Investing in tomorrow’s changemakers
The Brown School at WashU is the first social work program in the country to launch practicum tuition awards alongside a cost-of-living stipend for every MSW student. This reduces students’ burden of educational debt and allows them to participate fully in an invaluable hands-on learning experience — essentially a mandatory internship at a social services organization.
How a WashU degree became a scholarship for others
Award-winning executive Valerie Davisson, MA ’89, attributes her professional success to her WashU education. She decided to pursue a master’s degree in human resources management at the WashU School of Continuing & Professional Studies (CAPS), then known as University College, in the hopes of advancing her career. At the time, Davisson was working full time at a medical staffing agency and couldn’t afford to leave her job to attend graduate school. WashU offered the flexibility she needed to work during the day and take classes at night.
A California dreamer: Where a scientist meets the sand
As a first-year resident rotating between three hospitals in San Francisco, Meredith Klashman, AB ’16, admits that juggling a heavy caseload is challenging. She credits her education for teaching her how to stay focused on patients, balancing medical and scientific inquiry with empathy. Klashman has always felt the push-pull between the world of research and the day-to-day satisfactions of hands-on care. Both, she says, offer meaningful opportunities for public health advocacy.
WashU connections, alive and well
Elias Tannous and his wife, Priscilla Tannous, BSBA ’05, MBA ’09, JD ’09, are busy professionals in the Bay Area. In addition to their demanding careers in drug development at Merck & Co. Inc. and corporate governance at Levi Strauss & Co., respectively, the couple is raising two daughters, Vivian and Isabelle, ages 2 and 5.
WashU’s collaborative spirit nurtures rising star
Bisiayo Fashemi, PhD, always knew she wanted to be a scientist. Starting in high school and continuing through her undergraduate years, the Boston native seized every opportunity to conduct lab research, with a particular focus on improving women’s health.
Creating in community
In many ways, Olivia Baba, BFA ’23, was the quintessential, multitalented applicant to WashU’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. She had cultivated her passion for and skills in fashion design from an early age — asking her mom to take sewing classes when she was just 7 years old and spending her remaining childhood under the tutelage of a series of seamstresses, boutique owners, and clothing designers in the Bay Area.
Advocating for access: ‘The journey continues’
Music brought Larry Thomas, BSBA ’77, to WashU — the Vicksburg, Mississippi, native became smitten with the campus after staying on the South 40 during a high school band competition. Personal connections and mentors helped him succeed. And passion for greater access to a WashU education keeps him engaged in a lifelong relationship with the university.
Giving from the heart
Mandee Polonsky, AB ’00, and her husband, Jonathan Polonsky, AB ’98, are both proud Chicago natives with deep family roots in the Windy City. Their story, however, begins in a different Midwestern city: St. Louis, and at WashU, specifically, where the two met at a fraternity party through Jonathan’s identical twin brother Daniel Polonsky, AB ’98. They were both students in Arts & Sciences — Mandee was studying political science and anthropology, and Jonathan, economics.
At the intersection of data, climate, and human health
In 2024, Bo Li joined Arts & Sciences as the Stanley A. Sawyer Professor in Statistics and Data Science. Her professorship — coming soon after the department’s formation — signals WashU’s deepening commitment to high-impact, transdisciplinary scholarship.
Internships shape a career path
Ariel Nochez came to WashU in August 2022 with a passion for technology. Since then, through studies on the Danforth Campus and far beyond it, he has been layering on new interests, forging a service-oriented career path that bridges disciplines. A student in the McKelvey School of Engineering, he is majoring in data science and linguistics with a minor in speech and hearing sciences.