November 14, 2012
News Digest: Audiologists blog from Brazil, Information School fair Thursday, Honor: Richard Catalano, students write resolution, campus memorial for Olson, Bridges center celebrates 20 years
UW audiologists blogging this week about work in Amazon city
Two University of Washington audiologists are volunteering their skills in remote riverfront communities of Parintins, Brazil,and chronicling their experiences on a blog.
Martha Harney, clinical supervisor in the UW Speech and Hearing Clinic, and Libbey Gollhofer, doctoral student in audiology, are this week spending their mornings treating patients at the Viva o Som clinic and their afternoons working at a school for children with hearing loss and other disabilities.
“We fit one woman with a new hearing aid, and she was so thrilled to be able to hear us – it was very satisfying,” Gollhofer wrote on Monday.
The two are providing hearing tests and fitting hearing aids in some of Brazil’s poorest communities during a weeklong mission sponsored by the American Academy of Audiology Foundation in partnership with the Denmark-based Oticon Hearing Foundation, which also supplied hearing aids and batteries.
“It’s a great learning experience, to learn to do things in a remote clinic,” Gollhofer said before she left Seattle. “You don’t have all the expensive equipment that you’re used to. You have yourself and your skills.”
Information School holds 2012 Research Fair Thursday
How do communication technologies change our lives? How can America help its veterans to transition into technology work? How can touchscreen technology be improved for people with motor impairments?
Presenters in the UW Information School’s 2012 Research Fair pose these questions and dozens more as they showcase their scholarship and creative work to the campus community and the public.
About 40 posters and interactive demonstrations will be presented at the free event, to be held from 6:30 to 8 p.m., Nov. 15, at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
Richard Catalano becomes American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare fellow
Richard Catalano, director of the Social Development Research Group at the UW’s School of Social Work, was inducted as a fellow into the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare Nov. 10.
He is one of 17 fellows inducted by the academy this year.
As a fellow, Catalano joins an elite group of social work teachers, researchers and leaders, according to the academy’s website. The academy encourages and recognizes outstanding research, scholarship and social work practice.
Catalano is the Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence and has dedicated more than 30 years to understanding the forces that propel young people to develop mental, emotional and behavioral problems.
Public health association adopts water resolution written by UW students
The American Public Health Association, at its annual meeting in San Francisco Oct. 27-31, voted to adopt a comprehensive approach to protecting coastal water quality by modernizing the nation’s Clean Water Act, which is 40 years old this year. The resolution was written by six UW public health graduate students.
The students worked on the resolution as the culmination of a case study as part of their master of public health training program. The resolution was adopted in a unanimous vote by the association’s 202-member governing council Oct. 30. The association is the oldest and largest organization of public health professionals in the world
“We learned a great deal in our class about how various kinds of pollution are threatening the waterways surrounding the United States, and realized there were policy solutions to that problem,” said Peter Blackburn, who graduated with a master of public health degree in June. “Now is a critical time for this policy, given declining funding and recent court rulings limiting the Clean Water Act.”
Sophia Teshome, another member of the student authorship team who traveled to San Francisco to present the resolution, noted how unusual it is to get an education that includes such hands-on work. “We were lucky to have faculty members who gave us this assignment and encouraged us to bring our work forward to be judged by the full weight of the national professional organization.
Campus memorial for David Olson
The UW Department of Political Science will celebrate the life of David Olson, inaugural holder of the Harry Bridges Chair, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16, in 210 Kane. Olson passed away Sept. 15.
Olson was dedicated to ensuring working people had, as he often put it, “a seat at the table.” Both through his civic commitments and his charming personality, he brought together the unique constituencies represented by the Bridges Center: organized labor, civil servants and university students and faculty.
The event will feature a short program and reception. Please direct any questions about the event to Catherine Quinn in the UW political science department at cquinn83@uw.edu.
Harry Bridges Center celebrates 20 years
Nov. 16 and 17 the UW Department of Political Science will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies. The events start with a Friday evening keynote lecture by labor lawyer Tom Geoghegan, author of several books on labor law and the labor movement and a regular contributor to national publications like the New York Times and the Nation.
Saturday a special conference will discuss the accomplishments of the Bridges Chair, the state of the labor movement and the hard work that lies ahead. To learn more, call the Bridges Center at 206-543-7946 or e-mail hbcls@uw.edu.
