Record

For decades, author, educator, environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben has been telling us things we don’t want to hear — presenting scary scorched Earth scenarios due to carbon emissions in the atmosphere. He also leads a global initiative — 350.org — to try to solve the climate crisis. McKibben will give the keynote address for the Sustainable Cities Conference Thursday, Nov. 1, on campus. 

Aron Rodrigue, this year’s annual Holocaust Memorial Lecturer, has put to rest the widely held notion that Sephardim living in the Balkans and other European lands during the Holocaust were not as badly affected as the Ashkenazi in Eastern Europe. The truth is they experienced the same persecution and destruction under Nazi occupation. Rodrigue will speak on campus Monday, Oct. 29.

​Larry J. Shapiro, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, will host the annual Dean’s Update for all employees Nov. 7 and 9.

The dance performance for Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights celebration, will be held Friday, Nov. 9. and Saturday, Nov. 10, at Edison Theatre. One of the largest student productions on campus, the event features dances from multiple genres choreographed by the South Asian Student Association.

David L. Straight, 57, who worked for Washington University Libraries for more than 30 years, died Saturday, Oct. 13, after suffering a stroke. Straight began working for University Libraries in 1978 as an audiovisual assistant and retired in 2010 as West Campus librarian, managing that facility.

Students will be escorting little ghouls and goblins through the South 40 residence halls for the annual Safe Trick-or-Treat Saturday, Oct. 27, from 1-3 p.m. on the Danforth Campus. Games, refreshments and face painting is also planned. Open to children ages 12 and under. Sign up by Wednesday, Oct. 24 by calling the Campus Y at (314) 935-5010.

Hour-long Fall Arbor Tour of trees and gardens on the Danforth Campus begins at 11 a.m., Thursday, Oct. 25. RSVP to kshilling@wustl.edu.

They said it couldn’t be done. Suresh Vedantham, MD, professor of radiology and surgery, was planning a nationwide trial comparing treatments for deep vein thromboses — dangerous blood clots in the legs’ major veins. Prior attempts had failed to meet recruitment goals, but Vedantham was eager to test a new approach. Four years later, recruitment for ATTRACT (Acute Venous Thrombosis: Thrombus Removal with Adjunctive Catheter-Directed Thrombolysis), his NIH-sponsored trial, has crossed the halfway mark.

Panos Kouvelis, PhD, senior associate dean and director of executive programs at Olin Business School and an expert in the field of supply chain management, has been named to the U.S. Commerce Department’s new Advisory Committee on Supply Chain Competitiveness.

​​Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis will host a half-day seminar on forms of dementia that strike suddenly and can kill an individual in a few weeks or months.​