UW News

January 4, 2012

News Digest: School renamed, professors honored

News and Information

New name: School of Environmental and Forest Sciences
Starting with the new year, the School of Forest Resources within the College of the Environment changed its name to the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

The school has considered changing its name for more than 15 years as its programs shifted from traditional forest science and management to conservation and stewardship and the need for a more integrative interdisciplinary approach, according to Tom Hinckley, interim director.  This has been a path followed by all forestry schools in the country.

During the last 10 years, the school transformed its undergraduate forest resources curricula to emphasize integrated knowledge in natural resource and environmental science and management. Since 2006 it recruited14 faculty members to bring new expertise in leading-edge environmental and natural resource disciplines.

Teaching, research, and outreach now focus on sustainability in natural and managed environments that include wilderness and parklike ecosystems, intensively managed planted forests, and urban ecosystems, Hinckley says.

Marsha Linehan

Marsha Linehan

Honor: Marsha Linehan
Marsha Linehan, professor of psychology and director of the Behavioral Research and Therapy Clinics, is one of the 2011 recipients of the Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award. She will be presented this award Jan. 6 in Atlanta.

This award recognizes educators in the fields of psychology, medicine and law who have inspired their students to either create an organization that has demonstrably conferred a benefit on the community at large or establish a lasting basis, concept, procedure, or movement of comparable benefit. Gail McKnight Beckman created the award to benefit teachers who have inspired their students to make a difference in their communities.

Ian Joughin

Ian Joughin

Honor: Ian Joughin
Ian Joughin, principal engineer with the Applied Physics Laboratory and affiliate professor of Earth and space sciences, has been awarded the Louis Agassiz Medal for 2012 by the European Geosciences Union. The medal is awarded to Joughin for outstanding contributions to the study of the dynamics and mass balance of polar ice sheets using differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry and other techniques that he has helped to pioneer.

The award is reserved for individuals in recognition of their outstanding scientific contribution to the study of the cryosphere on Earth or elsewhere in the solar system, according to the union.