Newsroom Stories

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.

More than a dozen architecture students from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts tested a series of experimental handmade kites along the windy slopes of Art Hill in Forest Park April 26. The kites were designed and built as part of an undergraduate studio on architectural representation led by Sung Ho Kim, associate professor of architecture.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates is the 2012-13 selection for the First Year Reading Program. The book focuses on two men with the same name who grew up in similar Baltimore neighborhoods, but ended up on much different paths. One is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence; the other is a decorated veteran and Rhodes Scholar. The book provides a shared intellectual experience for incoming students.

WUSTL diners can toss a used napkin and food scraps into a campus compost bin, and 4-6 months later, their trash might be feeding the tulips in front of Brookings Hall. With the help of the WUSTL community, WUSTL Dining Services and the Office of Sustainability are working to turn more food scraps and trash into fertilizer through composting.

Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will lead an international team of scientists to find new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent a critical global health problem: malnutrition in infants and children. The work is funded by an $8.3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Compared with youth with other disabilities, young adults with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) face a disproportionately difficult time navigating work and educational opportunities after high school, finds a new study by Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Thirty-five percent of the youth with ASDs had no engagement with employment or education in the first six years after high school,” Shattuck says. “Rates of involvement in all employment and education were lower for those with lower income.”