Faculty Stories

The purpose of this project was to culturally adapt the World Health Organization (WHO)-developed Caregiver Skills Training (CST) program to be used in the Mongolian context in close collaboration with the Autism Association of Mongolia.

As a result of the award, we were able to complete the cultural adaptation of CST in Mongolia, and we hosted a “CST launching event” that included various local stakeholders, such as the WHO Country Director, the Mongolian Ministry of Education, the Mongolian Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, local NGOs, and local clinics. Our next steps are to pilot test the CST with caregivers of young autistic children in Mongolia.

The purpose of this project was to co-design and build a mobile application (app) to provide adolescent girls and young women with tailored contraceptive decision support in the pharmacy setting in Kenya. This project builds on three years of mixed methods research on the contraceptive needs and preferences of Kenyan adolescent girls and young women and current gaps in pharmacy-based contraceptive counseling to improve the person-centeredness and quality of care for this underserved population. Our multidisciplinary team features researchers from the UW and Kenya Medical Research Institute in OB/GYN, public health, computer science, and human centered design.

We conducted four participatory full-day co-design workshops with adolescent girls and young women aged 15-24, as well as pharmacy providers, in Kisumu, Kenya. The workshops were facilitated by Kenya-based human centered design experts Dr. Serah Gitome and Mr. Nelson Cheruyiot, and UW PhD student Lisa Orii traveled to Kenya to provide essential technical support to launch the app prototype. Lisa attended 3 of 4 workshops. Workshops included a variety of activities to engage participants, including journey mapping, guided interaction with the app, usability testing, and group interviews to generate diverse feedback on app features. The prototype was refined between each workshop. The main outcome of this project was a final prototype of the Mara Divas app, which we piloted in a feasibility study among 100 young women seeking contraception in 6 Kisumu pharmacies. Our data provided essential preliminary data to move this work forward in a larger trial.

The project involved conducting a workshop that involves training in implementation science and discussion with stakeholders on needs assessment, identification of opportunities, and co-developing and implementing strategies addressing maternal and child health in Ethiopia. The workshop has been completed and the qualitative study is ongoing.

As a result of the award, I was able to innovate the design of my curriculum to maximize learning outcomes. I worked with Alex McGee and the Global Health E-Learning Program team to create a 9 minute video to use in my course: Understanding Health Systems (Dr. Su): https://youtu.be/3F6Ljo_d5Wc.

Through collaboration with colleagues in the U.K., I was curious to understand how offshore wind impacts fisheries and other traditional users of ocean space have been mitigated for large-scale offshore wind build out. Concerns over displacement of traditional uses has been at the forefront to objections over offshore wind development for both U.S. coasts.

By attending a pair of research conferences and engaging in discussions with researchers from a range of disciplines, I discovered that these impacts have not been mitigated in U.K. build-outs, but are considered the “least worst” option for addressing climate change. The unsolved nature of this problem provides an opportunity for U.S. researchers to develop innovative approaches for co-use around floating offshore wind.

I designed a COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) module in my course ENVIR 430/JSIS 484 Environmental Issues in East Asia and collaborated with Dr. Chen-Chen Cheng from the Department of Special Education at National Kaohsiung Normal University. The title of the COIL module was “Accessibility of Interpretive Signs in Environmental Education: Comparative Perspectives from Taiwan and Washington State”.

Students from both campuses got to know each other through Padlet introductions, had shared virtual lectures, conducted field work in local parks, collaborated on the comparative project, and presented their results together virtually. In addition to learning content, the objectives of the COIL module include: (1) critically reflect on one’s cultural origins, practices, and habits of thought; (2) co-create mutually beneficial, cross-cultural relationships and communities; (3) practice cross-cultural communication and gain proficiency in virtual collaboration technologies.

The purpose of the project was to build a transatlantic research network to identify how local geographies, cultures, and histories impact spaceport development, to determine how spaceports affect mobility of people, goods, and data from local to off-world scales and to recommend best practices in spaceport development.

As a result of the award, I organized two sessions (a paper session and an interactive “tactile” session revolving around artefacts from researchers’ field sites relating to outer space and spaceports) at the Royal Geographical Society’s (RGS) Annual International Conference in London. I also organized a photo exhibit at RGS involving researchers from Russia, the UK, Norway, and the US on “Earthly Imprints of the New Space Age”. I visited Goonhilly Earth Station (UK) and Svalbard Satellite Station (Norway) to develop initial contacts and bolster future research on spaceports and ground stations. I drafted a research paper on political and environmental impacts of Starlink megaconstellation with PhD student, Zachary Cudney, which has been submitted to a special issue in Territory, Politics, Governance organized by Yi-Ting Chang and Ian Klinke (University of Oxford) and Rory Rowan (University College Dublin). I presented a research paper on Arctic spaceports in a session on the Arctic and Outer Space organized by scholars from Iceland and Canada at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland. I cemented ties with researchers in the UK studying outer space. We (Eleanor Armstrong, University of Leicester; Richard Tutton, University of York) plan to put together a grant application, which we will submit to a joint call by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the US National Science Foundation.

The pre-program visit enabled me to scout locations and meet potential collaboration partners in Taiwan and Singapore. During these trips, I visited Shih Chien University, National Cheng Kung University, and the Taiwan Design Research Institute in Taiwan, as well as the National University of Singapore. The purpose of these visits was to build relationships with key contacts and prepare for the upcoming study abroad program.

As a result of the award, I established a study abroad program titled Design in Taiwan. Seventeen UW students participated, traveling to Taipei, Taichung, Nantou, and Tainan. They completed two design workshops alongside 21 students from two local universities. Students shared their learning and travel experiences here: https://uwdesignintaiwan24.blogspot.com/. 

I used this award to visit Tokyo and Chiba, Japan, to scope sites for a planned, quarter-long UW Study Abroad program in Japan. I met with several collaboration partners to plan the program.

My collaboration partners at Kanda University of International Studies and I met on their campus and made great progress regarding the complex details for the study abroad program, from curriculum to schedule. I also met with a colleague at Waseda University to add a COIL component to one of the three courses that I will teach, expanding the impact of the program.

I developed and enhanced a COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) course, “BIS 490 Advanced Seminar: Smart City Seattle”. This course was a great way to sustain and enhance the international partnership I have developed with the Department of Urban Planning and Engineering at Pusan National University (PNU) in Busan, South Korea.

My global partner and I created a new engaging opportunity, including a class discussion via Padlet (https://padlet.com), an exchange of lectures in synchronous Zoom meetings, and a final project presentation. The class helped students to have a cross-cultural understanding of urban planning and geography in the U.S. and Korea, particularly for those who would not otherwise have had a chance to work with students and faculties in a rich and dynamic global context. The COIL class deepened the global partnership with PNU.

Faculty members and students from PNU also came to visit to participate in the “Smart City Seattle Program” that I organized. The visit focused on smart city planning and development, including climate-smart cities and inclusive and equitable smart city and community planning. We had a workshop and explored various neighborhoods and sites in Seattle, and we also visited the Department of Neighborhood at the Seattle City Hall to learn about their community-centered projects.

The purpose of this project was to explore the impacts of international sanctions on civilians in sanctioned countries.

As a result of the award, I attended an in-person international conference with my counterpart at Johns Hopkins University (SAIS) in Washington, D.C., and a follow-up virtual workshop about six months later.

We are completing an edited volume with the contributions to send for review and hopefully publication. We have received the contributions of fifteen participants and are now completing the introduction to the volume.

This project was a part of a new course I have developed, POL S 463 “Law and Violence Data Laboratory,” which is a small upper-division seminar in Political Science, which was also designed to count toward the university-wide Data Science Minor (DSM) as fulfilling a data studies requirement. Adapting and extending laboratory models from the natural sciences, the course takes a novel approach by teaching students about data collection and measurement in the social sciences through direct and collaborative work on a real research project. The main project theme was to create a comprehensive subnational data set on anti-press actions in Russia using original primary reports from a non-governmental monitoring organization. Students thus learn about general best practices in data collection through reading and intense classroom discussions, which they then apply to this real-world data collection project.

To provide a deeper contextualized understanding of the Russia experience, one of the objectives of using the award funds was to invite and compensate through honoraria Russian media monitors and activists to give students a better sense of the challenges involved in monitoring anti-press behavior as well as how such data are compiled.

The main overall outcomes of the Data Laboratory were met: 15 students developed technical skills around data collection, which they applied in collaboratively contributing to what will become an extensive data set on Russian anti-press actions for the period 2000-2020. One outcome of this project was the drafting of a rough instrument for a public opinion survey on individual attitudes toward the treatment of the media, which allows for gauging societal opinions but in a way that can be more safely anonymized relative to relying on human rights monitors directly.

In collaboration with my colleague, Martina Kartman, I submitted a proposal to offer a new LSJ study abroad program in New Zealand. The program will explore the impact of colonization on conflict resolution and justice practices as well as contemporary efforts to revive/create new restorative justice alternatives in Aotearoa.

The purpose of the pre-program visit was to familiarize ourselves with the available resources and opportunities available in key locales across the country. We visited museums, met with potential guest speakers, explored housing options, and more.

The primary locales for this course are Auckland and Wellington. We will spend our first week near the Waitangi Treaty Grounds to ground our students in the history of colonization. Field trips will include visits to Maori villages to observe Iwi community panels utilizing kaupapa Māori practices, observation of courtroom processes, and meetings with legal authorities in various settings. These opportunities for observation and dialogue in diverse settings across New Zealand will enable students to appreciate the many ways justice can be envisioned and enacted and the implications of these diverse practices.

The purpose of the project was to continue to expand the global breadth of content in the IMT 579 course “People Analytics.” In the 10 weeks of the course, students already have content from the UK, Peru, Colombia, and a series of examples from across Europe and the U.S. This award was intended to incorporate material from the Asia Pacific region.

Australia: In partnership with the CEO and founder of a people analytics technology platform based in Australia, a course module was created where students were given an opportunity to work with and learn about the development, design, and application of a people analytics technology platform. They learned to use the platform and data to conduct a sophisticated approach to conducting organizational network analyses (picture of the analysis graphs they produced in the class is attached). Students were also joined by a live in-class speaker from Australia doing People Analytics as a profession.

Japan: A new case study featuring the impact of AI to bring about new ways of working and increase gender inclusivity in the workplace was also added to increase the breadth of materials being included in the course from across the Asia Pacific region. Built with the support of a former People Analytics practitioner working with the Takeda Pharmaceutical company.

The aim of this project was to develop a healthier social media platform for teenagers through cross-cultural collaboration between US and South Korean research teams. Building on successful pilot work, the platform would incorporate evidence-based techniques for fostering authentic relationships while avoiding the mental health pitfalls common to existing social media. The project will demonstrate how social platforms can better serve youth across different cultural contexts over a two-year timeline.

The project established a robust international collaboration between the University of Washington and KAIST’s Collaborative Social Technologies Lab (CSTL), led by Prof. Joseph Seering. Through regular virtual meetings and strategic in-person visits, our research teams worked closely on developing a culturally sensitive social media platform for teenagers. The student researchers from both institutions actively contributed to the platform’s design and development phases, bringing diverse cultural perspectives to the project. We have successfully built an initial version of the app and are currently iterating on the platform design while preparing for recruitment and deployment. Our established partnership framework includes regular knowledge exchange between the teams, shared platform development responsibilities, and coordinated research planning for the upcoming deployment phase.

Chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer are the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S.. Innovative AI applications could drive more robust and comprehensive solutions to diagnose and manage chronic diseases. Development and deployment of ethical AI systems in this domain is highly non-trivial because of privacy and health equity concerns. The purpose of the project was to start a cross-disciplinary collaboration on responsible health AI with faculty from Computer Science and Nursing at UW Tacoma and UW Seattle and an expert on fair AI at McGill University (Canada).

This project sparked the establishment of a new Responsible Health AI Lab (RHAIL) at UW Tacoma. The project was the first seed funding that we received for collaboration between the School of Engineering and Technology and the School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership at UW Tacoma. We went on to successfully apply for an NIH AIM-AHEAD PAIR research capacity building grant to start a machine learning for health equity lab at UW Tacoma. Students in our lab have since also been awarded additional NIH fellowships to conduct research on responsible health AI.