Washu bolsters public engagement and research with climate concert, Alzheimer’s fiber grant and EMBA Batch 12 launch
washu is advancing three distinct initiatives that bring performance, biomedical engineering and executive education to the fore: a cross-disciplinary climate concert that folds field sounds into composition, a five-year, $3. 27 million grant to develop a hair-thin fiber implant for long-term Alzheimer’s research, and the opening of admissions for the IIT Bombay–WashU Executive MBA Batch 12. Each action pairs specialized expertise with outreach or training designed to extend the university’s reach.
Development details — Washu projects and actions
The school’s arts initiative features a concert that embeds environmental sound into contemporary composition. Violinist Clara Kim will perform material from composer Christopher Stark, including a piece titled "2nd Nature" that uses cicada chirps as its foundational element; Stark has described the chirp, when slowed, as resembling a synthesizer and has designed the work to bridge organic sounds and technology. Dan Giammar, director of the university’s Center for the Environment, helped shape the presentation to move conversations about climate change from numerical data to an emotional, sensory experience. The performance is scheduled to take place in the university’s Umrath Lounge.
On the research front, biomedical engineering professor Song Hu and his team received a five-year, $3. 27 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, to continue work on a minimally invasive fiber implant to study Alzheimer’s disease progression. The implant, made of inert glass and only a fraction of a millimeter thick, is designed to remain in place for roughly nine months and enable powerful optical methods such as photoacoustic microscopy and two-photon microscopy to image deep brain regions like the hippocampus at cellular resolution. The project lists collaborators who will supply fiber components and long-term implantation protocols: Xiaoting Jia of Virginia Tech and Harald Sontheimer of the University of Virginia.
Separately, admissions have opened for the joint IIT Bombay–WashU Executive MBA program, launching Batch 12. The program is presented as a globally integrated, joint-degree offering for senior working professionals, entrepreneurs and business leaders. Gopal Shukla, CEO of the joint venture, characterized the curriculum as combining technology, strategy and leadership and noted features that include an international immersion in the United States and access to global alumni networks and professional recognitions such as Beta Gamma Sigma.
Context and escalation
The concert represents an intentional interdisciplinary collaboration. Stark partnered with environmental engineer Dan Giammar to craft a program intended to translate broad climate data into immediate sensory terms by using animal soundscapes as compositional material. Performers and organizers framed the effort as a way to engage audiences who might not respond to charts and graphs but can be moved by sound and emotion.
Hu’s lab has previously worked on neurovascular mechanisms at the cellular level but faced a technological barrier: conventional benchtop microscopy reaches only about a millimeter into brain tissue. The new bidirectional fiber implant is being developed to overcome that limit and repeatedly access the same deep brain region over months, enabling the team to test specific hypotheses about disease progression—chiefly that impaired blood-oxygen supply in the hippocampus, potentially secondary to amyloid pathology in brain vessels, drives memory loss and that restoring oxygen supply might improve memory.
The EMBA announcement situates the joint program as a continuing response to demand from seasoned professionals for education that integrates technical depth with global business leadership. Recent cohorts are described as drawn from sectors such as manufacturing, IT services, financial services, energy and healthcare, highlighting an emphasis on cross-sector peer learning.
Immediate impact
The concert aims to affect public engagement: by embedding natural sounds into composed music, organizers expect to reach audiences emotionally and broaden the climate conversation beyond technical audiences. The performance’s cross-disciplinary design intends to expose community members to environmental science framed through creative practice.
For researchers, the grant and implant create immediate experimental capacity: the ability to image and intervene in the hippocampus over roughly nine months allows longitudinal study of neurovascular coupling and amyloid-related vessel pathology. That capacity directly enables the team to measure temporal relationships among vessel amyloid, blood-oxygen levels and memory changes in animal models, and to evaluate targeted interventions that deliver stimulation or drugs through the same fiber architecture.
The EMBA admissions opening will bring a new intake of senior professionals into a program structured to allow continued employment while participants pursue leadership development, international immersion and network-building. The program’s organizers frame this intake as reinforcing a pipeline of leaders prepared for technology-driven decision-making and boardroom-level responsibilities.
Forward outlook
The concert is intended as a platform for future cross-disciplinary projects that pair creative practice with environmental research; organizers said they hope it will inspire additional collaborations and public engagement formats. For the Alzheimer’s project, the five-year grant sets a multi-year timeline: the funding period will support continued refinement of a bidirectional fiber implant, repeated imaging and testing of hypotheses about blood-oxygen supply and amyloid pathology, and integration of electrical stimulation and drug-delivery components developed by collaborators.
Admissions for the IIT Bombay–WashU EMBA Batch 12 mark the next enrollment milestone for the joint program, with candidates expected to join a curriculum that includes international immersion in the United States and structured leadership development. The three initiatives together reflect a coordinated push to pair research, education and public outreach at institutional scale.
