Newsroom Stories

Daniel E. Feder, JD, has been named managing director of private markets at Washington University Investment Management Co. (WUIMC) — the investment office for the endowment at Washington University in St. Louis. As a senior member of the WUIMC, Feder will play a key role in the overall management of WUSTL’s endowment and other university assets, which were valued at $6.2 billion at the end of the 2013 fiscal year. His appointment is effective Dec. 2.

Washington University in St. Louis law students are taking their commitment to public service to the next level through a growing partnership with Northwest Academy of Law. With the assistance of law faculty and through their own initiatives, law students are reaching out to the inner-city St. Louis high school’s students to provide mentoring and law-related educational experiences.

The 21st century is bringing challenges to urban areas like never before, as if A Tale of Two Cities is being played out over and over again, in your neighborhood and in cities all over the world. The problems are both local and global, and so are the solutions. It’s this context that has led three Washington University in St. Louis faculty to compile an impressive array of international scholarship in a two-volume book titled Urban Ills: Twenty-first-Century Complexities of Urban Living in Global Contexts.

Lee Ratner, MD, PhD, has been named the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Professor of Oncology at the School of Medicine. Shown here with Larry J. Shapiro, MD, dean of the School of Medicine, Ratner (right) is an oncologist and noted authority on retroviruses.

School of Medicine researchers have identified a chain reaction that triggers the regrowth of some damaged nerve cell branches, a discovery that one day may help improve treatments for nerve injuries that can cause loss of sensation or paralysis. To study how nerve cells respond to injuries in their branches, researcher Valeria Cavalli grows them in “spots,” like the one pictured.

Students took part in a themed trivia night inspired by the popular mustache-sporting character played by Nick Offerman on the TV show Parks and Recreation. Offerman will perform at 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Edison Theatre. Other “Nick Week” activities today include an Offerman cookie contest at Cafe Bergson and a happy hour at 5:30 p.m. at the Gargoyle.

A new academic survey conducted by Washington University in St. Louis’ Center for Social Development and national veterans nonprofit group The Mission Continues points to community volunteerism as an effective tool for addressing veterans’ reintegration challenges.

In 1974, Walt Reed opened the Illustration House. For decades, the New York gallery was the nation’s premier advocate for illustration art. Now, Washington University Special Collections has worked with Reed and his son, Roger, to acquire the Illustration House archives, along with a substantial number of original artworks.

Washington University has received a $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to foster student diversity in its PhD training program in the biomedical sciences. Pictured are inaugural scholars from the program.

This spring, Washington University students may take a variety of Semester Online courses ranging from Trinity College Dublin’s “Ireland and Rebellion” to Wake Forest’s “Introduction to Bioethics.” The online consortium now boasts 21 top peer institutions.