“Reforming Health Care: Perspectives from Missouri and Across the Nation,” will bring together leading health policy experts will discuss how current policies must change to expand care innovation and maximize impact; the prospects for reform; and comparisons of reform proposals in terms of cost, quality and access to care.
Max GreenstreetJean ValentinePoet Jean Valentine, the Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature in Washington University’s Writing Program in Arts & Sciences, will read from her work at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23. The author of 11 books, Valentine is currently State Poet of New York.
Distinguished environmental law and policy scholars and scientists from around the country will gather at Washington University in St. Louis to discuss “International Climate Change: Post-Kyoto Challenges,” from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Oct. 30 in Anheuser-Busch and Seigle Halls. “The international community is aiming to complete negotiations by the end of 2009 on a new climate change agreement to take effect when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012,” says Maxine Lipeles, J.D., director of the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic and senior lecturer in law. “This conference will address the critical question of what roles the world’s two largest emitters – the U.S. and China – will play under the new agreement.” The conference, hosted by Washington University School of Law’s Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
Two faculty members at the School of Medicine have been elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors medical scientists in the United States can receive. Jeffrey Gordon and David Holtzman were recognized for their major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care and public health and commitment to service.
Wind power is one practical alternative to petroleum.The director of a sustainable energy research center at Washington University in St. Louis is challenging the next president of the United States to set goals in energy research and implementation. “I would like to see the next president of the United States set a similar goal to President Kennedy’s from 1961 — to put a man on the moon and to bring him back to Earth by the end of the decade,” says Himadri B. Pakrasi, Ph.D., the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences, and Professor of Energy in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.
Scientists at the School of Medicine have determined that the same factors play key roles in three different diseases that can lead to blindness. In age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and retinopathy of prematurity, abnormal blood-vessel growth threatens vision. Reporting in the journal PLoS One, Washington University vision scientists say that although the mechanisms are a bit different, all three retinal diseases involve the same immune-system factors.
Best-selling author Peggy Orenstein will deliver the Olin Fellows Conference keynote address as part of the Assembly Series at 4 p.m., Tuesday, October 21 in Graham Chapel. Orenstein’s talk is titled, “Where’s the Map? Navigating Women’s Lives in a Half-changed World.”
One of the nation’s most celebrated journalists, Carl Bernstein, will deliver the Elliot Stein Lecture in Ethics at 4 p.m. Thursday, October 23, in Graham Chapel. The Assembly Series lecture, titled “Public Ethics: The Responsibilities of Elected Officials,” is free and open to the public and is being co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values in Arts & Sciences.
David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesBiden vs. Palin vs… Throttlebottom? Though the vice presidential debate may be over, the political fun continues at Washington University later this month with Of Thee I Sing, the classic musical satire of American public life.