Washington University in St. Louis’ Center for New Institutional Social Science (CNISS) Fall 2011 Seminar Series kicks off Wednesday, Sept. 21 with a lecture by noted social policy expert John Gal, PhD. He is dean of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Gal will present “Immigration and the Categorical Welfare State in Israel” at 1 p.m. Sept. 21 in Seigle Hall, Room 301.
Raised in a secret town in Siberia and trained in control theory for ICBM guidance, Igor Efimov, the Lucy & Stanley Lopata Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, wouldn’t be working at WUSTL had the Soviet Union not broken up immediately after he defended his dissertation in biophysics, providing him an opportunity to leave. His research specialty is disturbances of cardiac rhythm known as arrhythmias, electrical impulses that race around and around the heart instead of moving from one end of the heart to the other and then pausing before repeating.
A new Danforth Campus Green Labs Initiative kicked off Friday, Sept. 19, in Stephen F. & Camilla T. Brauer Hall in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis. The program, which the Office of Sustainability hopes to spread across campus in the near future, seeks to educate faculty, staff and students and provide a plan of action to reduce energy consumption in laboratories.
Jeffrey Gordon has been awarded the 8th Danone International Prize for Nutrition in recognition of his outstanding contributions to research on the human gut microbiome, diet and nutritional status.
The Career Center at Washington University in St. Louis encouraged students to network with each other and talk about their summer travels, internships and community service during an event near Danforth University Center Sept. 8. After filling out a career interest survey, students were treated to free ice cream and given a shirt that says ‘Just Ask Me About My Summer’ on the back — along with Sharpie pens to write their answers.
Art, of course, can be challenging, engaging, uplifting and enlightening. It also can be fun. On Saturday, Sept. 24, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host Community Day, an all-ages afternoon of games, storytelling, art-making, workshops and tours led by museum curators and Washington University student docents. The event, which runs from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., is free and open to the public.
Food activist Ellen Gustafson, a former United Nations spokesperson for the World Food Program, will give the annual Olin Fellows Lecture as part of the Assembly Series at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23. Her talk “A New Understanding of Hunger, Obesity and the Food System.” will be held in the Law School Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.
In an effort to enhance emergency communications on campus, WU Emergency Management will have vendors on campus to install and test various emergency communications channels on Monday Sept. 19 and Tuesday, Sept. 20. While these tests are being conducted, the Danforth Campus community may hear or see a message come across the outdoor warning sirens, on Danforth cable TV channels and on public address systems in the Danforth University Center, Athletic Complex and Olin Library.
WUSTL faculty and staff will receive an email linking to a brief, anonymous survey about the work environment at WUSTL. The survey is part of an initiative on multiple identities supported by the Office of the Provost and the Diversity and Inclusion Grants Program.
The Mars rover Opportunity, which was designed to operate for three months and to rove less than a mile, has now journeyed more than seven years crossing more than 21 miles. Today, it is poised at the edge of a heavily eroded impact basin, the possible location of clay minerals formed in low-acid wet conditions on the red planet.