McKelvey School of Engineering

Washington University is among 15 universities across the country selected by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City, Mo., to participate in its “Kauffman Campuses Initiative,” a new program aimed at making entrepreneurship education a common and accessible opportunity campus-wide. The Kauffman program builds on an emerging trend at colleges and universities — expanding […]

Kenneth L. Jerina’s honor is the highest society recognition for individual contributions to standards activities.

Twenty students, including 15 from other universities, are participating in a program known as Research Experiences for Undergraduates.

Next time you think “oil spill,” remember that the vegetable oils used to make Freedom fries also can create an environmental mess.

O’SullivanAn electrical engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has devised a theory that sets the limits for the amount of data that can be hidden in a system and then provides guidelines for how to store data and decode it. Contrarily, the theory also provides guidelines for how an adversary would disrupt the hidden information. The theory will have a major impact on homeland security applications.

Using the Electrostatic Levitator at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, a physicist at Washington University in St. Louis led a research team that validated a 50-year-old hypothesis explaining how liquid metals resist turning into solids. The research, led by Ken Kelton, Ph.D., a professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, is featured in the July 2003 issue of Physics Today and includes an image on the magazine’s cover of a solid drop of metal suspended inside the levitator. The NASA-funded research challenges theories about how crystals form by a process called nucleation, important in everything from materials to biological systems.

Science & Technology Tip Sheet

Lewis the robotic photographerMay and June are prom, graduation and wedding months, times when the family camera gets a steaming workout. Computer scientists at Washington University in St. Louis can take that camera out of your designated photographer’s hands and perch it atop Lewis, the world’s first robotic photographer.

Lewis the robotic photographerMay and June are prom, graduation and wedding months, times when the family camera gets a steaming workout. Computer scientists at Washington University in St. Louis can take that camera out of your designated photographer’s hands and perch it atop Lewis, a five-foot tall, 300-pound robot that wanders through a space taking pictures of people. Named after Meriwether Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame (for his traveling ways), Lewis is the creation of William D. Smart, Ph.D., and Cindy M. Grimm, Ph.D., assistant professors of computer science at Washington University, and is considered to be the world’s first robotic photographer.

ChenIn the age of SARS, what the world needs is a better respirator, or breathing mask. As hospitals worldwide face major shortages of masks, Da-Ren Chen, Ph.D., assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has developed material for a breathing mask using nanofibers so tiny and skinny that the entry of harmful particles as minute as viruses and bacteria is nearly impossible. Comprised of just less than two percent material, it is inexpensive to mass-produce, allowing companies a good profit opportunity.