UW News

January 26, 2006

Inventory of experts: UW creates web directory of knowledge on Puget Sound

News and Information

Last month President Mark Emmert was appointed by Gov. Christine Gregoire to the Puget Sound Partnership, a group of regional leaders being asked to recommend how to improve protection and recovery of Puget Sound.

Last week, Washington legislators on the Senate Water, Energy and Environment Committee were given an overview of University research efforts on environmental issues, particularly in the Puget Sound region, by Provost Phyllis Wise, Dean Arthur Nowell of the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences, Aquatic and Fishery Sciences Professor Carolyn Friedman and Director Penelope Dalton of Washington Sea Grant Program.

To help these decision-makers and the public better use UW resources, a recent inventory of the University’s relevant activities and expertise concerning Puget Sound is now available on the Web. One can find “University of Washington Expertise and Resources for the Puget Sound Watershed: Inventory of Activities 2001-2005,” at

http://www.uwei.washington.edu/pugetsound/uw_ps_inventory.pdf  

More than 100 pages long, the guide is organized around 21 research topics ranging from water quality to urban infrastructure and planning. Each section lists researchers involved in some aspect of the subject. Under estuarine and coastal ecosystems, for example, the experts list includes 34 people, starting with the ocean-circulation experts at the Applied Physics Laboratory and ending with one of the marine-policy experts with the Washington Sea Grant Program.

Along with experts from disciplines such as biology, oceanography and urban planning, there also are faculty from the less-expected disciplines of psychology, where there’s an expert on social behavior of birds and other animals, and electrical engineering, where a group is focused on remote sensing for earth science applications.

Also listed in each section are examples and titles of grant-funded research.

The guide was prepared by the UW Earth Initiative and UW Water Center with support from the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences. Along with serving as a reference document for those interested in tapping into the UW’s potential, it is hoped the guide will also help identify opportunities for leveraging, enhancing or expanding already existing initiatives and pinpoint needs that are not currently being met.

“An ideal role for UW is building the needed partnerships among our faculty, government agencies, nonprofits, industries and citizens so we can find solutions far faster than if we each work on our own,” says Nowell.

Examples of partnerships already in existence is found in the back portion of the guide, along with a section on UW resources and facilities.