McKelvey School of Engineering

American produce is shipped an average of 1,500 miles before reaching its point of sale. In St. Louis, the 14-acre Magic Chef complex sits empty and unused. Graduate student Haley O’Brien wants to address both problems by growing hydroponic tomatoes on The Hill, an historic Italian-American enclave that boasts some of the finest pasta sauces in the Midwest.

A technology proposed by Lihong Wang, PhD, professor of engineering, may hold the key to detecting tumor cell circulation, potentially enabling earlier therapeutic interventions and curative surgical treatment and improving survival of patients with cancer.

​Public health is becoming one of the most pressing social concerns facing the global community, and it’s an issue Alfredo Palacio recognized years ago as president of the Republic of Ecuador. Palacio will visit Washington University during its annual Global Health Week Sept. 23-27 and give an Assembly Series talk on “Government and Health Care: Perspectives from a President and a Physician” at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 25, in Graham Chapel.

Andrew Brimer and Abigail Cohen, May graduates from the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis and co-founders of the med-tech startup Sparo Labs, have won the $150,000 CIMIT Student Technology Prize for Primary Care, bringing their total competition winnings to more than $275,000.

Philip Bayly, PhD, the Lilyan and E. Lisle Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and chair the Department of Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, has received a three-year, $429,222 grant from the National Science Foundation to study mehanical properties in the brain.

Washington University in St. Louis will host environmental engineering students and faculty from Missouri and Illinois Sept. 20-21 to learn the latest in environmental engineering technologies and to share research. The 18th Annual Mid-American Environmental Engineering Conference will be held Sept. 21 in the Stephen F. & Camilla T. Brauer Hall and is sponsored by the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

This year’s Washington University Global Health Week has something for everyone. The public can watch Ethiopian dancers, listen to the melodies of Argentina and attend a lecture by the former president and health minister of Ecuador. Attendees also can buy ethnic food, shop for artisan crafts and ask Global Health Scholars, medical students and undergraduates about their outreach efforts.

The Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) has announced the six winners of the 2013 University Research Strategic Alliance (URSA) grants. URSA grants provide one-year, $25,000 seed funding to full-time WUSTL faculty members. The URSA program aims to encourage researchers to collaborate across disciplines and schools.

New Washington University students interested in entrepreneurship can get their feet wet before classes even begin. The IDEA program, from the Skandarlis Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, introduces students to the university’s entreprenuerial ecosystem, allowing incoming students to connect with each other and with upperclassmen during a weeklong orientation program.

No student arrives at Washington University planning to cheat. And yet, 15 to 40 academic integrity cases are adjudicated every semester. A new video produced by the Office of Student Conduct explores the university’s academic integrity policy and why such a policy matters.