler

Washington State University Biochemistry Professor John Browse and anthropology Professor Tim Kohler have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their achievements in original research, the college announced Sunday.

Browse and Kohler are among 150 new members named to the National Academy of Sciences on May 3.

The National Academy of Sciences, which was first established in 1863 by U.S. Congress and then President Abraham Lincoln, is a nonprofit society of scholars charged with providing independent, objective advice about science and technology to the nation.

According to the university, Kohler studies the social dynamics of prehistoric cultures, specializing in the U.S. Southwest. His research explores the relationships among demography, violence, wealth inequality, social evolution, and climate variability.

Kohler’s current projects include the SKOPE project to make interpreted paleoenvironmental data widely accessible, and another National Science Foundation-funded project to generate and analyze measures of wealth inequality in societies around the world over the last 10,000 years.

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Big Country News
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History lecturer selected for Excellence in Online Teaching Award

Karl Krotke-Crandall.
Krotke-Crandall

Karl Krotke-Crandall, lecturer for Washington State University’s Department of History, is the winner of the 2021-22 Excellence in Online Teaching Award. The student-nominated annual award is sponsored by WSU Academic Outreach and Innovation.

The award, now in its sixth year, seeks to acknowledge and reward Washington State University faculty members teaching Global Campus courses who employ best practices to engage, inspire, support, and show care for students in an online environment. Krotke-Crandall will receive $3,000 in faculty development funds and a trophy in recognition of his win.

“I’m honored to be selected, and a little surprised. It can be challenging to know what type of impact I make as an educator in an online environment,” said Krotke-Crandall. “To see the comments from my students is heartwarming and validates my aims to provide them with an engaging learning environment.”

Krotke-Crandall earned his Ph.D. in Russian history from WSU in 2021 and began teaching Global Campus courses that same year. He was one of 40 online instructors nominated for the award.

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Stepping up for students ‘just like me’

Forty-one years after being accepted to WSU — and after donating about $31 million to students in need of tuition help — Gary Rubens earns his degree in Pullman.

Gary Rubens first considered attending college in 1981 after he graduated from Issaquah (Wash.) High School, but even after being accepted to Washington State University he found the cost of the college education too much to afford.

Rubens instead chose to enter the workforce, where he would build a successful lighting supply company, ATG Stores, based in Kirkland, Wash., which he sold to the Lowe’s Corporation in 2011.

This sale got him thinking about what he wanted to do next.

“I thought back about what I wanted to do to help others and I just realized that I should really focus on helping people that are just like me, that have high potential but low opportunities,” Rubens said.

More than four decades after he graduated high school, Rubens walked across the stage at the Washington State University commencement ceremonies in Pullman to receive his degree in the social sciences with a focus on psychology and sociology.

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Moscow-Pullman Daily News
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Krishnamoorthy named first recipient of Yang ‘Wendy’ Liu Award

Bala Krishnamoorthy.
Krishnamoorthy

Bala Krishnamoorthy, PhD, professor of mathematics and statistics at WSU Vancouver, has been named the first recipient of the Yang “Wendy” Liu Award for Excellence in Teaching International Students.

Krishnamoorthy received the award at the International Students’ graduation gala on May 6. In a videotaped acceptance, he said, “I am incredibly honored to accept the Yang Liu award from International Programs. Wendy set a really high standard for teaching international students well. It is a great honor for me to even be considered for filling the shoes that she left.”

In nominating Krishnamoorthy for the award, PhD student James Asare noted, “In all three of Bala’s classes I took, what struck me the most was his careful approach in recognizing his classroom mix of international and local students and leveraging well-thought-out pedagogies to create a space that was expressive of understanding through active engagement.”

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