Campus & Community

Arpita Bose, PhD, assistant professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named a Packard Fellow, a prestigious distinction awarded to only 18 top young researchers nationwide this year. Bose plans to use the grant to work with unusual microbes that can take electrons directly from an outside source to draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide or make sustainable biofuels.

​Through the generous support of alumni and friends of Washington University, the John M. Olin Library will be transformed into a center for 21st century scholarship.

Mike Dyer, supervisor of the greenhouse on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, has the job many of us probably wish we had —  but only because we think he spends the day pottering around watering plants. Instead, his job requires everything from the mechanical and engineering skills needed to suppress the greenhouse’s voracious appetite for energy; extensive knowledge of insects; and the ability to grow any plant he is handed under the conditions specified. It’s not exactly relaxing, but he enjoys it that way.

​A new report from a universitywide socioeconomic advisory group provides Washington University in St. Louis a roadmap to better serve its growing number of low-income and first-generation students. Recommendations include helping students better transition to college life, providing the resources students need to engage  in academic and campus life and creating a university culture that welcomes and values every student.

Images from in and around the Washington University campuses. To view captions, click the “i” in the upper left corner.

Nobel laureate and Washington University in St. Louis alumnus William E. Moerner, PhD, will present the Weissman Lecture “Fun with Light and Single Molecules Opens Up an Amazing New View Inside Cells” at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in Louderman Hall on the Danforth Campus. The lecture describes the surprising techniques he and other chemists developed for imaging individual molecules, techniques that won him the 2014 Nobel Prize in chemistry. 

​The Washington University in St. Louis community is invited to a forum on Friday, Oct. 23, to hear recommendations from the Ferguson Commission and to learn about the university’s opportunities to contribute toward the commission’s calls to action.

Artist Ann Hamilton discusses “O N E E V E R Y O N E · St. Louis,” a public art installation created for the Brown School’s Hillman Hall and the latest installment in Art on Campus, WashU’s percent-for-art program.

​As part of Washington University’s ongoing efforts to understand the public health implications of gun violence, Sandy and Lonnie Phillips visited the university to meet with students, faculty, administrators and community leaders. The Phillipses shared the personal tragedy of losing their daughter, Jessica, in the 2012 mass shooting in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.​​

Robert J. Iversen, a third-year student in the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, died recently. Iversen was 39. An accomplished and involved law student, Iversen was expected to earn a juris doctoris in May 2016.