Newsroom Stories

The Knight Center courtyard was the venue for the wedding of Kelly Ayers and Eric Patterson April 27. The couple, whose 8-year-old daughter was diagnosed at birth with a rare genetic disorder, wasgiven a “gifted wedding,” for which 35 local vendors — including Olin Business School’s Knight Center — donated time, talents and products.

Akhila Narla will be among WUSTL’s inaugural class of environmental biology graduates when she received her degree May. 18. Narla, one of the Record’s Outstanding Graduates from the College of Arts & Sciences, plans to seek her medical degree but first will spend two years on a Navajo reservation teaching high school students science and health through the Teach for America program.

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.”

The baseball team was one of 56 teams selected to compete in the 2012 NCAA Division III baseball championship, and will travel to Millington, Tenn., to compete in regional play Wednesday through Sunday, May 16-20. Updates also included on women’s golf, men’s and women’s tennis and track & field.

Mara MacMahon, who graduates May 18 with a bachelor’s of arts in biology in Arts & Sciences and of fine arts in communication design, continues a tradition that dates back to the Renaissance of seeking lifelike portrayals of the human body. But she goes way beyond the Renaissance masters, and is the Record’s Outstanding Graduate in Art from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

The College of Arts and University Libraries hosted the 15th annual open house of the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book May 1 in Walker Hall. During the open house, students display their work from the academic year and compete for the Nancy Award, which recognizes outstanding student achievement in book design. 

Commencement week begins Monday, May 14, with a variety of celebrations and ceremonies designed to warmly send Washington University in St. Louis’ Class of 2012 out into the world. The week begins with the Chancellor’s Dinner to Honor Graduating Seniors at 6 p.m. Monday, May 14 and culminates with the 151st Commencement Friday May 18.

Kranti V. Peddada, a rising junior in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, was among the approximately 230 WUSTL undergraduates from a wide variety of disciplines who presented their original research during the Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium April 28 in the Laboratory Sciences Building.