For Washington
The University of Washington is the University for Washington. From Seattle to Spokane, Walla Walla to Bellingham, across the great state of Washington, the UW’s faculty, staff and students are having an impact on the residents of Washington.
Here are those stories:
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Expanding the potential for all students
How the UW’s Haring Center is helping reimagine special education in ways that uplift all
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UW rural dentistry program helping to fill vital need; seeks to double in size
School of Dentistry to double number of RIDE graduates, meeting demand in small and underserved communities
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UW rural dentistry program helping to fill vital need; seeks to double in size
School of Dentistry to double number of RIDE graduates, meeting demand in small and underserved communities
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Expanding the potential for all students
How the UW’s Haring Center is helping reimagine special education in ways that uplift all
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Beach walking with a purpose
Thanks to the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team of community volunteers, UW scientists can better understand the health of fragile marine ecosystems, predict the impact of a changing climate or of potential oil spills, and see the devastation of harmful algae blooms.
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College access programs
Studies have demonstrated that higher education paves the way for career success and financial independence. But research also shows that realizing the dream of a college degree can be a challenge, especially for students of color, low-income students and students who are the first in their family to attend college.
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Thurston County Inclusion camps
Thurston County Inclusion is a startup program founded in 2019 to provide children and young adults with and without intellectual disabilities year-round opportunities to engage with each other.
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Maple syrup industry in Washington
Syrup producers, tapping into the natural sugar sap that runs through Pacific Northwest bigleaf maple trees, are hoping to make Washington’s product as well known and sought after as the state’s wines.
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Career growth in Eastern Washington
A Foster School program has been evolving in Eastern Washington since its inception more than two decades ago. Today, the course is targeting mid-level managers in the fruit industry and more than 150 companies throughout the Yakima Valley.
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Fighting ocean acidification
The UW is partnering with shellfish growers and others to help fight ocean acidification, which threatens both shellfish and the industry built around them.
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Lessons in logs
For four days in September, a group of students from Yakima’s Wilson Middle School set aside their daily lives and immersed themselves in outdoor science at the University of Washington’s Mount Rainier Institute.
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Living with fire
Agencies that are well practiced in putting out wildfires are now learning a new skill: how to set the spark and fan the flames. UW research and expertise are playing an important role in forest management across Eastern Washington, particularly in the state's Methow Valley.
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The University of Washington’s Presidential Scholars — investing in tomorrow’s leaders
Parker Ritzmann, a Presidential Scholarship recipient, founded HOPE Roasters, a student-run coffee company. Profits support the Hutton Settlement Children’s Home in Spokane, WA – where Parker grew up.
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Fighting traffic fatalities with facts in Yakima Valley
Along a dangerous highway corridor in the heart of Yakima Valley, a sensing device developed by the UW STAR Lab and associated spin-off company AIWaysion is being utilized to help improve traffic safety and save lives.
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Chehalis legislators engage with students at UW-hosted STEM camp
In partnership with the Chehalis School District, the UW hosted a STEM camp at W.F. West High School last summer for local high school students focused on engineering and medical science.
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Native knowledge
ISchool assistant professor Miranda Belarde-Lewis combines research, teaching and curating to help reclaim how Native art is presented — and bring Native voices to the forefront.
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The language of the land
UW Lecturer Tami Hohn is bringing Southern Lushootseed to a new generation across the University and the Puget Sound — where the language has always lived.
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Sea lessons
Oceanography major Deana Crouser did more than just get her feet wet on the R/V Rachel Carson. She helped peer into the future of our oceans.
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A road to recovery
Struck by the number of nonviolent offenders imprisoned on drug charges, the Tulalip Tribes and UW Law alumnus Brian Kilgore are offering second chances through treatment.
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Where will meets way
For Yakima-born Yesenia Velasquez, the Young Executives of Color program at the Foster School of Business has opened the door to a promising future she never knew existed.
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Beach trash accumulates in predictable patterns on Washington shores
A study by the University of Washington analyzed 843 beach surveys and found that certain beaches, and certain areas of a single beach, are “sticky zones” that accumulate litter.
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2021 heat wave created ‘perfect storm’ for shellfish die-off
Researchers found that many shellfish were victims of a “perfect storm” of factors in summer 2021 that contributed to widespread death.
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UW systems experts put health of kids at the center as King County seeks to reach ‘zero youth detention’
University of Washington researchers are working to help address major systemic challenges in how young people engage with health care in King County.
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Moon jellies appear to be gobbling up zooplankton in Puget Sound
Swarms of jellies have been seen more frequently in Puget Sound over the past several decades, and some biologists speculate these fast-growing jellyfish will do especially well in the warmer oceans of the future.
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Air pollution can be dramatically reduced with portable air filters
What started as a University of Washington-led project to measure air pollution near Sea-Tac International Airport has led to schools in the area installing portable air filters to improve indoor air quality.
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Microgrids for education and energy sovereignty
After founding Northwest Indian College’s first engineering program, Stephanie Bostwick aims to bring clean energy to her classroom — and to the Lummi Nation.
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Partnering with indigenous communities to anticipate and adapt to ocean change
With a $700,000 grant awarded from the NOAA Ocean Acidification Program, scientists from the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, Washington Sea Grant and the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean have teamed with federal and tribal partners to study the social and ecological vulnerabilities of Olympic Coast ocean acidification.
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New resources support tribes in preparing for climate change
The University of Washington Climate Impacts Group and regional tribal partners have developed a collection of resources that may be useful to tribes at any stage in the process of evaluating their vulnerability to climate change. The project is a partnership among tribes, tribal associations, universities and the federal government.
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Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies receives $1.8M grant
The UW Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies has received a $1.8 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which will fund four years of work at the UW around Native student support, academics, research and cultural programs.
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Creating community, battling loneliness among LGBTQ seniors
Research shows that LGBTQ older adults are at higher risk for many chronic medical conditions, yet are also resilient and proactive when it comes to taking care of their health.
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Tides don’t always flush water out to sea
By area, tidal flats make up more than 50 percent of Willapa Bay in southwest Washington state, making this more than 142-square-mile estuary an ideal location for oyster farming. On some parts of these flats, oysters grow well, filling their shells with delicacies for discerning diners. But according to experienced oyster farmers, oysters raised in other parts of Willapa Bay don’t yield as much meat.
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Return of the wolves: How deer escape tactics help save their lives
As gray wolves continue to make a strong comeback in Washington state, their presence can’t help but impact other animals — particularly the ones these large carnivores target as prey.
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Assessing riverside corridors — the ‘escape routes’ for animals under climate change — in the Northwest
Under climate change, plants and animals will shift their habitats to track the conditions they are adapted for. As they do, the lands surrounding rivers and streams offer natural migration routes that will take on a new importance as temperatures rise.
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With climate change, Mount Rainier floral communities could ‘reassemble’ with new species relationships, interactions
Central to the field of ecology is the mantra that species do not exist in isolation: They assemble in communities — and within these communities, species interact. Predators hunt prey. Parasites exploit hosts. Pollinators find flowers.
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Study shows high pregnancy failure in southern resident killer whales
A multi-year survey of the nutritional, physiological and reproductive health of endangered southern resident killer whales suggests that up to two-thirds of pregnancies failed in this population from 2007 to 2014. The study links this orca population’s low reproductive success to stress brought on by low or variable abundance of their most nutrient-rich prey, Chinook salmon.
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Tribal gaming certificate addresses economic reality of Indian reservations
Managing a casino might not be the first career path envisioned with a degree from the University of Washington.
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Shrubs, grasses planted through federal program crucial for sage grouse survival in Eastern Washington
The sage grouse is an exceptionally showy bird and an icon of the American West. But its sagebrush habitat is disappearing, and there is debate over how best to protect the populations in an increasingly developed landscape.
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Large-scale experiment on the rural Olympic Peninsula to test innovations in forest management
Forest ecosystems are accustomed to change. Long before humans started intervening, disturbances such as fire, wind storms and diseases wracked segments of the landscape, killing off swathes of trees and providing spaces for regrowth of the forest.
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UW professor is digitizing every fish species in the world
Nearly 25,000 species of fish live on our planet, and a University of Washington professor wants to scan and digitize them all.
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First Salish Sea-wide shoreline armoring study shows cumulative effects on ecosystem
Bulkheads and seawalls along the shores of Puget Sound help ease erosion and stabilize bluffs to protect waterfront properties.
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