Africa

Growing up in a world saturated by fear of HIV and AIDS, WashU Public Health’s Massy Mutumba developed a commitment to help her country fight the HIV epidemic.

Proscovia Nabunya, an associate professor at the Brown School, has received a $5 million federal grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to streamline mental health treatment and HIV medication support for adolescents living with HIV in rural Uganda.

Xuehua Zhong, a professor of biology and the Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholar, has received several major federal grants to advance her pioneering work in plant epigenetics, the molecular processes that regulate gene expression without altering DNA.

A new study from Washington University in St. Louis, published October 15 in Communications Biology, presents compelling evidence to support the hypothesis that humans evolved from an African ape-like ancestor.

In the hot southern Egypt sun, a monument to modern ambition bisects the Nile — a massive rockfill dam once hailed as a triumph of engineering, anticolonial defiance and national pride. But beneath the surface of this vast construction lies a deeper, more complex story — one of displacement, Cold War deal-making, pan-Arab solidarity and shifting landscapes both physical and political.

Eight recent alumni and one current student of Washington University in St. Louis earned Fulbright awards to travel abroad to teach English or to conduct research in the 2025-26 academic year.

Across all Washington University in St. Louis campuses, scores of researchers share a drive to understand the natural forces that shape our climate, health, culture and physical world.

Nearly 85% of the 1.7 million adolescents with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa, along with half of the nearly 40 million people in the world living with HIV. Although the government in Uganda provides free antiretroviral treatment (ART), adherence to the regimen by adolescents ages 10-16 is low, increasing the potential for the virus to further spread.

The Arts & Sciences senior has researched public health initiatives through an anthropological lens in Uganda, Switzerland, and St. Louis.

Three members of the Washington University in St. Louis faculty have been awarded a $3 million research grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to address the economic and structural barriers associated with access and use of an oral medication to prevent HIV infection.