Spring 2025 Content

What Explains the Increase in Online Hate Speech?

Jocelyn C Anderson — March 04, 2025 - 2:00pm

Over the past few years, there have been extensive changes in content moderation policy on social media platforms. As companies like X and Meta loosen these policies, users have reported an increase in hate speech. So what caused this shift?

Alum Receives Early Career Fellowship

Jocelyn C Anderson — February 25, 2025 - 4:14pm

Victoria Watson-Zink, Ph.D. ’22, a postdoctoral evolutionary marine biologist, received the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Hanna H. Gray Fellowship last month. This year’s fellowship supports the transition of 25 early-career scientists to leading labs and becoming tenured faculty.

Pairing Science with Social Justice

Russell L Thebaud — February 18, 2025 - 4:00pm

Rather than petri dishes or microscopes, in Brie Tripp’s lab you’ll find diverse undergrads gathered around laptops, carrying out the lab’s unique mandate of studying how to promote social and racial justice in science classrooms.

Blues, Books and Beyond

Anila Mary Lijo — February 18, 2025 - 1:13pm

For Julia Simon and Charles Oriel, the classroom and the stage have always felt surprisingly similar. Their band, Julie and the Jukes, is more than just a blues ensemble — it’s the result of a meeting in Washington University’s Romance languages and literatures department in St. Louis, Missouri.

“I was playing in a duo that basically did folk stuff,” said Oriel, now a senior continuing lecturer in Spanish at ��о��. “I had always really enjoyed playing blues and slowly got more and more into that.”

Fortifying Bouillon Could Reduce Malnutrition in West Africa

Russell L Thebaud — February 18, 2025 - 12:56pm

In September, the Nigerian government made an important change to its food fortification program to date — a set of standards outlining that voluntarily fortified bouillon cubes must contain minimum amounts of four micronutrients: iron, zinc, folic acid and vitamin B12. While some foods are already fortified in the country, the dehydrated seasoning blocks, consumed in virtually all Nigerian households, may prove to be the ideal vessel for some vitamins and minerals.

5 Exciting Projects Coming to ��о��

Jocelyn C Anderson — February 18, 2025 - 12:55pm

This year promises the opening of several exciting developments on campus. Here are five of the most high-profile projects coming soon.

An Adventurous Spirit

Jocelyn C Anderson — February 18, 2025 - 12:55pm

When Liese Greensfelder ’77, M.S. ’83, visits Norway again this summer, the trip will further deepen a bond with the country that goes back decades. When she was 20, Greensfelder temporarily became the sole farmer on a remote Norwegian farm, an experience she describes in a new book Accidental Shephard: How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway (University of Minnesota, 2025).

All About Flavor

Jocelyn C Anderson — February 18, 2025 - 12:55pm

Arielle Johnson, Ph.D. ’14, knew she wanted to study food science after a research project on Turkish ice cream, a dessert made stretchy with orchid root. Now, Johnson is an established food scientist, advising restaurants and food manufacturers internationally.

She graduated New York University in 2009 and applied to a variety of programs for food science, aiming to apply chemistry to gastronomy and cuisine. “Most of them said, ‘we don't really do that,’” she said. “There wasn’t really anyone doing exactly what I do 15 years ago.”

Majorettes Come to ��о��

Jocelyn C Anderson — February 18, 2025 - 12:55pm

A new group has emerged on the campus football fields and basketball courts: ��о��’ first majorette team. Founded by third-year students Leah Roberts and Sade Adams, the team combines elements of jazz, hip-hop and contemporary dance to showcase an important element of black culture.

“Creating the majorette team was like finding that missing piece in my experience at Davis,” said Roberts. “It was like a piece of home.”

How Could Tariffs Affect Consumers, Business and the Economy?

Russell L Thebaud — February 18, 2025 - 12:55pm

Tariffs on goods imported to the U.S. are not new, but today they are being discussed as much broader tools in a more complicated world.

Since before the Constitution was signed, tariffs have reduced the competitiveness of American enterprise and increased the cost of goods. Today, they are proposed to bring back U.S. manufacturing jobs to communities that provided the president his strongest support while also being leveraged as expansive geopolitical tools with uncertain consequences.

Spring 2025 Content

What Explains the Increase in Online Hate Speech?

Alum Receives Early Career Fellowship

Pairing Science with Social Justice

Blues, Books and Beyond

Fortifying Bouillon Could Reduce Malnutrition in West Africa

5 Exciting Projects Coming to �����о���

An Adventurous Spirit

All About Flavor

Majorettes Come to �����о���

How Could Tariffs Affect Consumers, Business and the Economy?

5 Exciting Projects Coming to ��о��

Majorettes Come to ��о��