Andy Maus was the guy who used to alert undergraduate students via text message they had a package in the mailroom. Now he’s working as clinical research coordinator in the lab of Ravi Vij, MD. Here’s the story of how Maus went from the medical school to the mailroom — and back again.

Three university law professors are involved in efforts to reform the St. Louis region’s municipal court system. The need to examine the courts’ operations became clear after the Ferguson protests. Many such courts have been accused of not working primarily for justice, but rather as a means to fund municipal governments.

New research at the School of Medicine lays the foundation for understanding stress and anxiety in people, finding that calming a neural circuit in the brain can alleviate stress in mice. The researchers also showed they could shine a light into the brain to activate the stress response in mice that had not been exposed to stressful situations.

Launching this month, the Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls will offer sixth- and seventh-graders a rigorous education in science, technology, engineering and math. Washington University is both Hawthorn’s sponsor and its partner. Educators with the Institute for School Partnership have been working closely with Hawthorn leaders to develop the school’s project-based curriculum and real-world philosophy.

Ernst K. Zinner, PhD, research professor emeritus of physics and of earth and planetary sciences, both in Arts & Sciences, died July 30 of medical complications of mantle cell lymphoma. Among his many accomplishments, Zinner, in 1987, for the first time identified in the laboratory material that predated the solar system’s formation 4.6 billion years ago.