Andrew Whitaker, a two-sport athlete and a senior biomedical engineering major at the McKelvey School of Engineering, has spent his undergraduate career giving back.

When Celia McKee, a doctoral student studying neuroscience, revealed on Twitter that her grant had been rejected, she wasn’t looking for pity, but asking for honesty. Her message struck a chord: more than 225,500 users liked the viral post and 15,000 shared the message.

Recently, Washington University in St. Louis political experts Steven Smith, Betsy Sinclair and Andrew Reeves sat down to discuss the reliability of the 2020 polls, as well as election integrity and voter confidence in the election outcome.

A new initiative seeks to tap into WashU’s people power to obtain input from the entire community on ways we can streamline, shift and adapt to benefit the university in lasting, sustainable ways.

People with Down syndrome nearly always develop signs of Alzheimer’s as they age. School of Medicine researchers are taking part in a multisite study to understand how Alzheimer’s develops in this population, with a long-term goal of finding ways to prevent or treat the disease.

At a time when Americans are increasingly polarized and partisans share a mutual disdain for one another, students in Betsy Sinclair’s “Public Opinion and American Democracy” course at Washington University in St. Louis are learning how to bridge the divide.

An international team of researchers led by scientists at the School of Medicine has identified two regions in our DNA — one newly identified and a second that replicates a past finding — that appear to contribute to one’s risk of becoming dependent on marijuana.

Rohit Pappu, a professor in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, is part of a multi-institutional team awarded a $7.5 million MURI grant to study and engineer membraneless organelles.

Former Congressman Richard Gephardt does not know who will win the 2020 presidential election. Nor does he know when the race will be called. But Gephardt does believe the election will be safe, secure and fair. Gephardt will join former U.S. representatives from both parties Tuesday, Oct. 27, for a panel discussion, “Counting Every Vote: Election Integrity in 2020.”

Academics who assembled at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis offered such relevant presentations, research and ideas — a full nine months before a pandemic derailed, if not stymied, global operations — that it produced a special edition in scholarship: how to pay for production and distribution today and manage global risks in a highly uncertain environment. Supply Chain Finance and Fin Tech Innovations was published Oct. 1 as the 14th volume of Foundations and Trends in Technology, Information and Operations Management.