August 16, 2013
News Digest: New annual-leave sharing program for organ donors, Honor: Allan Devol and Barbara Hickey
UW launches annual-leave sharing program for organ donors
The university recently launched the UW-exclusive Organ Donor Shared Leave Program. The program permits UW employees who volunteer as live organ donors to receive gifts of leave from other UW employees. These gifts of leave help the volunteering employee cover the necessary time off work required by the donation process without having to first use up their own paid leave.
UW oceanographers named AGU Fellows
UW oceanography professors Allan Devol and Barbara Hickey have been named fellows of the American Geophysical Union, an international organization that represents more than 62,000 members in 144 countries. The organization announced 62 new fellows who will be honored at the annual fall meeting in San Francisco.
Hickey was honored for her innovative research on ocean dynamics and physical links to ecological sustainability in coastal areas. Her research involves observations and modeling of water movement, temperature, salinity, plankton fluorescence and oxygen offshore of the Washington coast and in its estuaries, and in nearby submarine canyons and river plumes. Recently she has studied harmful algal blooms and low-oxygen conditions in the Pacific Northwest and how these affect local shellfish populations.
Devol was honored for outstanding contributions in marine biogeochemistry, especially elemental cycling in low-oxygen water and sediments. He has studied marine environments from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico, and developed instruments to measure oxygen, nutrients and acidification in Puget Sound. Recent research has involved unraveling the nitrogen cycle in the oxygen-deficient waters of the tropical Pacific and Arabian Sea.
