Arts & Sciences

The past two decades have been marked by unprecedented levels of activism in the U.S., with no signs of slowing down. Historically based research by Kenneth “Andy” Andrews, the Tileston Professor of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, offers insights into how social movements can achieve lasting change.

Funding from the National Science Foundation will enable researchers across many disciplines at Washington University in St. Louis to advance ongoing research into the damaging health effects of repeated flooding in Metro East communities.

Career Catalysts, a series about WashU interns, by WashU interns, profiles pre-law student Winston Mattson, a Gephardt Institute St. Louis Fellow and an intern at Seed St. Louis.

If you happened to be in New York City last weekend, perhaps you saw a Times Square billboard promoting a very WashU pastime: Student Life Games. There, smiling from the 55-by-31-foot digital display, were crossword creators and founders of the newspaper’s games page, recent graduate Alex Nickel and sophomore Rena Cohen. 

The Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present staged readings of four new student plays as part of the 2025 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival.

The adzuki bean — a staple crop prominent in various East Asian cuisines — has been cultivated in the region for more than 8,000 years, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Shandong University in China have discovered.

WashU’s Dwight A. McBride and Justin A. Joyce will serve as series editors for the new book series “Thinking With James Baldwin.”

Data scientists at Washington University in St. Louis used new statistical tools to find that the association between lead exposure and academic test scores may be even stronger than previously suspected.

As director of the Digital Art History Lab, Betha Whitlow provides work experiences to students that are both fruitful and fairly compensated. She wants the same for her WashU colleagues. On the Danforth Staff Council, she successfully advocated for parental leave. 

In July, NASA formally designated WashU’s Geosciences Node, a division of NASA’s Planetary Data System that has been on campus since 1989, to serve as the lead science data node for the Artemis II, III and IV missions.