Newsroom Stories

In three separate national ratings — faculty scholarly productivity, black student college graduation rates and the number of National Merit Scholars in the freshman class — Washington University ranks in the top 10. WUSTL ranks as the seventh most productive large research university as measured by the faculty’s scholarly productivity, as well as ranking in the top 10 in five broad areas and 19 specific disciplines, according to Academic Analytics’ Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index (FSP Index), a new quantitative method for ranking doctoral programs at research universities.

Ray Bradbury’s vision of the future was a scary one indeed. Of course, that’s the point of being a science-fiction writer, but in his classic Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury wrote about firemen who didn’t necessarily put out fires. Rather, they started them in order to burn books and suppress learning and knowledge. The book is the centerpiece of a National Endowment for the Arts-supported program in February. “The Big Read,” hosted by the University in partnership with several local organizations, will feature lectures, readings, art exhibits, theater productions, book discussion groups and film festivals featuring the themes of Bradbury’s novel.

Costas Azariadis, Ph.D., joins the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences as professor. Azariadis earned a Ph.D. in 1975 from Carnegie Mellon University and has been affiliated with Brown University and the universities of Pennsylvania and California, Los Angeles. He was tenured in 1977 and promoted to full professor in 1983, both at Penn. […]

Stephen H. Legomsky, J.D., D.Phil., has been named the John S. Lehmann University Professor. The new professorship was created through a charitable trust established by the late John Lehmann, a distinguished alumnus, lawyer and University trustee for more than 20 years.

Rafia Zafar, Ph.D., professor of English, of African & African American studies and of American culture studies, all in Arts & Sciences, has been awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture abroad during the 2007 spring semester.

Leonard Berg, founder and former director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, died Monday, Jan. 15, following a stroke. His early work formed the foundation for the systemized assessment of dementia and detection of early onset of Alzheimer’s disease now in common use.

He was president of the hospital from 1968 to 1995.

School of Medicine researchers suggest that eating less protein may help protect against certain cancers that are not directly associated with obesity. Lean people on a long-term, low-protein, low-calorie diet or regular endurance exercisers have lower levels of growth factors and hormones linked to cancer.

For the second year in a row, the Olin School of Business is offering a course that includes a succession of “celebrity” CEOs as guest speakers. The class, “Creating Exceptional Value: Performance Without Compromise,” is co-taught by Chuck Knight, chairman emeritus of Emerson, and Anjan Thakor, Ph.D., senior associate dean and the John E. Simon Professor of Finance.

Stardust, the NASA spacecraft mission, was given that name in hopes that the seven-year journey to capture comet samples would bring back to Earth, well, stardust. In an article in a special issue of the journal Science, Washington University researchers are the first to report that a sample they received from the mission actually does contain stardust — particles that are older than the sun.