Washington People

Bradley Schlaggar, MD, PhD, a pediatric neurologist, studies brain development at the School of Medicine. And he has a lot of empathy for patients and their families. A series of medical challenges his own family has endured in recent years deepened his understanding of what it means to be a doctor.

Lizzy Crist, goalkeeper for the women’s national champion soccer team, will take numerous awards and honors along with a tremendous work ethic to her next stop in life: a PhD program in biomedical engineering at the University of Minnesota.

Charles A. Goldfarb, MD, is a hand specialist who treats a range of patients, from children with birth differences to injured athletes. He is director of the Division of Pediatric and Adolescent Orthopaedic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.  

Segregation is no accident. Nearly five decades after the Fair Housing Act of 1968, American cities remain racially, culturally, spatially and economically divided. In this Q&A, Catalina Freixas, assistant professor of architecture in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, discusses St. Louis, segregation and the hidden histories that shape our urban landscape.

William Hawkins, MD, never met the man who helped inspire him to become a cancer surgeon and researcher. Hawkins was born six months after his grandfather Gabriel Jooris, an artist and art restorer, died of the disease. But his and other losses guided Hawkins’ career path.

As an 8-year-old, Richard Vierstra tried out 190 of the 200 experiments in “The Golden Book of Chemistry.” As an adult, he has taken on the much harder task of designing experiments to reveal the secret chemistry of plants.

Rebecca Wanzo, associate professor of women, gender and sexuality studies in Arts & Sciences, discusses culture, cartooning and the Comics Studies Society, of which she is a founding board member.

Audrey R. Odom John, MD, PhD, is a globally recognized malaria expert at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She runs a nine-member research lab in the Division of Infectious Diseases. The researchers hope to develop new diagnostic tests for malaria detection as well as antimalarial drugs.

Joseph “Pepe” Schraibman shares his passion for teaching and what he has learned over decades in the classroom. He won a Distinguished Teaching Award from Arts & Sciences last year.

The associate professor in the School of Engineering & Applied Science works to create powerful sensors that can detect chemicals, biomarkers that could speed health-care diagnostics and new materials to clean dirty water.