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University News
Bears are NCAA national champs — national runners-up:
Senior Tyler Nading scored a game-high 20 points as the Washington University men's basketball team repeated as NCAA Division III national champions with a 61-52 victory over No. 6 Richard Stockton College on March 21 at the Salem Civic Center in Salem, Virginia. The women's basketball team staged a frenzied second-half comeback attempt that fell just short as the Bears lost 60-53 to No. 3 George Fox University in the national championship game played at the DeVos Fieldhouse in Holland, Michigan.
StoryCorps to capture parents' stories at Siteman Cancer Center:
Nationally recognized StoryCorps will visit the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and the School of Medicine April 17-21 as part of a collaborative project to better understand how parents with cancer discuss the diagnoses with their children. This visit is the first time that StoryCorps, the largest oral history project of its kind, has partnered to collect the stories of cancer survivors on a single topic.
Franklin "Buzz" Spector named dean of art in Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts:
Franklin "Buzz" Spector, professor and former chair of the Department of Art at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, has been named dean of the College and Graduate School of Art, both part of the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. He also will hold the Jane Reuter Hitzeman and Herbert F. Hitzeman, Jr. Professorship of Art.
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Research
A Newtonian system that mimics the baldness of rotating black holes:
The rotating black hole has been described as one of nature's most perfect objects. As described by the Kerr solution of Einstein's gravitational field equations, its space-time geometry is completely characterized by only two numbers — mass and spin — and is sometimes described by the aphorism "black holes have no hair.” A particle orbiting a rotating black hole always conserves its energy and angular momentum, but otherwise traces a complicated twisting rosette pattern with no discernible regularity. Now Clifford M. Will, Ph.D., the James S. McDonnell Professor of Physics in Arts & Sciences, has shown that, even in Newton's theory of gravitation, arrangements of masses exist whose gravitational field also admits a constant of motion, in addition to energy and angular momentum.
Researchers find sustained improvement in health in Experience Corps tutors over 55:
Tutors over 55 who help young students on a regular basis experience positive physical and mental health outcomes, according to studies released by researchers at Washington University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The tutors studied were members of Experience Corps, an award-winning organization that trains thousands of people over 55 to tutor children in urban public schools across the country.
Brain damage found in cognitively normal people with Alzheimer's marker:
Researchers at the School of Medicine have linked a potential indicator of Alzheimer's disease to brain damage in humans with no signs of mental impairment. Although their cognitive and neurological assessments were normal, study participants with lower levels of a substance known as amyloid beta 42 (A-beta 42) in their cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) had reduced whole brain volumes, suggesting that Alzheimer's changes might already be damaging their brains. Scientists previously showed that low CSF levels of A-beta 42 mark the presence of amyloid deposits in the brain, a key diagnostic marker of the amyloid plaques that characterize Alzheimer's disease.
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| Features
U.S.-led team confirms an Alps-like mountain range exists under East Antarctic Ice Sheet:
Flying twin-engine light aircraft the equivalent of three trips around the globe and working in temperatures that averaged minus 30 degrees Celsius, an international team of scientists, including one from Washington University, has not only verified the existence of a mountain range that is suspected to have caused the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet to form, but also has created a detailed picture of the rugged landscape buried under more than four kilometers (2.5 miles) of ice.
Grant helps computer science faculty emphasize active learning:
Computer science faculty at Washington University are exposing their undergraduate students to learning in ways that prepare them for interaction in the real workplace. It's not about "staying between the lines," but more about getting out of your seat, moving around, and interacting with your classmates. It's called active learning, a learning laboratory-based, tutorial teaching concept.
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Heard on Campus
“What is that when we talk about impact? When we talk about the Peace Corps model it is about interaction. International volunteering and service is about interaction. It is about sharing. It is about the conversations. It is about the culture. It is about the efforts of both parts and everybody learning.”
—Josephine Olsen, Ph.D., acting director of the Peace Corps, in her lecture "International Volunteering and Service in the 21st Century" |
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Engineer devises ways to improve gas mileage:
Last summer, it was very expensive to fill up a gas tank when the gasoline price hit close to four dollars a gallon. Transportation by road or air consumes fuel, which not only increases our vulnerability to foreign imports, but also is a source of greenhouse gas emissions that will impact adverse change in climate and global warming. A mechanical engineer at Washington University is developing techniques that will lessen our monetary pain at the pump by reducing the drag of vehicles.
Kudos
Alex Beyer, a junior in Arts & Sciences, became the third student-athlete in Washington University history to win a swimming national championship when he placed first in the 400-yard individual medley at the 2009 NCAA Division III swimming and diving championships March 19 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Louis P. "Pepper" Dehner, M.D., professor of pathology and immunology and pathology in pediatrics, received the Distinguished Pathologist Award of the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology at the academy's 2009 annual meeting. The meeting is the largest annual gathering of pathologists, and the Distinguished Pathologist Award is its highest honor.
Mark Edwards, head coach of the men’s basketball team, has been named the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and Molten/DIII News Division III National Coach of the Year.
I. Jerome Flance, M.D., emeritus professor of clinical medicine, has received the Ralph O. Claypoole Sr. Memorial Award from the American College of Physicians. The award recognizes an outstanding practitioner of internal medicine who has devoted his or her career to the care of patients. The recipient is a clinician highly respected by colleagues for clinical skills and someone who has been a role model as a member of a clinical faculty of a department of medicine.
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About @Washington University in St. Louis
This newsletter is prepared by Special Development Communications Projects staff in Alumni and Development Programs. It is intended to provide a brief summary of what is happening at the University. Alumni, parents, and friends of the University for whom we have valid e-mail addresses automatically receive @Washington University in St. Louis.
Copyright 2009, Washington University in St. Louis
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(314) 935-5000
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