Newsroom Stories

Senior class president Alex Cooper views his time at Washington University in St. Louis as truly “transformative.” When he takes the podium during the 151st Commencement ceremony May 18, he will urge fellow graduating seniors to reflect back on their time at the university, paying special attention to the key relationships that have fostered growth.

Washington University’s 151st Commencement will begin at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May, 18, in Brooking Quadrangle. Mike Peters, the 1981 Pulitzer Prize winner for editorial cartooning and creator of the award-winning cartoon strip Mother Goose & Grimm, will deliver the 2012 Commencement address. The university will bestow academic degrees on more than 2,700 undergraduate, graduate and professional students and six individuals, including Peters and Gloria Steinem, will receive honorary degrees.

Washington University School of Medicine students Nathan Moore and Elisabeth Askin collaborated to produce a clear and concise guide to the U.S. health-care system called the Health Care Handbook. The book is a topical overview of the system, aimed primarily at undergraduate and graduate health professions students.

Tingting Wu, the Record’s Outstanding Graduate in architecture from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, has a strong interest in blending natural wilderness with man-made wilderness. A native of Shanghai, China, she creates architecture at the intersection of art and landscape.

School of Medicine researchers have found evidence that early drug and alcohol use is associated with lower levels of educational achievement. They found that people who began drinking or using drugs as young teens or who became substance dependent were less likely to finish college.

Marion G. Crain, JD, the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law and a Faculty Fellow in the Office of the Provost at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named vice provost, announced Edward S. Macias, PhD, provost, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences.

Surgeons at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, led by Susan E. Mackinnon, MD, have restored some hand function in a quadriplegic patient with a spinal cord injury at the C7 vertebra, the lowest bone in the neck. Instead of operating on the spine itself, the surgeons rerouted working nerves in the upper arms. These nerves still “talk” to the brain because they attach to the spine above the injury.

Adrian “Addie” Smith, the Record‘s Outstanding Graduate from the School of Law, has spent much of her life searching for just the right spot to focus her enthusiasm on building a brighter future for disadvantaged children. And she appears to have found it. After graduation May 18, she will become a lobbyist for Native American children.

Azad Bonni, MD, PhD, currently professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, will be the next head of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

President Barack Obama recently announced the establishment of an Atrocities Prevention Board as part of his comprehensive strategy to prevent genocide and mass atrocities. “For the first time, the National Intelligence Council will prepare an estimate on the global risk of mass atrocities and genocide,” says Leila Nadya Sadat, JD, international law expert and director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “By sensitizing the diplomatic and intelligence communities to atrocities risk and systematizing responses to potential crises, the policies of the Atrocities Prevention Board could significantly change in U.S. foreign policy,” she says.