Author: Neil Schoenherr

With a one-year grant from Washington University’s International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES), researchers at Washington University in St. Louis plan to use some high-tech methods to better understand the processes, mechanics and interfaces that plants use to move iron from the soil, through water and into the plant.

At Washington University in St. Louis, students in the School of Engineering & Applied Science learn more than how to be an engineer. With opportunities to go abroad to get hands-on experience beyond what they learn in the classroom, they also learn to be leaders in a global society. Sixteen WUSTL students went to Brisbane, Australia, for the International Experience program, sponsored by the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering and the McDonnell Global Energy and Environment Partnership (MAGEEP).

Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, works with Synechocystis 6803 — as well as other microbes and systems — in the areas of synthetic biology, protein engineering and metabolic engineering, with special focus on synthetic control systems to make the organism reach its untapped prowess. He says the biotech world has to overcome several challenges to put the engineered microbes in the applications stage.

By blending their expertise, two materials science engineers at Washington University in St. Louis changed the electronic properties of new class of materials — just by exposing it to light.

Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering, has received a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. He is the first faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis to receive the award, which recognizes an elite group of scientists early in their careers at research universities.

For many firms, losing significant revenue and profit to employee theft has been a cost of doing business. But a new study from Washington University in St. Louis finds that information technology monitoring is strikingly effective in reducing theft and fraud, especially in the restaurant industry.

Mahendra R. Gupta, PhD, dean of Olin Business School and the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management, serves a burger to a student during the 19th annual Olin Cookout Aug. 27 at Simon Hall. The tasty tradition brings the Olin community together, with faculty and staff serving barbecued chicken, pork and hamburgers to hungry students.

Washington University in St. Louis is launching a new Climate Change Initiative aimed at expanding scientific research, education and public understanding of global climate change. A signature initiative of the International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability, the initiative will be led by Peter H. Raven, PhD, the George Engelmann Professor of Botany Emeritus and President Emeritus of the Missouri Botanical Garden.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers and students from the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis is working to create a more sustainable future for the university. Over the last year, teams have developed an experimental framework for testing environmentally friendly redevelopment strategies in a group of University-owned apartment buildings north of the Delmar Loop.

A recent report from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor indicates that there are significantly fewer female entrepreneurs than male entrepreneurs around the world. This is not the case, however, at Washington University in St. Louis, where more than 40 percent of successful companies started by recent graduates through the university’s business entrepreneurship courses have been founded by women.