Newsroom Stories

Piano prodigy, social activist, folksinger and chart-topping recording artist — Judy Collins has done it all. This fall, “Sweet Judy Blue Eyes” will launch WUSTL’s 2013-14 Edison Ovations Series. Featuring almost a dozen events by nationally and internationally known artists, the season will range from athletic contemporary dance and incisive one-man shows to hip-hop violin and the world’s first live-action graphic novel.

On Aug. 12, a northbound lane on Kingshighway Boulevard and the adjoining sidewalk north of Children’s Place will close in preparation for demolition related to revitalization of Washington University Medical Center’s north campus. At the same time, barriers will go up around the former Jewish College of Nursing and the Kingshighway, Yalem and Steinberg buildings — all of which will come down as part of the first phase of the Campus Renewal Project.

Ovations 2013-14

A young man in suit and tie gazes warily at the camera, taking its measure, betraying nothing, sly wit reserved for the title. In Self Portrait with My Hair Parted Like Frederick Douglass (2003), Rashid Johnson pays homage to the renowned 19th-century abolitionist while also crafting for his own myth of artistic self-creation. This fall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks, the first major solo museum exhibition to survey the career of this Chicago-born, New York-based artist.

Scientists have created a virtual model of the brain that daydreams like humans do. They hope the model will help them understand why certain portions of the brain work together when a person daydreams or is mentally idle. Shown is the study’s senior author, Maurizio Corbetta, MD.

Researchers at the School of Medicine want to know whether they can reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies at community clinics by providing  contraceptive counseling that emphasizes the benefits of long-acting birth control, like IUDs and implants, and by making these methods available to women at sharply reduced costs or free of charge. Pictured is Tessa Madden, MD, the study’s principal investigator.

Staff are invited to join a small group discussion of the critically acclaimed essay collection, Notes from No Man’s Land, by Eula Biss. The book, a provocative exploration of race and identity, is this year’s selection for the First Year Reading Program.

What can behavioral economics teach us about how to launch a successful startup? Barton Hamilton, PhD, professor of entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School, will present “Nudging Entrepreneurship” at 8 a.m. Tuesday, July 16 at Rubin Brown on 16th Street in Denver.

Mark Anastasio, PhD, has been named interim chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science effective July 15. Anastasio, professor of biomedical engineering, succeeds Frank Yin, MD, PhD, the Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering, who stepped down as chair in May after leading the department for more than 15 years.

Thanks to a grant from the St. Louis-based Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Foundation, 21 physician scientist trainees in two clinical departments at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will receive research support. Pictured is Oliver Langenberg, who led the foundation for more than 50 years before his death last year and after whom the physician scientist training programs in the departments of Medicine and Pediatrics have been renamed.