Ampersand Magazine

News, milestones, and spotlights from across Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.
 

• Out of the classroom
  Students in the Pathfinder Fellows in Environmental Leadership program traveled to Madagascar to research environmental challenges.

• Reclaiming St. Louis’s cultural legacy
  The Engaged City initiative aims to highlight St. Louis’s cultural assets and reframe how the city sees, understands, and talks about itself. 

• Positive psychology
  Graduate student Payton Rule won a prestigious early-career grant from the American Psychological Foundation to explore the psychological well-being of people with disabilities. 

• Weedy warriors
  Across rice fields in Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, an aggressive crop weed is becoming increasingly resistant to herbicides.

• Vaccines to prevent dementia
  Meredith Jackrel was part of a team that received a $2.9 million grant to develop vaccines to prevent dementia.

• Seniors named Rhodes Scholarship finalists
  Elijah Darden and Isaac Seiler were finalists for one of the world’s highest academic honors. Darden is working to reduce health disparities. Seiler is an advocate for public service and local journalism.

• Remarkable researcher
  Deanna Barch was honored by two national health organizations for her contributions to advancing the medical community’s study and treatment of mental health disorders. 

• Big drone takes flight
  The Meramec River became a classroom when students in the “Geospatial Field Methods” course traveled to Tyson Research Center to document the river’s 10th-largest flood since 1904. 

• Protecting medical implants
  Timothy Wencewicz is part of a team that won a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study methods for detecting bacterial infections that form around medical implants. 

• The honor of a lifetime
  Ismael Mourifié was elected to The Econometric Society, an honor fewer than 5% of economists receive in their lifetime.

• Meet me in St. Louis
  As part of his ongoing study of the United States’ relations with China during the early 20th century, Zhao Ma recently explored the fair’s often-overlooked Chinese tradesmen, assistants, and interpreters.

• Could mindfulness protect against Alzheimer’s?
  A research team is exploring if mindfulness could offer protection against Alzheimer’s disease in Latinx older adults, a vulnerable and understudied population. 

• Cancer’s appetite for fructose
  Research from the lab of Gary Patti found that dietary fructose promotes tumor growth in animal models of melanoma, breast cancer, and cervical cancer. 

• Can we get better at disagreeing?
  WashU’s Civil Society Initiative launched a new course that allowed students to discuss how disagreement, extremism, and polarization relate to social and political challenges. 

• Constituent conversations
  Jaclyn Kaslovsky found that women in the U.S. House of Representatives were more likely to discuss their districts when speaking on the congressional floor.

• Art for all
  Seven students and professor Elizabeth Childs helped fulfill the Saint Louis Art Museum’s mission of creating inclusive exhibits by helping make Vincent van Gogh’s famous works accesible to those with visual impairments.