Skip to content

News and features

We the people: Race & equity at the UW

The Race & Equity Initiative builds on the University of Washington’s longstanding commitment to inclusion and social justice. The Initiative centers on creating an inclusive experience for students, faculty and staff, addresses institutional bias and racism, and engages our communities to help us work through our shared challenges for a world of good.

Read more…

Twenty-seven UW faculty listed among ‘world’s most influential scientific minds’

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.”

Read more from UW Today…

In Washington Post op-ed, professor addresses ethics and climate change

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.’

Read more from The Washington Post

UW Nursing alumna makes an impact on floating hospital

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.

 

Read more from Auburn Reporter

Biology professor advocates for Argentine penguins

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.”

Read more from UW Today…

Celebrating Ladino culture and language

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.

Read more from UW Today…