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Lora Iannotti and Feng Jiao have been installed as the inaugural Lauren and Lee Fixel Distinguished Professors at WashU, becoming the first faculty members to hold professorships associated with the university’s Food and Agriculture Research Mission (FARM), which aims to address global challenges at the intersection of agriculture, food systems and human health.

WashU’s Helina Woldekiros is leading the first archaeological excavations of sites associated with the ancient Kaffa kingdom in highland Ethiopia. Her new research considers what ancient food webs teach us about the future of agriculture and the origins of coffee.

Working with collaborators at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, WashU Medicine researchers show how a disease of the small intestine related to malnutrition can be passed from mother to offspring.

Ampersand Programs immediately immerse first-year students in the very best of WashU, blending classroom study with experiential learning while fostering tight-knit cohorts and close connections with faculty.

Psychological and brain sciences PhD graduate Merve Ileri-Tayar, a native of Cankiri, Turkey, earned the 2025 Dean’s Award for Graduate Research Excellence and was named a McDonnell International Scholar. She will continue her research on attention, cognitive control, and goal-directed behavior as she pursues a career in cognitive psychology.

Nine recent WashU alumni and one current student received Fulbright awards to teach English or to conduct research abroad during the 2026-27 academic year. Established in 1946, the prestigious Fulbright program recognizes talented leaders and scholars and strives to increase global collaboration and fellowship.

Nearly half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture, according to the World Economic Forum. Now, for the first time, every agricultural field on Earth has a boundary on a map, thanks to a novel model designed to infer field boundaries all over the world.

The Endangered Primate Information Collaboration (EPIC) will combine on-the-ground expertise and high-tech monitoring to observe and protect populations of diademed sifakas (“dancing lemurs”) in Madagascar as well as western lowland gorillas and chimpanzees across Africa’s Congo Basin.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports from around the world suggested that violence against women and girls was rising during lockdowns — a pattern widely described as a “shadow pandemic,” prompting researchers to take a closer look.

WashU Public Health PhD student Anita Kabarambi has received a Margaret McNamara Education Grant to study how to implement cervical cancer prevention into HIV care in Uganda.