Newsroom Stories

John Wallace, Robert S. Brookings’ great-grandnephew, talks with Tenille Washburn (JD ’01), a student in the Brookings Executive Education (BEE) program, before a dinner at the Knight Center March 31. With Wallace is his wife, Ellen Wallace (right). The Wallaces were in town for a BEE conference on Daring to Lead. Robert S. Brookings was president of the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees from 1895 to 1928.

A symposium exploring social and cultural issues at the intersection of professional sports, race, gender and sexual identity will attract leading scholars and book authors to Washington University in St. Louis on April 11.

School of Medicine researchers have received an $8 million grant to investigate the genetic and environmental roots of cardiovascular disease risk factors. The four-year grant will support the first large-scale, multiethnic statistical analysis of risk factors for cardiovascular disease that looks at lifestyle interactions with genes. Shown are principal investigators D.C. Rao, PhD, and Ingrid Borecki, PhD.

In recognition of National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day, a youth leadership program of Project ARK and The SPOT will host an open-mic event to encourage young people to talk about HIV/AIDS and sexual health. The Youth Advocacy Committee will host the event from 7-9 p.m. Thursday, April 10, at Blank Space, 2847 Cherokee St., St. Louis.

At once bouncy and philosophical, 500 Clown combines acrobatics, circus arts, commedia dell’arte and in-your-face improvisation to create a unique brand of physical, action-packed theater. On Saturday, April 12, the Chicago troupe will return to Edison with “500 Clown Trapped,” its first all-ages show.

At St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, a section of the dome called the Whispering Gallery makes a whisper audible from the other side of the dome as a result of the way sound waves travel around the curved surface. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have used the same phenomenon to build an optical device that may lead to new and more powerful computers that run faster and cooler.

A fuse burns, a tire rolls free. A lit candle, mounted on wheels, ignites a small explosion. In “The Way Things Go” (1987), conceptual artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss play with the idea of chain reaction. This summer, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present the groundbreaking film in “Moving Parts: Time and Motion in Contemporary Art.”

Mario Castro, MD, has been named the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Professor of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the School of Medicine. He is a noted authority on asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Heather Corcoran, chair of the design program in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has been named director of the school’s College & Graduate School of Art.

Elaine R. Mardis, PhD, and Richard K. Wilson, PhD, both renowned for discoveries in the field of genomics, have been named to endowed professorships. They were installed by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton (far left), and Larry J. Shapiro, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine (far right).