Newsroom Stories

Twitter is proving to be an effective tool for local health departments in disseminating health information — especially in promoting specific health behaviors. The latest study, led by Jenine K. Harris, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, focused on diabetes, a disease that may affect an estimated one-third of U.S. adults by 2050. “We focused on diabetes first, both because of increasing diabetes rates,” Harris says, “and also because people living with diabetes tend to use online health-related resources at a fairly high rate and are an audience already online and on social media.”

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis awarded one Distinguished Faculty Award and five Distinguished Alumni Awards during its annual alumni awards celebration April 17 at Steinberg Auditorium on the Danforth Campus. One of the alumni was selected as an outstanding Graduate of the Last Decade.

Timothy Eberlein, MD, director of the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, has been named vice chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network board of directors.

Kelle Moley, MD, the James P. Crane Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has been elected president of the Society of Gynecologic Investigation (SGI).

Arts & Sciences recognized the achievements of six alumni during the 16th Annual Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony, held April 25 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Clayton, Mo. The school presented four Distinguished Alumni Awards, one Early Career Achievement Award, and one Dean’s Medal.

Memory problems related to day-to-day activities — one of the largest complaints of people with Alzheimer’s diease — may be due to older adults’ inability to segment their daily lives into discrete experiences, suggests new psychology research from Washington University in St. Louis. How we perceive events in our current lives influences how we remember them in the future, the study finds.

For nearly a decade, doctors have used implanted electronic stimulators to treat severe depression in people who don’t respond to standard antidepressant treatments. Now, preliminary brain scan studies conducted by School of Medicine researchers are revealing that vagus nerve stimulation brings about changes in brain metabolism weeks or even months before patients begin to feel better.

The Next Generation Science Standards have been out for a month now. How are they being received? Michael Wysession, who helped lead the effort to define the national standards, says there haven’t been any major surprises, in part because there is strong economic motivation to bring American students up to the level of the scientifically literate students they will be compete with in the international job marker.

Over spring break, Room 37 in the Brown School’s Goldfarb Hall was transformed. For the last eight weeks of the semester, Brown School students in 15 courses took part in an experiment in pedagogy that brings teaching — and learning — into a new era. This isn’t your parents’ lecture hall. Say hello to the wired world of interactive instruction — or active learning.

Arts & Sciences senior Nisha K. Chatterjee is this year’s winner of the Rabbi Ferdinand M. Isserman Prize. The annual award recognizes a student who has made a significant contribution in service and leadership to ecumenical or interfaith activities on the Washington University in St. Louis campus.