Newsroom Stories

As part of its ongoing mission to strengthen the undergraduate experience, WashU plans to build a new South 40 residence hall along Forsyth Boulevard. The new building will accommodate 600 first-year students and sophomores and feature a large courtyard and multipurpose room for events and gathering. Construction is anticipated to start this summer and is expected to be complete in time for the 2028-29 academic year. 

A multi-center study led by researchers at WashU Medicine and Michigan Medicine found that breathing problems during sleep are widespread among newborns with a severe form of spina bifida and could be a promising target for early interventions to improve the babies’ neurodevelopment.

Researchers at WashU Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have shown that disease-associated bacteria in the gut can be detected through exhaled breath. The findings could pave the way for a rapid, non-invasive breath test to assess gut microbiome health.

As part of WashU’s ongoing work to transform undergraduate STEM education and support low-income and first-generation STEM students, the Office of the Provost is launching the WashU STEM Exchange, a new community where STEM educators, advisers and researchers can share strategies and interventions and track outcomes. 

Celebrated editor, publisher and art collector Larry Warsh recently gifted 56 works of Chinese photography to the Kemper Art Museum at Washington University in St. Louis. This spring, the museum will publicly display 43 of those works, all made between 1993 and 2006, for the first time in “Looking Back Toward the Future: Contemporary Photography from China.”

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe has called for a phaseout of the state’s income tax, a move that would cause the most pain to the state’s low-income residents, says an expert on tax law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Architectural historian Mary McLeod, conceptual photographer Wang Qingsong and multimedia artist Clarissa Tossin will discuss their work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts spring Public Lecture Series.

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis will fully fund practicum internship experiences and provide living stipends to students in its Master of Social Work program beginning in fall 2026, Dorian Traube, the Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School, announced. 

Countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo is “a perfect musician” (Le Monde), at once “vocally brilliant and dramatically fearless” (New York Times). On Jan. 25, Costanzo will launch WashU’s 2026 Great Artists Series.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have determined the source of metabolic noise and harnessed it to benefit bioproduction in microbes.