Newsroom Stories

Nine new faculty members have joined the WUSTL School of Engineering & Applied Science this academic year. That marks the largest number of newly recruited faculty ever to join the school. The new faculty members’ expertise ranges from biomedical to electrical, and energy to mechanical engineering. Read more to learn about their backgrounds and what they each of them brings to the Engineering School.

Nearly one in four people living in the City of St. Louis lives in poverty and faces hunger, and local food pantries across the region have experienced a 30 percent increase in requests over the last year. For the third year, Washington University is partnering with Operation Food Search to coordinate the PB&Joy University-Wide Food Drive, which runs April 4-16.

In the political realm, climate change remains a point of debate. But for those charged with managing its effects — the storms and floods followed, whiplash style, by drought and water scarcity — the evidence is in. From March 22-25, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and The Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C., will present MISI-ZIIBI: Living with the Great Rivers, an international symposium investigating climate adaptation strategies in the Mississippi and Missouri basins.

People with HIV have an elevated risk of heart attacks, diabetes and insulin problems, and there are not many drug options to prevent those problems due to concerns that they will weaken the immune system. But a new study by researchers at the School of Medicine has shown that a diabetes drug appears to be safe in patients and does not dampen their immunity.

Teens who were depressed as children are far more likely than their peers to be obese, smoke cigarettes and lead sedentary lives, even if they no longer suffer from depression. The research, by scientists at the School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh, suggests that depression, even in children, can increase the risk of heart problems later in life.

If American war films are characterized by large-scale combat and appeals to valor, French war cinema is arguably more intimate and psychologically driven. From March 19-21, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present three iconic films as part of its France at War Film Series.

At polling places across America in November 2012, Latinos and African Americans under age 30 were disproportionately asked for identification, even in states that do not have voter ID laws, according to a post-election analysis by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Chicago.

​The eighth annual African Film Festival at Washington University in St. Louis will feature award-winning African films and filmmakers March 22-24. Organizers say the festival exposes the St. Louis community to “African stories as told by Africans,” helping to dispel stereotypes about Africa. All film showings, which are free and open to the public, take place in Brown Hall, Room 100, on the university’s Danforth Campus.​

A documentary-style series highlighting patients, faculty physicians and other staff at St. Louis Children’s Hospital will debut Saturday, March 16, on KSDK. “The Frontline for Hope” will air Saturday nights for the next six weeks. Shown is one of the camera crew taping outside the hospital.

Sleep is disrupted in people who likely have early Alzheimer’s disease but do not yet have the memory loss or other cognitive problems characteristic of full-blown disease, researchers at the School of Medicine report. Shown is first author of the study, Yo-El Ju, MD,  an assistant professor of neurology.