Surgeons announce advance in atrial fibrillation surgery

Heart surgeons at the School of Medicine report that by adding a simple 10-20 second step to an operative procedure they achieved a significant improvement in the outcome for the surgical treatment of atrial fibrillation (AF). The surgeons redirected wayward electrical impulses that cause AF by creating precisely placed scars, or ablations, in the heart muscle.

Sam Fox School announces winner of 2008 Steedman Fellowship

North facadeNew York architect Nikole Renee Bouchard has won Washington University’s 2008 Steedman Fellowship in Architecture International Design Competition. Sponsored by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, the biennial competition is open to young architects from around the world and carries a $30,000 first place award to support study and research abroad — the largest such award in the United States. The competition centered on the adaptive renuse of the former St. Louis Cold Storage Company, an abandoned 100,000-square-foot industrial building located along the Mississippi riverfront, just north of downtown St. Louis and Eero Saarinen’s Gateway Arch.

PAD to present The Lion and the Jewel April 18 to 27

David Kilper/WUSTL Photo Services*The Lion and the Jewel*Men versus women, modern versus traditional, culture versus colonization. Such conflicts lie at the heart of The Lion and the Jewel, a sly and subversive comedy by Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka. In April, the Performing Arts Department (PAD) in Arts & Sciences will present this deceptively light-hearted carnival of dance and song as its spring mainstage production.

Business research not necessarily academic

Two professors at the Olin Business School are the winners of the first annual “Olin Award: Recognizing Research that Transforms Business.” Jackson Nickerson, Ph.D. and Todd Zenger, Ph.D. will share the $10,000 honorarium in recognition of their research that examined the negative impact that social comparison, or envy, causes in the workplace.

Macias named provost, will step down as dean

Executive Vice Chancellor Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., dean of Arts & Sciences and the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, has been named provost, effective Jan. 1, 2009, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced. Macias will relinquish his duties as dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences on June 30, 2008, and will take on expanded leadership responsibilities as provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs following a six-month sabbatical.

Campus celebrates 1000th anniversary of ‘world’s first novel,’ April 18

One mark of a great novel, it’s been said, is its ability to stand the “test of time” — to remain captivating to readers from generation to generation. Washington University will honor such a novel on April 18 with two campus events celebrating the 1,000th anniversary of the Tale of Genji, a central pillar of the Japanese literary canon often hailed as the world’s first novel.

Macias named provost, will step down as dean

MaciasExecutive Vice Chancellor Edward S. Macias, Ph.D., dean of Arts & Sciences and the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences, has been named provost, effective Jan. 1, 2009, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced.

Reiss named Fox professor

ReissCraig Reiss has been named the Sam and Marilyn Fox Distinguished Professor in Medicine at the School of Medicine. Reiss, a cardiologist, directs the Washington University Cardiology Consultants and the Heart Care Institute at Barnes-Jewish West County Hospital.