Newsroom Stories

The 18th annual Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series kicks off its spring series Jan. 21. Ten lectures this semester will focus on civil rights, national security, art, the Second Amendment and more.

Evolution educators continue to face resistance from parents, lawmakers and school boards. And a recent Pew Research Center survey on science and society shows that one-third of the population denies evolution. The Institute of School Partnership, through Darwin Day and other programs, help K-12 teachers bring this core concept to their classrooms.

Monica J. Allen, JD, associate vice chancellor, deputy general counsel and chief litigation counsel at Washington University, has been appointed vice chancellor and general counsel, effective July 1, 2016. Allen will succeed Michael R. Cannon, JD, who has announced that he will conclude his tenure June 30 as executive vice chancellor and general counsel.

Anthony Tillman, assistant provost at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, has been appointed an associate provost at Washington University. When Tillman joins the university in summer 2016, he will coordinate programs aimed at ensuring the success of low-income and first-generation students.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Jan. 19 to hear United States v. Texas, the challenge brought by 26 states to President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration. The stakes could not be larger, and they are not limited to immigration, said immigration law expert Stephen Legomsky.

Mahendra R. Gupta, PhD, dean and the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, will conclude his deanship June 30, 2016.​

A team of neurosurgeons from the School of Medicine and engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed wireless brain sensors that monitor intracranial pressure and temperature and then are absorbed by the body, negating the need for surgery to remove the devices.

While an adverse ruling for unions would certainly be bad news for organized labor, the expected setback need not be as dire as some are predicting, suggests Jake Rosenfeld, a labor union expert.

Given that antibiotics are losing effectiveness faster than we are finding replacements for them, chemist Timothy Wencewicz in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis suggests a new approach. Drugs that hobble the production of virulence factors — small molecules that help bacteria to establish an infection in a host — would put much less selective pressure on bacteria and delay resistance.

The husband-and-wife team of violinist Joo Kim and cellist James Czyzewski will join pianist Patti Wolf to launch the Danforth University Center’s spring Chamber Music Series Jan. 20.