Newsroom Stories

Todd T. Milbourn, PhD, was installed as the Hubert C. and Dorothy R. Moog Professor of finance Sept. 29 in a ceremony at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center. Milbourn, who joined the Olin Business School faculty 10 years ago, is the second to receive this title; the inaugural professorship was held by Nicholas Dopuch, PhD, currently Moog professor emeritus of accounting.

Your DNA influences how much you smoke and whether you will develop lung cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A study, led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine, is the first large-scale effort to match genetics with smoking, lung cancer and COPD combined. The investigators studied 38,000 smokers and found that two groups of gene variants on chromosome 15 influence the risk for all three problems.

Celebrated architect Jeanne Gang, principal and founder of Studio Gang Architects in Chicago, will discuss her work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ fall Public Lecture Series at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 25. The talk, titled “High and Low,” is the school’s annual Coral Courts Lecture and will take place in Steinberg Hall Auditorium, located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. A reception for Gang will precede the lecture, at 6 p.m. 

More than 175 undergraduate students are expected to showcase their research projects through poster presentations and visual and oral presentations during the fall Undergraduate Research Symposium Saturday, Oct. 23.

A study of Missouri girls in foster care found that about half of them had become pregnant or had given birth by age 19. To address this startling statistic, Washington University is launching a regional pregnancy prevention program for this high-risk population. The project will serve an estimated 600 teens in foster care in the St. Louis region.

The Department of Developmental Biology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will celebrate its 100th anniversary Thursday, Oct. 21, with a symposium from noon to 5 p.m. in the Moore Auditorium. Six of the department’s former heads, faculty or alumni have won Nobel Prizes in physiology or medicine.

Parent & Family Weekend 2010 kicks off Friday, Oct. 22. Myriad activities are planned across campus as parents join their sons and daughters for a peek into their classes, walking tours, open houses, concerts, information sessions and much more.

University City Council member L. Michael Glickert (left) presents Michael Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis, with a proclamation during a city council meeting Oct. 18. The proclamation celebrates Sherraden, a University City resident, being named to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Managers and CEOs: are you ready for your close-up? A new book by Jackson Nickerson, PhD, the Frahm Family Professor of Organization and Strategy at Olin Business School, advocates the use of video for communicating from the corner office to employees throughout a business. Nickerson’s book is published by the Brookings Institution Press and will be the first in a series by Olin professors called Innovations in Leadership. 

The Office of Human Resources will offer two post-recession retirement investment seminars for WUSTL faculty and staff members Oct. 28 and 29: “New Rules for Investing” and “Which Way Is Up? — Mapping Your Retirement Strategy in a Post-Recession Economy.” Brett Hammond, PhD, managing director and chief investment strategist for TIAA-CREF, will lead each seminar.