Professors and students comment on the signing of the Paris climate agreement as countries move toward implementing its contents.
News and features
Boosting global health partnerships for Chinese universities
Supported by the Global Innovation Fund, a landmark symposium hosted by the UW last week brought together leaders and faculty from five Chinese universities, across the UW campus and the Seattle community. “Collaborating with Chinese colleagues is a tremendously high priority, both personally for faculty and institutionally here at UW,” said Judy Wasserheit, chair of the Department of Global Health and symposium co-chair.
Belgian Ambassador to the U.S. speaks on campus
The United States and Belgium have worked together across the globe to promote security, human rights, and bilateral trade. They share a mutual interest in creating safe communities in the United States, Belgium, and elsewhere by cooperating on counterterrorism and countering violent extremism. The two nations also have longstanding economic and commercial ties with more than 13 million jobs on both sides of the Atlantic already supported by US-EU trade.
The UW community is invited a talk with the Belgian Ambassador to the United States, Johan Verbeke, April 18th in the Smith Room, Allen Library at 3:00pm.
Scientists crack the code of butterflies’ international journey
Each fall, monarch butterflies across Canada and the United States turn their orange, black and white-mottled wings toward the Rio Grande and migrate over 2,000 miles to the relative warmth of central Mexico.
This journey, repeated instinctively by generations of monarchs, continues even as monarch numbers haveplummeted due to loss of their sole larval food source — milkweed. But amid this sad news, a research team believes they have cracked the secretof the internal, genetically encoded compass that the monarchs use to determine the direction — southwest — they should fly each fall.
For leading nonprofits, global change starts in Seattle
By investing in global health, Seattle foundations and non-profits are also changing the Puget Sound region. They are infusing the region’s innovation ecosystem with a wealth of global health care companies and research institutes, and they have helped build capacity and expertise at the University of Washington.
UW-led field project watching clouds from Antarctica
A UW atmospheric scientist is leading a project to study the clouds above the Southern Ocean. Seeing how the cloud droplets, small bits of dust, sea spray, and other materials on which cloud droplets form, and the ocean and sun interact will help improve global climate models.
Guggenheim Foundation honors three globally-engaged professors
Three UW professors are among the 178 scholars, artists, and scientists recognized this year by the Guggenheim Foundation. Katharyne Mitchell, Helen O’Toole and Rajesh Rao were among the winners chosen from more than 3,100 applicants and will receive grants that allow them to pursue creative projects in the fields of science, academic scholarship and the arts.
Exploring the history of Jewish refugees in Shanghai
From 1933 to 1941, Shanghai became a modern-day “Noah’s Ark” accepting over 18,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe. Most were from Germany and Austria, but the refugees also included students of the famed Mir Yeshiva, the only yeshiva in occupied Europe to survive the Holocaust. In the “Designated Area for Stateless Refugees” in Ti Lan Qiao historic area of Shanghai, Jewish refugees lived harmoniously with local Chinese, overcoming numerous difficulties together. By the time the Second World War ended in 1945, most of the Jewish refugees had survived.
The Jewish Refugees in Shanghai Exhibition (1933-1941) brings together for the first time photos, personal stories, and artifacts from Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum. The exhibition will run at Hillel at UW from April 5 through April 30, 2016. It is free and open to the public Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM. School field trips are available with advanced notice.
Department of Global Health celebrates Innovation Fund awards
This year’s Global Innovation Fund awardees represent a number of disciplines across 29 schools, colleges and programs. The funds are managed by the Office of Global Affairs. A record 95 applications were received at the fall deadline. Only 26 applications were awarded funds, eight involve Global Health faculty.
Study: Most tweets following fall Paris attacks defended Islam, Muslims
Researchers at the UW Information School and the Qatar Computing Research Institute analyzed 8.36 million tweets beginning seven hours after the November 13, 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris and continuing for 50 hours. Searching for words and hashtags relevant to the event, the team identified about 900,000 tweets relating to Islam and Muslims. They found that while anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments arose on Twitter, most tweets in the huge stream following the Paris attacks actually condemned the negative hashtags and expressed support for Islam.