Campus & Community

Things are looking much brighter on Skinker Boulevard between Forest Park Parkway and Delmar Boulevard, thanks to Washington University’s installation of new pedestrian-scale lighting and improvements to the street lighting.

A unique, transforming partnership between Washington University in St. Louis and Wells Fargo Advisors will be celebrated in a special event called “Innovate, Accelerate, Transform: Investing in People, Businesses and Communities,” which begins at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, in Knight Hall on the Danforth Campus. The event is free and open to the entire university community.

The Center for the Humanities and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts have announced the first recipients of Faculty Collaborative Grants. Presented under the auspices of The Divided City, a new urban humanities initiative, the awards are funded in part by a four-year grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Marcus E. Raichle, MD, has been named an inaugural Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine at the School of Medicine. A professor of radiology, psychology, biomedical engineering, neurobiology and neurology, his many honors include the 2014 Kavli Prize for Neuroscience.

Higher education reduces recidivism rates by as much as half. Yet today, only a small fraction of U.S. prisoners have access to such programs. In the fall of 2014, University College launched the Washington University Prison Education Project, a three-year pilot program supported by a grant from the Bard Prison Initiative.

For the Sake of All, the mulitdisciplinary project aimed at improving the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis, has partnered with the St. Louis County Library system to help further promote its recommendations.

A university-wide shoe drive, Battle of the Boot, is underway that pits Washington University in St. Louis against other regional universities to raise money for water wells in impoverished countries. Hosted by the Solea Water Project (formerly Shoeman Water Projects) in conjunction with the Office of Sustainability, Battle of the Boot is a shoe drive that also includes Fontbonne University, University of Missouri-St. Louis and Saint Louis University.

Two new laws in St. Louis will expand housing options for Section 8 renters in the city. Christine Ingrassia of the Board of Aldermen sponsored the measures, which were influenced by recent research from Molly Metzger, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

The next round of spring Assembly Series programs at Washington University in St. Louis will cover a variety of topics, from how society talks about contagious diseases to delving into major philosophical theory to the possibility of cloning a mammoth.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation announced Feb. 23 that Kater Murch, PhD, assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been awarded a 2015 Sloan Research Fellowship. He is among 126 outstanding U.S. and Canadian researchers selected as fellowship recipients this year. The fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars whose achievements and potential identify them as rising stars, the next generation of scientific leaders.