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Uluğ Kuzuoğlu’s new book discusses 20th-century reforms of the Chinese writing system in the context of a growing information economy. Throughout the 20th century, Chinese characters were at risk of disappearing. In his new book “Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age,” Assistant Professor of History Uluğ Kuzuoğlu explores how the rise of […]

Ruochen Chen, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has won a Gale Non-Residential Fellowship from the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). The fellowship is intended to help scholars expand the fields of Asian studies for research and teaching, and to foster the skills to apply […]

The McDonnell International Scholars Academy at Washington University, with support from the Office of the Provost, awards seed grants that stimulate high-impact research linking university experts with our partners around the world. These investments help research teams, often representing cross-disciplinary fields, demonstrate the power and potential of their work. 

Sociocultural anthropologist Geoff Childs shares photos from his research in Nepal, where he has spent decades studying demographic trends in a highland Buddhist community. Geoff Childs, professor of sociocultural anthropology, has been researching demographic trends in Nubri, a highland Buddhist community in Nepal’s Himalayas. He’s done fieldwork there since the ‘90s when he began studying […]

Kenneth Olsen, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology, frequently works with international colleagues to study the evolution and genetics of plants. Much of his focus is on rice, a crop that has been grown under human control for 10,000 years. Olsen explained that domesticated crops are like prolonged experiments in natural […]

Mechanical metamaterials are materials that are designed to have specific properties, such as being able to bend or twist in certain ways. Guy Genin, Harold and Kathleen Faught Professor of Mechanical Engineering at McKelvey School of Engineering, along with collaborative researchers from Tsinghua University, a McDonnell International Scholars Academy partner, are studying how these materials […]

The China Journal of Social Work has honored work by an international team of scholars with the 2020 Best Article award for their study on the rebirth of social work in mainland China. The international team includes scholars from Saint Louis University, Peking University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Washington University’s Center for Social Development. In a […]

Anthropologist T.R. Kidder in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis published new research that shows that aridification in the central plains of China during the early Bronze Age did not cause population collapse. The results highlight the importance of social resilience to climate change. Climate alone is not a driver for human […]

In a national effort to alleviate poverty, China has already invested deeply in financial technology (“FinTech”) to achieve financial inclusion. In this context, financial social work (FSW) is a good fit with China’s public priorities and the interests of social workers, researchers, policymakers and educators. Over the course of two decades, Washington University’s Center for […]

A collaboration between Professor Guy Genin, the Harold and Kathleen Faught Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and Changqing Chen, professor in the School of Aerospace and director of Tsinghua University’s Institute of Solid Mechanics (ISM), has led to a breakthrough in the development of metamaterials that can be designed to […]