McKelvey School of Engineering

On May 30, 2020, WashU alumnus Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley became the first astronauts in NASA’s history to launch from a commercially built and operated spacecraft, the SpaceX Crew Dragon. For the Demo-2 mission, the two are testing the spacecraft’s transportation system for future missions.

Life-changing innovations continue to emerge from the university thanks to creative faculty research, cross-collaboration and the aid of the Office of Technology Management.

In his book The Genealogical Adam & Eve: Surprising Science of Universal Ancestry, S. Joshua Swamidass, MD, associate professor of Pathology & Immunology in the School of Medicine and of Biomedical Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering, uses science to show that Adam and Eve could have existed and that theology and science don’t lie nearly so far apart.

Denise Saim, a 27-year employee at the McKelvey School of Engineering, died suddenly May 26, 2020, at her home of an apparent heart attack. She was 64.

A new technique developed in the lab of Matthew Lew at the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis measures the orientation of single molecules. It is enabling, for the first time, optical microscopy to reveal nanoscale details about the structures of these problematic proteins.

Research from the McKelvey School of Engineering shows that energy constraints on a system, coupled with an intrinsic property of systems, push silicon neurons to create a dynamic, at-a-distance communication that is more robust and efficient than traditional computer processors. And it may teach us something about biological brains.

Washington University junior Ayana Klein, founder of edtech startup 3DuxDesign, shares her story as a student entrepreneur and how WashU led her to success.

Until recently, researchers have not inspected the interplay between three common chemicals found in drinking water. Research from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis has found they all affect each other and a closer look is needed.

An interdisciplinary team at Washington University in St. Louis used computer modeling from different domains to look at how the United States might best lift quarantine — without a harsh blow to public health or the economy.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have developed an extraction and cleanup method that, for the first time, will allow for measurements of RNAi pesticides in soil.