WashU Experts

A Washington University in St. Louis expert in African policy says Nigeria’s upcoming presidential vote is a consequential event, one that will determine critical steps forward for Africa’s most populous country and largest economy.

Stephen Legomsky, an immigration law expert at Washington University in St. Louis, comments on the Feb. 15 announcement of a state of emergency by President Donald Trump. “This much is crystal clear,” he said. “There is no national security emergency at the southern border.”

Ray Arvidson, professor of Earth and planetary sciences and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor, talks about the end of Opportunity’s longer-than-expected 15-year mission — he was the deputy principal investigator for the Mars exploration rover for NASA.

The Green New Deal, announced this week by Democratic members of Congress, may not amount to quick change but at least begins a conversation toward critical climate change goals, said an environmental law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Trump Administration released a proposed rule Jan. 31 that could alter the way many drugs are priced and paid for among Medicare and Medicaid plans. The proposed regulation would eliminate the regulatory safe harbor for rebates as they exist today, said Rachel Sachs, an expert on drug policy and pricing at Washington University in St. Louis.

Prepare for a Super Bowl broadcast rife with social-issue and cause advertisements, because that’s what younger generations — read: consumers — want from a Sunday less about football than marketing, says Olin sports marketing expert Patrick Rishe.

Does this recent extreme cold snap spell bad news for mosquitoes and ticks this summer? Not necessarily. Researchers at Tyson Research Center, the environmental field station for Washington University in St. Louis, offer insight into how both insects are surviving the Polar Vortex that has gripped most of the Midwest and eastern United States.

Allegations against R. Kelly have finally exploded into the #MeToo era with Lifetime’s “Surviving R. Kelly.” But the singer’s troubling behavior can be traced back decades. “There was a lot of sexual energy around Kelly that we as young people felt was a little bit dark and a little bit inappropriate and a little bit taboo,” says Jeffrey Q. McCune Jr., who studies race, gender and popular culture at Washington University in St. Louis. In the early 1990s, McCune was a student at Kenwood Academy, the Chicago magnet school Kelly had attended just a few years before — and a classmate to one of Kelly’s earliest accusers.

When 800,000 government employees eventually return to work after a shutdown that started Dec. 22, expect them to work less efficiently — or, at minimum, feel less engaged and far less respected, says an expert in government leadership and organizational strategy at Olin Business School.

The legality, let alone the wisdom, of closing the southern border amid a partial government shutdown is called into question by Stephen Legomsky, an immigration-law expert at Washington University in St. Louis.