May 2025 – Weinberg College News – Northwestern University

Globe on a table with three wooden blocks that read environmental, social, and governance

Alumni & Students / Arts & Humanities / Faculty / Research / Science & Technology / Society & Policy / Environment & Sustainability

Passion for the planet: A new generation of environmental stewards starts here

Over the last two decades, the Weinberg College-housed Program in Environmental Policy and Culture (EPC) at Northwestern has embraced the humanities and social sciences and cultivated a new generation of environmental stewards. Growing up in Portland, Oregon, Fiona Lenth describes her...

Art works in studio, centered is sculpture of human body photo by Photo by Lane Relyea

Alumni & Students

Senior art exhibition spotlights new techniques, artistic growth and community

Peristeronic, meaning “of or relating to pigeons,” may have fallen out of common use, but to the 10 artists in the exhibition opening May 22 at Dittmar Gallery, the term suggests a reverent irreverence. Lucie Paul, one of the featured fourth-year...

Hillel student executive board members huddled together and smiling

Alumni & Students / Faculty

Northwestern receives gift to enhance Jewish studies and student experience

Northwestern University has received a generous gift from an anonymous donor to support the Jewish studies program and enhance activities for Jewish student life. The gift will enable the University to increase its undergraduate course offerings and to bolster activities...

vintage 1970 photo of woeman sitting at rows of analog type of workstations

Alumni & Students / Research / Society & Policy / Economics

The real beneficiaries of protective labor laws for women

During the first half of the 20th century, many states passed labor laws in response to the influx of women into the modern workplace. The so-called protective labor laws enacted by U.S. states restricted women’s economic opportunities through maximum hours...

Faculty / Research / Science & Technology / Society & Policy

Northwestern receives $25 million gift to advance adolescent mental health research

New institute will study psychology of emerging adults, leading to innovative wellness programming for students at the University and beyond Northwestern University is launching the Institute for Adolescent Mental Health and Well-Being, an interdisciplinary initiative to research issues related to the...

Artist bree gant at work on papers spread on table

Arts & Humanities / Alumni & Students / Arts

MFA graduate bree gant on how several mediums shape her artistic practice

bree gant is in her studio in Locy Hall writing. Her words flow horizontally across the page, wrapping left to right down the page. Like movements in a dance sequence, the word order changes slightly with each repetition, creating subtle...

Micrographs of human neurons exposed to amyloid-beta proteins and either left untreated (left side of photo, neurons are tiny and red, widely dispersed) or treated with the new nanotherapy developed at Northwestern (right side of photo, neurons are larger, green, more plentiful). Dead neurons are stained in red; live neurons are green.

Faculty / Research / Science & Technology / Brain & Mind

Sugar-Coated Nanotherapy Dramatically Improves Neuron Survival in Alzheimer’s Model

Scientists at Northwestern University have developed a new approach that directly combats the progression of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). In these devastating illnesses, proteins misfold and clump together around brain cells, which ultimately leads to...

(left) Rachel C. Zhang and (right) Jane Clarke

Alumni & Students / Awards & Honors

Two Named Gates Cambridge Scholars, Will Study History and Machine Learning

Jane Clarke ’24 and Rachel C. Zhang ’24 MS have received 2025 Gates Cambridge Scholarships. Now celebrating its 25th year, the program identifies academically outstanding social leaders to pursue postgraduate study and research at the University of Cambridge. Established in 2000...