But according to John Inazu, the Sally D. Danforth Distinguished Professor of Law and Religion at Washington University in St. Louis, another constitutional protection deserves renewed attention: the First Amendment’s right of assembly.

John Inazu presented “The Right of Assembly in our Democratic Experiment” as part of the spring 2026 course “1776, Then and Now,” offered by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. His lecture drew in part from his 2012 book, “Liberty’s Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly,” which is available for free under a creative commons license.

“We know, and you know, that our political disagreement feels maybe as sharp as it’s ever been in our lifetimes,” said Inazu, author of the 2024 book “Learning to Disagree: The Surprising Path to Navigating Differences with Empathy and Respect.”

“It might tempt you to think that disagreement itself is the problem, but I want to suggest that our disagreement is actually a sign of our health, because it means more honesty about the differences that we actually have.”

Rather than eliminating disagreement, Inazu said Americans should focus on learning how to navigate it. “The better question, and the one that matters for our lives together, is whether and how we can learn to disagree well,” he said.

A uniquely collective right

“Assembly is the only right in the First Amendment that cannot be exercised alone,” Inazu said. “You cannot assemble alone. Assembly requires at least two people.”

That distinction reflects a deeper truth about human life, he explained. Families, schools, churches, sports teams, unions and clubs shape personal identity and beliefs. The right of assembly protects people’s ability to form and sustain those groups.

“The right of assembly ensures that we can do that on our own terms,” he said.

America’s founders understood the importance of gathering together, whether in town meetings, churches, political clubs or taverns.

“They knew that assembly could be disruptive, destabilizing, but they also knew that without the ability to gather, ordinary people had no way to resist government overreach,” Inazu said.

From a foundational freedom to a forgotten one

Inazu traced the role of assembly through American history, from abolitionist and suffrage movements to labor organizing and the Civil Rights Movement. He noted that for much of the nation’s history, assembly was regarded as one of the country’s core freedoms. Yet over time, the concept faded from public consciousness and constitutional law.

“Today, courts and litigators routinely invoke the free speech clause, and not the assembly clause, when they’re addressing protest situations,” Inazu said.

He argued that modern legal doctrines governing protests often fail to fully account for the unique value of gathering together. Rules that appear neutral still can undermine the effectiveness of public demonstrations by separating protesters from the audiences or events they hope to influence.

Practicing pluralism

For Inazu, the importance of assembly extends beyond constitutional law. It is also a daily practice that shapes how people engage with those who hold different views.

“I want you to think of assembly as first of all a very local practice,” he said. “It’s going to show up in your lives, in the clubs and groups that you join, the neighbors that you meet and the conversations you hold.”

Those experiences can be difficult, he acknowledged.

“If you do it right, it’s going to be messy, because real pluralism, real difference, is messy,” he said.

Yet protecting the rights of people and groups with whom we disagree is central to democratic life, he cautioned.

“Civil liberties are ultimately for losers,” Inazu said. “It’s when you lose (in the political process) that you most need civil liberties.”

Inazu concluded by arguing that democratic societies must preserve space for disagreement, dissent and collective action, regardless of which political faction holds power.

“That breathing space will only be secured with bipartisan and cross-ideological support for the right of peaceable assembly, regardless of politics or party, as we work to live together in spite of our differences,” he said.

John Inazu presented “The Right of Assembly in our Democratic Experiment” as part of the 2026 spring course “1776, Then and Now,” offered by the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics.

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While the risk to Americans remains low, the outbreak comes as North America is hosting the largest FIFA World Cup in history — a 39-day event expected to draw millions of international visitors traveling across dozens of cities in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Jennifer Layden, MD, PhD, associate dean for practice and professor at the Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, has spent much of her career responding to emerging public health threats. As Illinois’ state epidemiologist and chief medical officer, she led statewide outbreak response efforts and oversaw disease surveillance programs, fielding reports ranging from measles outbreaks to suspected Ebola cases. She later became the founding director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology, where she led the agency’s data modernization initiative.

Here, Layden discusses the outbreak and the public health systems designed to detect and respond to emerging threats.

What makes the Ebola outbreak particularly difficult to contain?

Stopping an Ebola outbreak is incredibly hard work, and this one is especially challenging because of delayed detection and how widespread the outbreak had become before it was reported. There also are tensions and conflicts within the affected regions, likely underdiagnosis of cases and the absence of an approved therapeutic or vaccine for the strain involved.

An on-the-ground response to an outbreak like this is both an art and a science. The science requires identifying cases, conducting investigations, tracing contacts, isolating infected individuals, educating communities, protecting healthcare workers and providing compassionate care.

The art involves diplomacy, communication, community engagement and earning the support of affected communities. The people doing this work on the ground are local and international public health heroes.

Should Americans be worried about the Ebola outbreak?

I think about this in a few ways. We can and should be worried about the outbreak because of what it signals about the risk for infectious disease outbreaks across the globe and here in the U.S. Every time we see an outbreak like this, it reminds us that infectious diseases remain a real — and growing — threat. Disruption to our public health systems, inadequate funding to support robust surveillance and maintain a resilient public health workforce, coupled with changing climate, deforestation, widespread global travel, among other things, makes such threats real.

We can also be worried about such outbreaks because of the profound devastation they have for vulnerable communities.

And then there is worry at the personal health risk level. Right now, the risk to Americans who have not traveled or been in the impacted regions recently is very low.  

Why is the current risk to Americans low?

Ebola is not something that naturally occurs in the U.S.  People contract Ebola through direct contact with body fluids of someone with symptomatic Ebola, or through contaminated objects. 

Right now, there is no evidence of that here in the U.S. And our public health systems are taking a very aggressive approach to limiting travel, screening returning travelers, monitoring individuals when there is a known exposure, among other things.

How are public health agencies monitoring the World Cup?

Preparation for an event as large as the World Cup extends far beyond public health agencies. It involves coordination across multiple levels of government as well as hospitals, businesses, transportation systems, emergency management teams and event organizers.

One important approach is the use of emergency operations centers, which bring key stakeholders and responsible parties together, providing robust situational awareness, clarity on roles and standing procedures for responding to issues as they arise. 

In the United States, the World Cup elevates the concern for all sorts of outbreaks. Public health leaders need to ensure they are monitoring and preparing  for the full range of health challenges. With more travelers and large crowds gathering in close proximity, there is always a risk of disease transmission. More common threats, such as foodborne outbreaks, are often the greater concern.  

What information helps public health officials assess outbreak risk?

The central question is: Does this disease pose a risk to my community?

To answer that, they need to understand the disease burden. How many cases are there? Do we have a good handle on the outbreak, or is it being significantly underreported? They need to understand the disease dynamics: How rapidly is it spreading? How is it transmitted? Is it spreading person to person, or through a particular exposure such as food or water? How long does it take for symptoms to appear, and when are people contagious?

Just as important are questions about detection and preparedness. If a case appeared in my community, where would it likely show up first? Would it be a returning traveler? Would that person go to an emergency department? What information should we be monitoring so we can identify a case as quickly as possible?

Leaders also need to know whether healthcare systems are prepared to safely manage and care for patients and whether there is a risk of further transmission in those settings. These situations are often fluid, and information is frequently incomplete. That’s why communication is so critical — communication with government leaders, coordination with healthcare partners and ongoing communication with community members.

How do officials prioritize threats such as Ebola and rising measles cases?

Public health agencies don’t focus exclusively on one disease. Instead, they focus on signals that could indicate an emerging health threat.

One tool is syndromic surveillance, which monitors patterns in emergency department visits and urgent care visits. Another is event-based surveillance, which uses information from multiple sources, including artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced analytics, to look for signals in media and social media.  

Many diseases are already required to be reported to state and local health departments, allowing officials to continuously monitor for unusual patterns in case numbers or geographic spread.

Rather than preparing for a single disease, public health agencies build systems designed to detect and respond to a wide range of threats, including known diseases such as Ebola and measles, as well as emerging threats that may not yet be on anyone’s radar.

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Our brains make us who we are. But what makes our brains? Which of the myriad experiences and characteristics that define a child’s life and identity — from screen time to sleep to illness — leave imprints in the folds of that child’s brain?

After analyzing hundreds of biological, psychological, social and environmental factors related to children’s development, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that a family’s financial situation and the resources and opportunities in a child’s neighborhood had the strongest connection to brain development.

Socioeconomic factors accounted for about 16% of the variability in measures of children’s brain function — far more than IQ, parenting style and health history.

The findings appear June 11 in Science.

“We set out to compare hundreds of influences on the developing brain on a level playing field, and for the first time at this scale, we showed that socioeconomic conditions leave the deepest imprint of any factor we looked at,” said senior author Nico U. Dosenbach, MD, PhD, the David M. and Tracy S. Holtzman Professor of Neurology at WashU Medicine. And the socioeconomic signal seems to travel through everyday burdens like poor sleep and chronic stress.

As part of the study, the researchers analyzed brain scans from nearly 12,000 children ages 9 to 10 to see how a child’s environment, health and regular activities are related to brain development. Of hundreds of factors examined, the team found that the socioeconomic status of a child’s family had the strongest relationship with that child’s brain structure and function. Further, the parts of the brain that reflect socioeconomic factors were the same areas most sensitive to sleep and stress, suggesting that socioeconomic disadvantage affects the brain indirectly through disrupted sleep and chronic stress.

“The brain of a child from a low socioeconomic background looks like that of a child from a high socioeconomic environment that has been sleep-deprived and stressed,” said Dosenbach. “It’s not a less-smart brain. It appears to be a tired and stressed brain. The good thing is that sleep and stress are both modifiable. If we can find a way to improve sleep and reduce stress for children from households with more limited socioeconomic opportunities, we may be able to reduce brain differences linked to socioeconomics.”

Mapping the factors associated with brain structure and function

For years, researchers have tried to figure out the link between physiological brain features and people’s IQ, mental health or specific behaviors using “brain-wide association studies.” Such studies use magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans to map a person’s brain structure and function to specific cognitive, behavioral or other traits. But the studies have largely ignored the potential impact of children’s environments and experiences on brain development.

In light of research showing childhood poverty, chronic stress and other adverse experiences affect brain development and mental and physical health, Dosenbach and colleagues aimed to expand brain-wide association studies. They broadened their map to include 649 variables divided into 12 categories:

• socioeconomics
• screen time
• cognitive abilities, such as test scores and memory
• demographics, including race and sex
• culture and environment, such as religion, language and exposure to noise or pollution
• physical health
• mental health
• social adjustment, such as friendships and bullying
• substance use, including use of or exposure to people using illicit drugs and alcohol
• parenting
• personality, including factors such as extraversion and self-control
• medical history

Then, they set out to answer two questions: How are those variables reflected in the way the brain functions or is structured? And further, are relationships between IQ scores and brain physiology genuine or entangled with other variables?

To tackle these questions, the team analyzed data from 11,878 children who are participating in the NIH-funded Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, a long-term, nationwide study of brain development and child health, including a site based at WashU Medicine. Using MRI scans of the children, they performed sophisticated analyses to assess the links between each variable and both brain structure — as measured by the thickness of the cortex, the crumpled outer layer of the brain — and function, as indicated by the strength of connections between key functional networks in the brain.

Of the top 40 variables linked to brain function, 37 were socioeconomic, and of the top 40 tied to structure, 35 were socioeconomic. These included the social and economic resources in the child’s neighborhood, akin to the overall wealth of an area. Strong influences included family income, homeownership and poverty rates, and access to transportation. The remaining top variables were related to sleep, screen time and stress.

“I started calling it the ‘elephant in the brain,’” said first author Scott A. Marek, PhD, an assistant professor at WashU Medicine Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. “I thought socioeconomic opportunity would matter, but I didn’t think it would matter this much. It just dwarfed everything else.”

Socioeconomic variables were strongly associated with functional features in the motor and sensory areas of the brain, which are highly sensitive to day-to-day variation in sleep and stress. Brain regions associated with cognition and problem-solving were less tied to socioeconomic factors, indicating that socioeconomic conditions seem to shape children’s brains mainly by altering systems tied to bodily sensations and movement rather than directly changing “thinking” regions. As a result, what might look like a brain difference in cognitive ability is more likely a reflection of differences in everyday burdens such as fatigue and chronic stress than a difference in intellectual capacity.

The relationships between socioeconomic variables and the brain were not linked to demographic factors such as sex and race.

Brain imaging reveals no signature of IQ scores

For decades, scientists have searched for hallmarks of intelligence in the brain’s contours and composition and have come up with mixed results. Dosenbach and Marek might have uncovered why: earlier work that found associations between IQ and physical brain features such as cortical thickness could have been mistakenly picking up on socioeconomic factors instead. Research from the social sciences has shown that IQ scores rise with social privilege, for example.

To understand how socioeconomic factors affect the relationship between IQ and the brain, the researchers performed a statistical analysis that accounted for socioeconomic influence as an aggregate and then looked at the association between IQ and various brain areas and networks. Adjusting for socioeconomic status greatly diminished the associations between brain measures and IQ scores to the point where roughly 70% of these associations were no longer statistically significant.

In another analysis, Marek and Dosenbach took socioeconomic factors out of the equation by analyzing only children from high socioeconomic backgrounds. In this group, IQ had no correlation with brain structure or function.

“If we look at children’s brain scans, we can tell how well off their family is and how much sleep and screen time they get, but we can’t tell their IQ, at least not after adjusting for socioeconomic opportunity,” said Marek. “That tells me IQ is not rooted in neurobiology. The environment shapes children’s brains in ways that have been misinterpreted as being reflections of IQ, when really they’re just reflections of stress and sleep deprivation. Those are things we can do something about to improve kids’ brain health.”

Marek S, Donohue MR, Karcher NR, Hoyniak C, Chauvin RJ, Meyer AC, Miller J, Van AN, Wang A, Baden NJ, Suljic V, Scheidter KM, Monk J, Whiting FI, Ramirez-Perez NJ, Krimmel SR, Metoki A, Paul SE, Gorelik AJ, Hendrickson TJ, Malone SM, Schwarzlose RF, Cardenas-Iniguez C, Herting MM, Petersen SE, Luby J, Randolph AC, Shanahan MJ, Turkheimer E, Kay BP, Gordon EM, Laumann TO, Barch DM, Fair DA, Tervo-Clemmens B, Dosenbach NUF. Patterns of brain-wide associations reflect socioeconomics. Science. June 11, 2026. DOI: 10.1126/science.aee6213

This research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (R00MH121518, K23MH125023, R01MH139880, R00HD109454, P30ES007048, U24ES036819, R25DA059073, R25DA061824, R01ES032295, R01ES031074, K23NS123345, U01DA041120, K23DA057486, K23DA057486, U1DA041120), National Science Foundation (DGE-213989), Jacobs Foundation, and Kiwanis Foundation.

A.N.V., D.A.F. and N.U.F.D. have a financial interest in Turing Medical Inc. and may financially benefit if the company is successful in marketing FIRMM motion monitoring software products. D.A.F., A.N.V., N.U.F.D. may receive royalty income based on FIRMM technology developed at the University of Minnesota and Washington University and license. Turing Medical Inc. D.A.F. and N.U.F.D. are co-founders of Turing Medical Inc.

About WashU Medicine

WashU Medicine is a global leader in academic medicine, including biomedical research, patient care and educational programs with 3,100 faculty. Its National Institutes of Health (NIH) research funding portfolio is the second largest among U.S. medical schools and has grown 78% since 2016. Together with institutional investment, WashU Medicine commits over $1.6 billion annually to basic and clinical research innovation and training. Its faculty practice is consistently among the top five in the country, with more than 2,550 faculty physicians practicing at 200 locations. WashU Medicine physicians exclusively staff Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children’s hospitals — the academic hospitals of BJC HealthCare — and Siteman Cancer Center, a partnership between BJC HealthCare and WashU Medicine and the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center in Missouri and southern Illinois. WashU Medicine physicians also treat patients at BJC’s community hospitals in our region. With a storied history in MD/PhD training, WashU Medicine recently dedicated $100 million to scholarships and curriculum renewal for its medical students, and is home to top-notch training programs in every medical subspecialty as well as physical therapy, occupational therapy, and audiology and communications sciences.

Originally published on the WashU Medicine website

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A scholar of modern Jewish history specializing in East European Jewry and its diaspora communities, Glauber’s work has appeared in numerous journals. He is the co-editor of four collections of Hebrew essays published by Blima Books.

Glauber’s installation lecture, titled “There and back again, or: How a Hebrew book from St. Louis survived the Holocaust and returned home,” described the remarkable journey of an individual volume Glauber discovered on his first day working with the materials in the WashU Libraries’ collection.

This new position was endowed in honor of Miriam Barr, who died in June 2021, by her son, Eliav Barr, and his husband, Paul Koulogeorge, AB ’88. Their gift established an endowed fund at WashU Libraries to support a subject librarian, the Miriam Barr Librarian for Jewish and Near Eastern Studies, and provides resources to advance collecting, scholarship and programming in this field.

“Sam’s appointment to this position has fulfilled a critical need within the libraries,” said Mimi Calter, vice provost and university librarian, who introduced Glauber at the ceremony. “Having a scholar who possesses both a command of Hebrew and a strong understanding of Eastern European history is allowing us to look at our collections in a way that we haven’t been able to in the past.” 

An avid collector, Miriam Barr possessed an eye for finding and appreciating beauty. Although her collecting interests were broad, Barr was especially drawn to books and Judaica like historical photographs, maps and other artifacts.

“It is a great privilege, as well as a great responsibility, to take on this role to care for the many works of Jewish cultural heritage held here at WashU and in so doing, to honor the legacy of Miriam Barr, a Holocaust survivor, beloved matriarch and a lover of Jewish books and libraries,” Glauber said.

Glauber earned a master’s degree from Ben Gurion University in Israel, where he is working to complete a PhD. He thanked the Barr family for their vision and generosity in creating the endowed librarian position. 

“Libraries, of course, contain many treasures,” Glauber said. “But without librarians to serve as their stewards and to provide access to them, these treasures can languish on the shelf for many years without anyone knowing that they’re there.”

About Miriam Barr

Born in 1937 to Jewish parents living in present-day eastern Ukraine, Barr was only a toddler when her father died. When Barr was 4, the Nazis apprehended her and her mother and put them on a train headed for the Belzec extermination camp in Poland. She escaped by jumping from the train but watched her mother fall to her death. Barr experienced many more horrors during World War II and then as a refugee before finding asylum in Israel at age 12. There, she excelled as a student, earned a nursing degree, and married Isaac Barr, then a medical student. They raised a tight-knit family, which Barr prized as her ultimate victory over the Nazis.

“My mother was fiercely proud of her Jewish heritage and having beaten unbelievable odds,” Eliav Barr said. “Keeping history alive was imperative to her.”

“Miriam loved books and libraries, and she used education to lift herself out of hardship and build a fulfilling life,” Koulogeorge said. “Eliav and I are thrilled to support an area that was so close to her heart. We hope the Miriam Barr Librarian will inspire the next generation of students to follow Miriam’s lead and chart their own paths through learning.”

About Paul Koulogeorge and Eliav Barr

Paul Koulogeorge has been a steadfast donor to WashU Libraries since 1992. Today, he and Eliav Barr are sustaining charter members of the Danforth Circle chair level, a new recognition society reserved for alumni, parents and friends who give at the highest level to WashU’s Annual Fund. The couple’s generosity also extends to the Paul Koulogeorge and Eliav Barr Fund, an endowment they created in 2014 to provide ongoing collections support. Koulogeorge has served on the Libraries National Council since 2015 and is in his second term as chair. In addition, Koulogeorge is chair of the university’s Philadelphia Regional Cabinet and is an ambassador for With You: The WashU Campaign. Koulogeorge spent 35 years as a marketing executive, retiring as vice president of marketing, advertising and public relations from The Goddard School.

Eliav Barr has come to know WashU through his husband. Barr is the senior vice president of global clinical development and chief medical officer at Merck Research Laboratories, where he has worked for 30 years. Several of Barr’s mentors, including Roger M. Perlmutter, MD, PhD, and Dean Y. Li, MD, PhD, are WashU Medicine graduates. Many members of his research team also are WashU alumni. 

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This mechanism is at the center of a new study by biologists at Washington University in St. Louis, published in Current Biology.

“Corollary discharge is found in every animal, in every system, and that’s because it solves a universal problem, which is: How do animals distinguish sensory inputs coming from the outside world versus sensory inputs caused by their own actions?” said Bruce Carlson, a professor of biology in WashU Arts & Sciences. “That’s a universal problem, and it’s something that our sensory systems can’t solve by themselves.”

This type of neuroscience research can help uncover mechanisms that afflict human sensory processing and prediction. Once scientists understand a brain circuit inside and out, they can better fix broken circuits.

To study the inner workings of corollary discharge, Carlson and his team turned to weakly electric fish. These animals generate brief electrical pulses called electric organ discharges to communicate and sense their surroundings. But this form of communication presents a problem. Every time a fish sends out a pulse, it also “hears” itself. Without some way to filter its own pulse out, the sensory system would be overwhelmed.

That’s the role of corollary discharge. When the fish’s brain sends the command to produce an electric pulse, it also sends a predictive signal to cancel out the expected self-generated input. Thus, the fish remains sensitive to outside signals.

But as with everything else in nature, nothing is fixed. These electrical pulses vary widely from species to species over evolutionary timelines, but also within individual fish. Hormones such as testosterone can fluctuate over the course of days, lengthening the pulse, and signals can grow longer as an animal ages. So the question becomes: How does the corollary discharge system keep up with these timing changes?

For the new study, researchers recorded electrical activity in several brain regions involved in producing electric signals, comparing fish with short and long electric discharges, including hormone-treated fish and different species.

Martin Jarzyna, a graduate student in the Carlson lab and first author on the new paper, recorded the electrical activity at every step of the corollary discharge pathway within multiple individual fish. “It’s a tortuous path from the motor area to the sensory area,” Jarzyna explained. “Never before has anybody recorded from each area within an individual animal. We never had the full picture of activity across the entire circuit.”

By measuring when neural activity occurred relative to the fish’s motor command, they identified the brain region where timing shifts first appeared: a small population of neurons called the mesencephalic command-associated nucleus (MCA). Unexpectedly, they found that all three kinds of change they studied — hormonal, developmental and evolutionary — converged on this same mechanism.

In other words, MCA works as a kind of central timing hub. Rather than recalibrating multiple neural pathways independently, the brain can coordinate changes through a single structure. This is particularly important because the MCA branches into three pathways: one devoted to communication behavior, one involved in sensing behavior and one that regulates the production of electric signals.

These findings suggest evolution repeatedly relied on MCA instead of developing entirely new mechanisms. “A common solution evolved that can maintain these accurate sensory predictions, such that new solutions don’t need to be reinvented,” Jarzyna said.

Although this study was conducted in electric fish, the potential impacts extend beyond aquatic communication. Corollary discharge is essential for sensory processing in many animals, including humans, yet the underlying circuitry remains poorly understood.

“We’ve known about corollary discharge for a long time, but we know very little about the mechanisms operating that pathway,” Carlson said.

He said this new work highlights the broader value of studying animals with unusual sensory abilities: “Studying animals that have unique behaviors can inform general questions in neuroscience. Whatever it is that’s unique about their behavior can make them suited to asking certain sorts of questions that you couldn’t ask in another system.”

Looking ahead, researchers in the Carlson lab plan to investigate what is changing at the cellular and molecular levels within MCA neurons. Future work will involve intracellular recordings from MCA neurons to figure out not just where these events are taking place in the brain, but what is actually happening during them.

Jarzyna noted that this research also could help future researchers better understand disorders in which sensory predictions go wrong, such as schizophrenia. “Our study, while not directly addressing these conditions, is helping us to better understand the normal mechanism by which these sensory predictions operate,” he said.

Jarzyna MW, Carlson BA. Developmental and evolutionary changes in sensorimotor integration to maintain coordination of corollary discharge and afferent input in electric fish, Current Biology, 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2026.04.068

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (IOS-2203122 to B.A.C.) and the National Institutes of Health (F31NS139904 to M.W.J.)

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Andy Butler, a professor of education and of psychological and brain sciences, both in Arts & Sciences, has been appointed vice provost for undergraduate education. He will provide strategic leadership across undergraduate education, including student success, pedagogical excellence and curricular alignment.

Many of these functions previously were fulfilled by Jennifer Smith, also in Arts & Sciences, who had served as vice provost for educational initiatives. Smith is returning to teaching but will continue working with the team, serving as an assistant vice provost, along with Peter Boumgarden, the Koch Family Professor of Practice in Family Enterprise at Olin Business School, and working with Butler on undergraduate initiatives.

Amy Eyler, a professor and associate dean for faculty affairs at the Brown School, has been appointed to the new position of vice provost for academic excellence. In this role, she will oversee faculty affairs and help advise the provost on academic priorities and initiatives. Eyler previously served as chair of the Faculty Senate Council (2021–23) and president of the Association for Women Faculty (2021–22).

Nathan Jacobs, a professor of computer science and engineering at McKelvey Engineering, has been appointed to the new role of vice provost for artificial intelligence (AI).

Betsy Sinclair, the Thomas F. Eagleton University Professor in Public Affairs and Political Science in Arts & Sciences, has been appointed to the new role of vice provost for innovation. Previously, Jacobs and Sinclair were assistant vice provosts for digital transformation.

“Betsy and Nathan have done extraordinary work moving forward our WashU+AI academic initiative and will continue partnering on this monumental undertaking,” West said.

Vijay Ramani, senior vice provost for graduate education and international affairs, and Sandro Galea, vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives, will continue in those roles.

Executive Vice Provost Mary McKay is stepping down from her role, West said, thanking her and Smith for their years of service.

“We are excited about the strength and experience this group brings to the provost’s office and the work ahead,” West said. “We are all very grateful for the leadership and service of Mary McKay, whose contributions have helped move the university forward through enormous change over the years. We are also pleased that Jen can focus on the role she loves the most: teaching WashU students.”

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Celeste M. Karch, a national leader in the study of the genetic and cellular basis of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, has been installed as the inaugural Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Karch’s research integrates human stem cell models and genomics to decode the biological underpinnings of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Celeste Karch is helping redefine how scientists understand Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative conditions,” said Chancellor Andrew D. Martin. “Her work is revealing new possibilities for earlier detection, prevention and treatment. We are deeply grateful to the Morriss family, whose generosity makes it possible to recognize not only scientific discovery but also the collaborative, forward-looking approach that drives progress in making transformative contributions to science that can benefit patients.”

David H. Perlmutter, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs, the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and the George and Carol Bauer Dean of WashU Medicine, installed Karch.

“Celeste Karch is reshaping how the field thinks about the genetic and cellular drivers of neurodegeneration,” Perlmutter said. “She is way ahead of the field in recognizing the importance of human cellular models of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. These models have accelerated scientists’ understanding of disease pathogenesis and the testing of new therapies. This professorship is a fitting recognition of her remarkable accomplishments and will help ensure her continued impact in the field.”

Karch’s lab takes an integrative approach to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, bringing together genetics and “disease-in-a-dish” stem cell models to identify the cellular mechanisms that drive neurodegeneration. Her team has developed methods to analyze a person’s genetic code and determine which variants are dangerous, which are harmless, and which may even be protective — work that has helped patients and families understand their disease risk and eligibility for clinical trials.

Among her major breakthroughs, Karch discovered that when the brain’s cellular recycling centers, called lysosomes, stop working correctly, the malfunction serves as an early warning sign of disease — a finding that points toward a preventive treatment strategy for a variety of neurodegenerative diseases. She also revealed how certain genes control the brain’s immune cells and can be harnessed to improve their ability to clear Alzheimer’s-related damage. And, using stem cells grown from patient skin samples, her team has demonstrated that specific genetic mutations cause immune cells to malfunction in ways that likely accelerate the progression of dementia.

Among Karch’s most significant contributions is creating one of the world’s largest collections of stem cells for dementia research. This “biorepository” contains more than 1,000 cell lines from diverse individuals, allowing scientists globally to study the human brain in ways that were previously impossible.

Karch’s scientific contributions have won her recognition as a leader in the field of neurodegeneration. Her research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Alzheimer’s Association and other major funders. She is scientific director of the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) and an active member of the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center (Knight ADRC) at WashU Medicine. Karch has also received numerous honors, including the Rainwater Charitable Foundation’s Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early Career Scientist, and she was named an investigator for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization founded in 2015 by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg to help cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century.

To ensure that medical breakthroughs benefit everyone, Karch helped launch the African iPSC Initiative in 2025. This global program, established at the Biomedical Science Research Training Centre at Yobe State University in Nigeria — in partnership with Sussex Neuroscience in the U.K. and the Knight ADRC — studies how African ancestry influences dementia. Alongside her global impact, Karch remains a dedicated mentor, spending much of her time training the next generation of neuroscientists and advocating for diversity within the scientific community.

“Celeste Karch brings her extraordinary scientific vision and gift for multidisciplinary problem-solving to everything she does,” said Eric J. Lenze, MD, the Wallace and Lucille K. Renard Professor of Psychiatry and head of the WashU Medicine Department of Psychiatry. “Her lab has produced multiple major discoveries, each addressing a different piece of the Alzheimer’s disease puzzle, while simultaneously building resources and networks that elevate the entire field. We are tremendously proud to recognize her with this professorship and grateful to the Morriss family for making it possible.”

Karch completed her undergraduate education at Kalamazoo College in Michigan before earning her PhD from the University of Florida. She conducted postdoctoral research at WashU Medicine before joining the faculty in 2013.

About Barbara Burton and Reuben M. Morriss III

A graduate of Saint Louis Country Day School and Princeton University, Reuben Morriss III earned a law degree from WashU in 1964. He joined Boatmen’s Bank, beginning a long career as a leader of the St. Louis financial sector. He eventually became chairman and president of Boatmen’s Trust Co., a position he held until his retirement in 1995. He was a board chair of Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School in Ladue, Mo., and of William Woods University in Fulton, Mo. He also served on the boards of St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield, Mo., and the St. Louis Bi-State American Red Cross.

Barbara Burton Morriss was a graduate of John Burroughs School in Ladue and Briarcliff College in Westchester County, N.Y. She was a board member of the Alzheimer’s Association and the Central Institute for the Deaf, and she donated time and resources to many other local charitable and cultural institutions.

The couple maintained strong ties to WashU. A member of the Alumni Board of Governors, Mr. Morriss was actively engaged with WashU Law as a member of the school’s national council, campaign cabinet and alumni association board. Throughout their lifetimes, the Morrisses generously supported the School of Law, the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center and the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center.

The couple was married for 48 years and had two children, Burton Douglass Morriss and Barbara Dulany Morriss, and five grandchildren. Reuben Morriss III died in 2006, and Barbara Burton Morriss died in 2018.

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“This partnership demonstrates WashU’s ‘In St. Louis, For St. Louis’ commitment to our region in concrete and tangible terms,” Chancellor Andrew D. Martin said. “Under the leadership of Dean Dorian Traube and her team in the Brown School, the Public Exchange and the researchers leading CLEAN STL are creating a model for connecting academic expertise with local leaders to effect real change.”

The agreement formalizes and expands CLEAN STL — Contaminant Level Evaluation and Analysis for Neighborhoods — a multidisciplinary initiative launched in fall 2025 to provide residents and city leaders with accurate air and soil data to support long-term recovery efforts. The project began as a pilot developed in partnership with community organizations Better Family Life, Love the Lou and 4theVille and is now growing into a multiyear collaboration with the city.

The expanded initiative represents a significant investment of university resources, with WashU committing more than $500,000 over the next two years to support the project’s first phase of growth.

The signees on the partnership were St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer; Julian Nicks, chief recovery officer for the city; Victoria Anwuri, St. Louis health commissioner; and Dorian Traube, the Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the WashU Brown School.

It brings together the resources of the WashU Public Exchange with the city’s Recovery Office and Department of Health to safeguard community health during demolition and rebuilding and to give residents direct visibility into the conditions in their neighborhoods.

Led through the WashU Public Exchange initiative, CLEAN STL brings together expertise from WashU’s Brown School, Arts & Sciences, McKelvey Engineering, Sam Fox School and School of Law.

“St. Louis is moving into the next chapter of recovery, and that work has to be grounded in trust, transparency and good science,” Spencer said. “This partnership puts real-time information in the city’s and residents’ hands, brings world-class expertise to the neighborhoods that have waited too long for it, and shows that the rebuilding of north St. Louis is going to be done in a community-centric way.”

A shared commitment

“This reflects the kind of university WashU aspires to be — one that brings its research, expertise and institutional capacity into direct partnership with the community to help address urgent regional challenges,” said Lisa Weingarth, senior advisor to the chancellor and executive director of the university’s “In St. Louis, For St. Louis” initiative. “The work is rooted in listening, long-term partnership and a shared commitment to supporting the health and recovery of St. Louis neighborhoods.”

The WashU Public Exchange works across the university to connect researchers with community and industry partners to address complex social challenges through collaborative research and action.

“Public Exchange is designed to move ideas beyond the university setting by creating pathways for research, lived experience and cross-sector expertise to inform one another,” Traube said. “By connecting WashU researchers with community and industry partners, we can translate research into practical solutions faster, strengthen recovery efforts and create lasting impact for the St. Louis region and beyond.”

Following the tornado, many residents raised concerns about potential environmental health risks tied to debris, demolition and contaminated soil. Lead and other heavy metals can become airborne during destructive events and subsequent demolition activities before settling into surrounding soil, creating long-term public health concerns.

Public data, practical strategies

CLEAN STL was designed to help address those concerns through community-centered environmental testing and public-facing data sharing.

The project draws on a breadth of WashU expertise, including environmental geochemist Jeff Catalano, a professor of earth, environmental and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences; air quality expert Jay Turner, the James McKelvey Professor in Engineering Education at McKelvey Engineering; and Matt Bernstine, director of the Office for Socially Engaged Practice at the Sam Fox School. The WashU Environmental Law Clinic also is supporting the effort.

Under the expanded partnership, WashU researchers will broaden soil testing efforts with additional community partners and establish a network of air-quality monitors in neighborhoods experiencing concentrated demolition activity. The monitors will provide neighborhood-level air-quality data to help track dust and contaminants during rebuilding efforts. WashU researchers will place 10 air-monitoring units around the city in the areas of highest demolition concentration.

Researchers also will explore practical and cost-effective remediation strategies for residents with contaminated soil concerns. In addition, the Health Communication Design Studio at the Sam Fox School will help translate complex scientific findings into accessible public information for residents and community organizations.

Additional information about CLEAN STL and opportunities for community engagement will be shared as the expanded project moves forward.

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The Bears are the nation’s top all-sports program in Division III for the first time and only the eighth different institution to win. Points for the Directors’ Cup are awarded based on each institution’s finish in NCAA championships. It marks the 22^nd straight year that the Bears have finished in the Top 10.

“Consecutively for 21 years, WashU has been in the Top 10 of the Directors’ Cup, but year 22 was different, with 18 teams all nationally ranked in the Top 20,” said Anthony J. Azama, associate vice chancellor for student affairs and director of athletics. “There is no other way to receive this prestigious award than to earn it. Congrats to the administrators, support staff, coaches and student-athletes for their hard work and 3.67 GPA. To university leadership, Chancellor Martin and Vice Chancellor Gonzalez, thank you for your commitment to the development of scholar-champions. This is a special place!”

Overall, 18 sports are counted in the final DIII standings, four of which must be men’s and women’s soccer and men’s and women’s basketball. The next highest (14 max) sports scored for each institution, regardless of gender, are used in the standings. 

WashU tallied 1,266.50 points during the 2025-26 year, highlighted by women’s soccer and women’s indoor track-and-field national championships. Among the 19 programs, 18 made the NCAA Tournament and four finished in the Final Four in their respective sports.

“Winning the first-ever Directors’ Cup in WashU history is a trailblazing achievement for our department. It reflects the collective success of all our programs, not just one team, and demonstrates sustained excellence across athletics,” said Jim Conlon, head women’s soccer coach. “It validates the hard work of our student-athletes, coaches, staff and university leadership, while highlighting the culture of high standards, collaboration and commitment that defines our department. Most importantly, it establishes a new benchmark for future generations and shows that WashU can compete and excel at the highest level across multiple sports.” 

“We have always felt like we had a special group of people in athletics — now we can all collectively say that we have done something truly special as one team and one family,” added Pat Bloom, head baseball coach.

In total, 18 WashU programs reached the postseason, earning points in:

Baseball, regional final (50)

Men’s basketball, Sweet 16 (64)

Women’s basketball, Sweet 16 (64)

Men’s cross country, 16^th place (58.5)

Women’s cross country, 7^th place (72)

Women’s golf, 5^th place (75)

Men’s indoor track-and-field, 8^th place (70.5)

Women’s indoor track-and-field, national champions (100)

Men’s outdoor track-and-field, 14^th place (60)

Women’s outdoor track-and-field, national runner-up (90)

Men’s soccer, Sweet 16 (64)

Women’s soccer, national champions (100)

Men’s swimming and diving, 10^th place (67.5)

Women’s swimming and diving, 13^th place (63)

Softball, regional final (50)

Men’s tennis, regional final (64)

Women’s tennis, national runner-up (90)

Volleyball, Sweet 16 (64)

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By their nature, cancer cells have different nutritional needs than healthy cells. 

“Cancer cells have a distinct metabolism,” said Patti, the Michael and Tana Powell Professor of Chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis and a professor of genetics and medicine at WashU Medicine. 

Understanding those differences could open new possibilities for tracking and ultimately defeating the disease. That’s why Patti and others at Siteman Cancer Center, based at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and WashU Medicine, are turning their attention to a relatively new frontier of research: Cancer metabolomics, the comprehensive study of the small molecules that cancer cells either consume or produce as they attempt to grow and multiply. 

Earlier this year, Patti and co-author Joe Rowles, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemistry in Arts & Sciences and molecular oncology trainee in Siteman Cancer Center’s Cancer Biology Pathway Program, explored the latest research and most pressing questions in cancer metabolism in Nature Reviews Cancer.

Patti is an internationally recognized leader in mass spectrometry, a technology that makes it possible to identify and quantify specific molecules in a sample. With more than 20 mass spectrometers in his ultra-clean lab, Patti has the power to track even the tiniest of changes in the levels of cancer metabolites — small molecules involved in cellular metabolism. The challenge is determining which of those molecules can be targeted in the fight against cancer.

“The fact that cancer cells run distinct metabolic programs gives us two big opportunities,” Patti said. Metabolites could be used as markers to identify tumors, he explained. More importantly, a deeper understanding of cancer metabolism might lead to new drugs or dietary strategies that slow tumor growth while sparing healthy cells.

Tracking the metabolic needs of cancer cells is no simple task. For one thing, cancerous cells can act very differently depending on the context. “A cancer cell in a lab dish might use completely different nutrients than the same cell that’s growing in a mouse or a human,” Patti said. “One of the defining attributes of cancer cells is that they are very flexible.”

The complexity of tumors also poses a challenge. “A lung tumor, for example, might have dozens of cell types, and they aren’t all malignant,” Patti said. “Some of them, like immune cells, can actually be helpful.” It’s hard to zero in on the metabolites associated with the cancer cells and not with the other parts of the tumor, he explained, and it’s challenging to find a healthy comparison sample for experiments. “There’s no such thing as a healthy tumor.” 

Patti, PhD, and his team are collaborating with WashU Medicine researchers  — including David Mutch, MD, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, and Yin Cao, ScD, an associate professor of surgery and of medicine — to address these challenges. All three are research members at Siteman Cancer Center.

In ongoing experiments, they’re using isotopically labeled glucose to track the dynamics of tumor metabolism in patients. “WashU is a great place to do this kind of work, because the medical school has been a pioneer in developing innovative clinical tests using isotopes,” Patti said. 

In many cases, it’s a cancer cell’s appetite that really sets it apart from healthy cells. “They generally consume many of the same things that healthy cells consume,” Patti said. “They just do it much faster.”

Still, a closer look at metabolomics data could lead to new dietary strategies to prevent and control cancers. “I’m very enthusiastic about the idea that we can leverage diet to improve the lives of cancer patients,” Patti said. To reach that point, metabolomics studies will have to expand to thousands of people with different diets, genetic profiles and overall lifestyles. “We’ll need tons of data points to try to figure out how all of these different things are connected,” he said. 

In 2024, Patti and co-authors reported in Nature that fructose — a sugar found in high-fructose corn syrup — can indirectly fuel tumor growth in mouse models of melanoma, breast cancer and cervical cancer. Metabolomics studies found that the tumors were especially fond of a fructose product created in the liver.

The finding underscores the importance of close examination of the metabolic and nutritional pathways that allow cancer cells to flourish. “If you take cancer cells and put them in a dish and give them fructose, they won’t use it,” Patti said. “But if you have a tumor and you eat tons of fructose, it makes the tumor grow, in some cases, four or five times faster.”

Patti is especially alarmed by the growing rates of cancer among young people, a surge that has yet to be fully explained. “Cancers are still fairly rare in that age group, but they’re becoming increasingly common,” Patti said. “It’s happening so quickly that it can’t be caused by genetics alone. There must be a lifestyle factor, and it might come down to diet.”

Cancer metabolomics may seem like a niche area of research, but the insights could ultimately tip the fight against cancer to our advantage. “It is not a new idea to fight cancer with dietary modifications, but it’s too complicated to design interventions based on simple studies of cancer cells alone in isolation,” Patti said. “We are excited that metabolomics data from human patients can provide the knowledge needed to sort out the complexity.” 

Above all, Patti noted, cancer cells are greedy. And their greed could ultimately be their undoing. 

Rowles JL Patti GJ. Decoding cancer across scales with metabolomics. Nat Rev Cancer 26, 312–327 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-026-00908-0

This work was delivered as part of the PROSPECT team supported by the Cancer Grand Challenges partnership funded by Cancer Research UK (CGCATF-2023/100037 to G.J.P.), the National Cancer Institute (OT2CA297576 to G.J.P.), the French National Cancer Institute and the Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK.

Originally published on the Ampersand website

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