Brown School

For Kimberly Jade Norwood, Washington University professor of law and African & African American studies, the topic of her newly released book, Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Postracial America (Routledge, 2013), strikes close to home.

Open Streets initiatives — the opening of streets normally reserved for vehicle traffic to temporarily allow cycling, walking, dancing and socializing — are growing in the United States. Now, thanks to researchers at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, a toolkit is in place to help communities and organizers measure their positive impact.

Arguably among the most profound scientific advancements of our time, genome sequencing is having significant impacts on the understanding of human health and disease. Yet growing concerns exist around the matter of the return of a patient’s genetic results and the treatment of a patient’s genomic data at all levels of care.

Last year, almost 900,000 low- and moderate-income tax filers participated in a unique tax preparation savings intervention program, depositing approximately $5.9 million more into savings accounts than they would have without the intervention. As the 2014 tax season opens, the Refund to Savings initiative continues with adjustments designed to help more Americans build savings. “The intervention is promising,” says Michal Grinstein-Weiss PhD, associate director of the Center for Social Development, which helped develop the program.

The Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series turned 60 in 2013, and to mark such an august occasion, it’s fitting to remember why the lecture series was conceived in the first place. The Assembly Series launched during the institution’s centennial celebration in 1953 as a way to involve the broader St. Louis community in the robust intellectual life on campus.

Peter Hovmand, PhD, associate professor of practice at the Brown School and founding director of the Social System Design Lab, has published “Community Based System Dynamics” (Springer 2013) for anyone interested in making communities around the world a better place using system dynamics.

A college savings account in a child’s name not only gives parents hope for the future, it also results in improved social-emotional health for their children. That’s the result of a new study released Jan. 27 online in JAMA Pediatrics. The study, led by Washington University in St. Louis’ Center for Social Development in collaboration with the state of Oklahoma, began in 2007 as SEED for Oklahoma Kids, an innovative policy experiment to invest in children at birth. The program automatically opened and deposited $1,000 in an Oklahoma college savings plan account for 1,360 newborns.

Happiness will be the focus of Washington University’s Master of Liberal Arts Saturday Lecture Series that runs throughout February. Free and open to the public, the series is sponsored by University College, the professional and continuing education division in Arts & Sciences. All talks are set for 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in January Hall, Room 110, on the Danforth Campus.

The WUSTL Assembly Series turned 60 in 2013, and to mark the anniversary, we revisit why the lecture series was conceived in the first place. The Assembly Series launched during the institution’s centennial celebration in 1953 as a way to involve the broader St. Louis community in the robust intellectual life on campus.

WUSTL’s Institute for Public Health is launching a new series of talks: the Women Leaders in Public Health Career Lecture Series. Laura Svetkey, MD, professor of medicine at Duke University, will give the inaugural speech Feb. 6. The series’ goal is to offer broad perspectives from female leaders about their careers in diverse fields related to public health.