Newsroom Stories

Ireland native Maria Bernadette Majella Doyle, MD, assistant professor of surgery at the School of Medicine and a member of the Barnes-Jewish Hospital organ transplantation team, will present the annual Women’s Society Adele Starbird Lecture at 11 a.m. Wednesday, April 13, in Graham Chapel. Doyle’s talk, part of the Assembly Series, will provide insight into the life of a transplantation surgeon. It is free and open to the public.

A time capsule containing items donated by students, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, Dean James E. McLeod, WUSTL Dining Services and others to describe life at WUSTL in 2011 was buried on the South 40 during a ceremony April 2. It will be opened again during the Class of 2011’s 50th reunion in 2061.

Based in Cologne, Germany, conceptual artist Cosima von Bonin is among the most influential yet elusive artists of her generation. At once playful, seductive and satirical, her wide-ranging creative practice interweaves sculpture, installation, video, textiles, performance and electronic music with a diverse network of collaborators. Beginning Friday, May 6, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present Cosima von Bonin: Character Appropriation, the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the American Midwest.

Students, faculty and staff hosted aspiring scientists March 26, April 2 and April 9 during “Catalysts for Change” workshops aimed at introducing female high school students to science, technology and engineering fields. Workshop students launch containers — designed using straws, cotton balls, rubber bands and tape — outside of the Lab Sciences Building. They competed to see who could launch their container the farthest without breaking an egg protected inside.

William A. Peck, MD, the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Medicine, director of the Center for Health Policy and former dean of the School of Medicine, will present “Health Care in America: Transforming the Citadel,” for the Weidenbaum Center Forum at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 11, in Whitaker Hall, Room 100.

A government shutdown is looming and many politicians who are claiming “we’re broke” are proposing short-term or long-term federal budget plans with steep budget cuts as the only option to reduce the deficit. “But it looks like budget deficits are being driven in part by a deliberate strategy to sustain them, so policymakers are forced to cut spending,” says Timothy McBride, PhD, economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “The evidence certainly supports the theory that the Republicans are using a strategy of ‘starving the beast,’” he says.

High school student Isabella Kanak (left) shares a few laughs about the dark side of the universe with Edward W. “Rocky” Kolb, PhD, a cosmologist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and a professor at the University of Chicago. Kanak and other members of the Junior Academy of Science had an opportunity to visit with Kolb March 31 in Whitaker Hall after he delivered the 2011 McDonnell Distinguished Lecture about the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

The 21st annual Pow Wow at Washington University, a festival of American Indian cultures, is Saturday, April 9 from noon to 10 p.m. Grand entries of dancers will be showcased at 1 and 7 p.m.

The Campus Diversity Collaborative (CDC), which aims to increase awareness of diversity and inclusion issues at Washington University in St. Louis, is seeking new members among faculty and staff. The CDC was founded in 2007 to make diversity and inclusion of all individuals, regardless of race, creed, religion, sexual orientation or gender, a priority.

Workers exposed to welding fumes may be at increased risk of damage to the same brain area harmed by Parkinson’s disease, according to a new study by Brad Racette, MD, and researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.