Spanning from the shores of Lake Chelan to the deserts of Yakima and even farther south to the Oregon border, Central Washington is one of the most environmentally diverse areas of the state.
In the heart of Central Washington lies Yakima, a city known for its diversity of people and cultures. From apples and grapes to corn and hops, the semi-arid desert of the Yakima Valley provides the Pacific Northwest and beyond with a vast quantity of food and spirits. It’s also the birthplace of Washington’s wine industry.
The Yakama Nation has more than 1 million acres in Central Washington and employs hundreds of Yakama citizens through gaming, tourism, forestry management and agriculture.
UW medical students in the Department of Family Medicine are immersed in a rural family medicine residency program at Columbia Valley Community Health in Chelan after their intern year in Seattle.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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