Newsroom Stories

​For freshmen with food allergies, the college dining hall can be a dangerous place. Connie Diekman, director of university nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis and a leading national expert, encourages new students to enlist campus dietitian and food service providers to help them stay safe.​

Launching this month, Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls will offer sixth and seventh-grade girls a rigorous education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Washington University in St. Louis is both Hawthorn’s sponsor and its partner. Educators with the university’s Institute for School Partnership have been working closely with Hawthorn leaders for more than a year to develop the school’s project-based curriculum and real-world philosophy.

The Black Rep will launch its 2015-16 season with “Tell Me Somethin’ Good” at Washington University Sept. 2-20. The decades-spanning musical revue, one of the company’s most popular shows, is the first of three productions The Black Rep will present this year in the university’s Edison Theatre.

A new study in JAMA Psychiatry shows that therapy provided via telephone for older adults in rural areas is effective in treating anxiety disorder. In an accompanying editorial, Eric J. Lenze, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, wrote that the health-care system lacks the capacity to help the growing elderly population and that relying too heavily on sedative medications isn’t the answer.​

Women who have gastric bypass surgery to lose weight should keep a close eye on their alcohol consumption, according to a study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The researchers found that changes in how alcohol is metabolized after surgery can speed its delivery into the bloodstream, resulting in earlier and higher peaks in blood-alcohol levels.

On Aug. 5, 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, attended a convening at the White House hosted by the White House Council on Women and Girls and the Council of Economic Advisers. Mark Brostoff, associate dean and director of Olin’s Weston Career Center, also attended.

African fish called mormyrids communicate by means of electric signals. Fish in one group can glean detailed information from a signal’s waveform, but fish in another group are insensitive to waveform variations. Research at Washington University in St. Louis has uncovered the neurological basis for this difference in perception.

What we saw in the last year through the Washington University lens

The Center for Diversity and Inclusion, which launched last fall, has given students and the broader university community a place to connect around the issues of diversity and inclusion both on and off campus. Director LaTanya N. Buck, PhD, outlines the center’s five strategic priorities and provides an update on some significant progress on these initiatives.

During a retreat this summer on the Medical Campus, department heads, division directors and other senior leaders at Washington University School of Medicine explored unconscious bias and how to diminish its impact in medical environments.