Perspectives

Ephraim Gau, a graduate student in physics in Arts & Sciences, writes in a National Institute of Standards and Technology blog about placing transition edge sensors — and a scientific refrigerator needed to cool them down — onto a balloon that would fly high above most of Earth’s atmosphere.

Happiness expert Tim Bono, associate dean in Arts & Sciences, writes about ways to combat a gloomy mood during this cold time of year. Simple things such as visiting a friend or getting some exercise can make a difference, he said.

Anna Wassel, a doctoral student in biology in Arts & Sciences, takes part in a podcast to explain her research on how pawpaw trees affect the diversity of the plants around them.

There’s so much potential to build upon and expand on long-standing partnerships, establish new ones, and activate the talents of our students and faculty in service to and alongside our region, said Chancellor Andrew D. Martin.

A Q&A with Elvin Geng, who took on the co-EiC role for Implementation Science Communications in January 2025. A Professor of Medicine within the Division of Infectious Diseases at Washington University in St. Louis, he also leads as its Director of the Center for Dissemination and Implementation.

Making a healthier country means putting prevention at the heart of our health agenda, in addition to delivering high-quality, accessible health care to all who need it, writes Sandro Galea.

If a country sees itself as a robust, vibrant, thriving, and growing country—as certainly the US of myth and nationalistic narrative suggests it to be—it requires a strong academic health research enterprise to allow it to inhabit that vision of itself. That should make academic health research as core to the national identity as our vision of a democratic country that permits and encourages self-determination. Academic health research makes all the rest of it possible, writes Sandro Galea.

The universities we oversee have drawn a line against politicization so that we can continue contributing to the nation’s competitiveness and strength abroad, and to stability and prosperity here at home. All American research universities should do the same, writes Chancellor Andrew D. Martin.

Patty Heyda, a professor at the Sam Fox School, writes an article on the Arts & Sciences “Human Ties” blog about her latest book “Radical Atlas of Ferguson, USA.” Maps are instruments of power — and of resistance, she said.

In this time of high political dudgeon, it is our job to make the right political choice, to choose health. Perhaps this choice can help shore up our commitment to local and global impact in this moment—because health is interconnected and creating a healthier world for some means creating a healthier world for all, the ultimate lesson of the COVID years, writes Sando Galea.