The University of Washington is home to 27 researchers included on Thomson Reuters’ list of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” for 2015, which was released Jan. 14. The distinction, based on an analysis of over a decade of research paper citations among 21 general scientific fields, is meant to recognize scientists who are most cited by their peers.
“The awe-inspiring research being done every day at the University of Washington aims to create change and make the world a better place,” UW President Ana Mari Cauce said. “This recognition of so many of our faculty members as being among the world’s most influential minds is not surprising, but does serve as a reminder of the global impact of their innovative research and scholarship.”
In his recent op-ed in The Washington Post, Professor of philosophy Stephen Gardiner argues that climate change is a pressing ethical challenge. He writes, ‘Climate change presents a severe ethical challenge, forcing us to confront difficult questions as individual moral agents, and even more so as members of larger political systems. It is genuinely global and seriously intergenerational, and crosses species boundaries. It also takes place in a setting where existing institutions and theories are weak, proving little ethical guidance.’
Experts from the University of Washington are set to engage in next week’s Arctic Encounter Symposium. The largest annual Arctic policy event in the United States, the Symposium confronts the leading issues in Arctic policy, innovation, and development. It aims to raise awareness, engage challenges, and develop solutions for the future of a region and a people.
Nurse Emily Dunham left her job at the Harborview Medical Center to volunteer with Mercy Ships, a global charity which operates hospital ships in developing nations. Dunham worked off the coast of Africa for nine weeks, assisting with life-changing procedures including cleft palate repair, cataract removal and obstetric fistula repair.
Professor Kathie Friedman discusses the evolution of her course on immigration, and what each of us can do to stay involved with the ongoing refugee crisis.
The legislature for Chubut province in Argentina has established a new marine protected area off Punta Tombo, which would help preserve the feeding grounds for about 500,000 Magellanic penguins that make their home along this rocky stretch of Argentine coast.
University of Washington biology affiliate associate professor Pablo Garcia Borboroglu says, “This new [marine protected area] designation is an historical accomplishment, since [until now] there is only one protected area in Argentina that is exclusively marine and only 4 percent of the marine surface of the country is currently protected.”
Law 103/15 passed the Chubut legislature with backing from the Global Penguin Society, its co-founder and president Borboroglu and teams of scientists led by Boersma, who provided key data about the penguins from their decades of research at Punta Tombo. The government and the Global Penguin Society agreed to the marine protected area in 2013, and Borboroglu drafted the proposal and designed the protected area. Critically, he also made regular trips to Rawson, the provincial capital, to explain its importance to legislators, answer questions, negotiate details and monitor the bill’s progress.
“This wouldn’t have happened without him,” said UW biology professor Dee Boersma. “The legislature had put off the vote for months, and then on Dec. 3 they voted — and just in the nick of time, too.”
The University of Washington Sephardic Studies Program will host its third annual International Ladino Day, celebrating Sephardic language and culture, in a free event at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6, in Room 130 of Kane Hall. The event will be followed by a kosher reception.
This year’s featured speakers are members of Los Ladineros, a long-running local Ladino conversation group, and scholars Julia Phillips Cohen of Vanderbilt University and Sarah Abrevaya Stein of the University of California, Los Angeles, who is a former faculty member of the UW History Department. Cohen and Stein’s anthology “Sephardic Lives” won the 2014 National Jewish Book Award.
Prime Minister Miro Cerar of the Republic of Slovenia met with University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce at the University of Washington on December 4, 2015 to express interest in sustained collaboration between the UW and academic institutions in Slovenia.
Vice Provost for Global Affairs Jeffrey Riedinger and UW President Ana Mari Cauce in discussion with Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia Dr. Miro Cerar Photo: Piotr Horoszowski
The Slovene Prime Minister was accompanied by His Excellency Ambassador Božo Cerar, Slovene Ambassador to the U.S., Slovene Deputy Prime Minister Boris Koprivnikar, and other Slovene government officials. UW Vice Provost for Global Affairs Jeffrey Riedinger, Vice Provost for Digital Initiatives and Dean of Libraries Betsy Wilson, Divisional Dean for Humanities Michael Shapiro, Professor and Chair of Slavic Languages Katarzyna Dziwirek, Professor of Law Louis Wolcher, and Professor of Slavic Languages Michael Biggins also participated in the discussion.
Prime Minister Cerar praised the long-term impacts of the UW-University of Ljubljana Faculty Exchange, which has been in existence since 1979. He and President Cauce also discussed an initiative already underway at the UW to create an academic program in interdisciplinary Slovene studies, which would serve students at the UW and around the U.S. via distance learning.
UW graduate students working in Slovene studies, UW post-doctoral researchers from Slovenia, and two UW undergraduates recruited from Slovenia to compete as part of the UW men’s rowing team greeted the Slovene delegation at Gerberding Hall.
This was the first visit by a Slovene prime minister to the UW and took place as part of a larger Slovene trade delegation tour of five major U.S. IT hubs. Former Slovene Ambassador to the U.S. Samo Žbogar visited UW twice during his tenure, delivering a talk during a 2007 visit to a hundred students at the Jackson School of International Studies.
As climate negotiations continue in Paris, Old Weather, a citizen-science project led by a University of Washington scientist, is mining historic ships logs to get a unique peek at Arctic climate over the past two centuries.
In developing or war-ravaged countries where government censuses are few and far between, gathering data for public services or policymaking can be difficult, dangerous or near-impossible. Now, researchers with the University of Washington Information School and Computer Science and Engineering Department have devised a way to estimate the distribution of wealth and poverty in an area by studying metadata from calls and texts made on cell phones.
