McKelvey School of Engineering

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.

Washington University in St. Louis once again has strong representation in the prestigious Fulbright program, with 12 current or recent students receiving Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships to teach English or to conduct research abroad during the 2013-14 academic year. The students share their thoughts and plans, in their own words.

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.

​Bilal Mark McDowell Bomani, senior research scientist at the NASA Glenn Research Center, will deliver the 17th annual Chancellor’s Fellowship Conference Lecture for Washington University’s Assembly Series. His talk, which will focus on the research he leads in developing the next generation of biofuels that are sustainable, renewable and safe, will be 11 a.m. Friday, Sept. 20, in Whitaker Hall, Room 100, on the Danforth Campus.​

Washington University faculty and administrators with ideas for improving the campus environment for women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and other diverse groups are encouraged to apply for a Diversity and Inclusion Grant. The deadline is Oct. 29. Professor Gerald Early (right) speaks at a discussion on the “Delmar Divide,” one of the winning Diversity and Inclusion Grant proposals last year.

Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering, has received a Young Faculty Award from the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense. He is the first faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis to receive the award, which recognizes an elite group of scientists early in their careers at research universities.

At Washington University in St. Louis, students in the School of Engineering & Applied Science learn more than how to be an engineer. With opportunities to go abroad to get hands-on experience beyond what they learn in the classroom, they also learn to be leaders in a global society. Sixteen WUSTL students went to Brisbane, Australia, for the International Experience program, sponsored by the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering and the McDonnell Global Energy and Environment Partnership (MAGEEP).

Fuzhong Zhang, PhD, assistant professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, works with Synechocystis 6803 — as well as other microbes and systems — in the areas of synthetic biology, protein engineering and metabolic engineering, with special focus on synthetic control systems to make the organism reach its untapped prowess. He says the biotech world has to overcome several challenges to put the engineered microbes in the applications stage.

By blending their expertise, two materials science engineers at Washington University in St. Louis changed the electronic properties of new class of materials — just by exposing it to light.

With a one-year grant from Washington University’s International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES), researchers at Washington University in St. Louis plan to use some high-tech methods to better understand the processes, mechanics and interfaces that plants use to move iron from the soil, through water and into the plant.