WashU Alumni

09/19/2026

Sketch, build, and dream big ✏️ 📏

Launched in 2007, the summertime Alberti Program at the WashU Sam Fox School offers local elementary and middle school students a hands-on introduction to architecture.

Students spend their days using the same materials and tools as WashU architecture students to create their own structures — this year, there was a floating home and a clubhouse for witches — which they present in a closing exhibit at Steinberg Hall.

🔗 Learn more about the program at the link in the comments.

09/18/2026

Handwritten hope 💌

During her stint as an oncology social worker after graduating from the WashU Brown School, Aleeza Granote, MSW ’04, had a sobering realization: many people with cancer are deeply isolated.

It was a lightbulb moment, and it inspired Granote to start her nonprofit, Card Care Connection, which sends handmade cards to people with cancer around the United States. Inside the cards are personalized, handwritten messages from volunteers that aim to deliver the same supportive sentiment: you are not alone.

🔗 Read more about Granote at the link in the comments.

09/17/2026

It's a great time to be a Bear. 🏆

WashU invites the university community to recognize the hard work of WASHUBears athletes, coaches, and staff next week at the Learfield Directors' Cup Celebration and Festival.

📆: Wednesday, Sept. 23
⏰: 5-6:30 p.m., followed by a women's soccer game against Millikin University at 7 p.m.
📍: Tisch Park and Francis Olympic Field
🥤: Complimentary local food and drink, arcade games, caricature artists, airbrush tattoos, and a photobooth

The university won the Learfield Cup for the first time in its history in 2025-26 after 18 of its athletics programs made the NCAA tournament in their respective sports and two took home national championships.

🔗 Learn more at the link in the comments.

09/17/2026

On this day in 2006, WashU's Hilltop Campus officially became the Danforth Campus. ❤️🐻💚

More than a name change, the dedication was a deserving recognition of the profound role former Chancellor William H. Danforth, the late Elizabeth "Ibby" Danforth, the Danforth family, and the Danforth Foundation have played in the university's evolution.

“Our thanks go to Bill Danforth and the trustees and staff of the Danforth Foundation for helping to build in St. Louis ‘a world-class university’ that continues to grow in strength, reputation, and — most of all — in service to its students and to the world,” said then-Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton ahead of a dedication ceremony in Graham Chapel. “The drive for excellence continues, and the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis will help to remember a man who, with his wife and thousands of colleagues and friends, worked to keep alive the dream of a great university located in the Midwest, to build upon the accomplishments of their predecessors, and to hand on to us, their successors, both the dream and a healthy edifice on which to build."

📸: University and Student Life Archives

09/16/2026

A new ranking lists the WashU Sam Fox School among the top five design and architecture colleges in the country out of more than 4,000 institutions evaluated.

🔗 Read more at the link in the comments.

09/16/2026

100 years, generations of PhDs ❤️ 🏛️ 💚

This weekend, the WashU History Department will host a centennial celebration of its doctoral program featuring expert panels and alumni Q&As. The event will be streamed for those who cannot attend in person.

🔗 Learn more from WashU Arts & Sciences and register at the link in the comments.

09/14/2026

Researchers at WashU Medicine have uncovered a new way to potentially halt or slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease and other diseases involving tau protein buildups in the brain.

WashU Medicine researchers reduced Alzheimer’s-like neurodegeneration in mice by preventing immune cells from traveling to the brain.

09/13/2026

Science rules! ❤️ 🧑‍🔬 💚

On this day in 2006, Bill Nye The Science Guy spoke to a packed Graham Chapel as part of WashU's Assembly Series. Nye's lecture covered topics such as climate change, space exploration, and the recent news of Pluto's downgrade to dwarf planet status.

📸: Student Life Archives

09/12/2026

Earlier this year, Darrell Bosworth was largely bedridden, on dialysis, and experiencing worsening episodes of confusion as his liver and kidney failure progressed.

Today, his mental clarity has improved, and he's back on his feet.

Surgeons Jessica Lindemann, MD, PhD, (below, left) and Adeel Khan, MD, performed the world’s first-reported robotic double transplant of a liver and kidney on Bosworth in May at WashU Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital Transplant Center.

While individual organ transplants have previously been performed robotically, this achievement demonstrates that the minimally invasive procedure may be feasible for certain patients who need multiple organs transplanted.

🔗 Visit the link in the comments to learn more.

09/10/2026

WashU recently broke ground on the James E. and Clara P. McLeod House, a new South 40 residence hall that will strengthen the undergraduate experience while honoring two campus greats.

The university community joined the McLeod family in celebrating the new building, named after Clara McLeod and her husband, the late James McLeod, former vice chancellor for students and Arts & Sciences dean.

"This building represents the commitment James and I made to educate and nourish young minds in a familiar setting," Clara said. "It was important to us to become part of a community where everyone could feel valued, where each person would know that they are contributing, and where these contributions continue to foster and cultivate the WashU way."

The McLeod House will accommodate 600 first-year and sophomore students and is expected to be completed by fall 2028. The residence hall will meet growing student demand to live on campus and bring together all first-year and sophomore students on the South 40, a longtime priority.

"For generations of students who will walk through its doors, the McLeod House will be a living expression of the very idea Jim spent his career championing, that every student deserves to be known by name and by story," said Board of Trustees Chair Andrew M. Bursky, AB ’78, BS ’78, MS ’78. "This is Jim and Clara's legacy, and it will now be built into the very fabric of this campus."