December 4, 2008
Etc.: Campus news & notes
SCIENCE STARS: More than half of the 104 founding members recently inducted into the Washington State Academy of Sciences (WSAS) are members of the UW community. WSAS is designed to provide objective, expert scientific, technical and engineering counsel to Washington’s policymakers. In commissioned study committees, the scientists will arrange for and lead analyses of the technical issues central to important policy questions and will issue authoritative reports to guide public decision-making.
“WSAS will help improve the development of policy and legislation in Washington,” says Gordon Orians, a UW professor emeritus and the organization’s president. “We will review available data and current knowledge on complex questions and provide analyses to inform public discussion and decisions. WSAS will not make policy recommendations, but it will provide the definitive, non-partisan scientific analysis on which the best decisions can be made.”
Authorized by the Legislature in 2005, WSAS has since created a board of directors, created a 501(c)(3), recruited its first class of members, and begun meeting with state agencies and legislators to explore areas where WSAS counsel may be most helpful. Click here to see a full list of the members.
ON PURPOSE: Richard Ladner, UW computer science and engineering professor, was one of 15 recipients of the 2008 Purpose Prize, an award for social innovators over 60. Ladner, a hearing son of deaf parents, has shifted his focus from computer science theory to developing better technologies for disabled people. Ladner and his students and colleagues have developed such applications as WebAnywhere, software to allow the blind to use the internet on the go, MobileASL, an application for deaf people to use video communication on cell phones, and a faster way to translate textbook graphics into Braille for blind students. The Purpose Prize, now in its sixth year, is awarded by Civic Ventures and funded by The Atlantic Philanthropies and the John Templeton Foundation. Ladner’s award comes with $10,000.
EASING THE TRANSITION: UW School of Law professors Robert Anderson and Paul Miller will serve on President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. Anderson, Director of the UW School of Law Native American Law Center, is co-chair of Obama’s Department of Interior transition team. Miller, a nationally-recognized expert in employment discrimination and disability law, will work with other top advisers on labor and employment issues.
Anderson served from 1995-2001 as an appointee of Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, providing legal and policy advice on a wide variety of Indian law and natural resource issues. Miller joined the UW faculty in 2004, after spending 12 years in public service in Washington, DC. He was one of the longest serving commissioners of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency which enforces employment discrimination laws.
BY THE BOOK: Assistant Professor of Dance Juliet McMains has been awarded the Congress on Research in Dance Outstanding Publication Award in recognition of her book, Glamour Addiction: Inside the American Ballroom Dance Industry. Click here to see the University Week story about the book.
SIGNING IN: Harborview staffer Bruce Taylor will be reading from and signing his novella, 13 Miles to Paradise, which appears with three other novellas by three other writers in a collection, ALEMBICAL. The release will take place from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 15 at Balderdash Books and Art, 8536 Greenwood Ave. N., 206-784-4660. The book received a starred review in Publishers Weekly.
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