UW geologist Alexis Licht led a team that has discovered a surprising resilience to one of the world’s dominant weather systems. The finding could help long-term climate forecasts, since it suggests these winds are likely to persist through radical climate shifts.
Category: Asia
Professor embarks on 100th field course in Indonesia
A chance meeting with a fellow scientist 27 years ago forever changed Randy Kyes’ life — catapulting him from North Carolina to Indonesia and beyond. As the founding director of the University of Washington’s Center for Global Field Study and head of the Division of Global Programs at the Washington National Primate Research Center, Kyes has spent almost three decades leading field courses on environmental and global health in a dozen countries.
Often accompanied by students from the UW and around the United States, Kyes spends about seven months of the year traveling to remote sites in places such as Indonesia and Nepal, leading study abroad programs and conducting field courses and K-12 outreach efforts for local people.
In late July, Kyes — who is also a research professor in psychology and an adjunct research professor in global health and anthropology — will lead his 100th field course, in Thailand. He sat down with UW Today recently to talk about his work.
Tracing China’s past with geologic and oral history
A paper published this week in Science finds evidence to support stories that a huge flood took place in China about 4,000 years ago, during the reign of Emperor Yu. The study, led by Chinese researcher Qinglong Wu, finds evidence for a massive landslide dam break that could have redirected the course of the Yellow River, giving rise to the legendary flood that Emperor Yu is credited with controlling.
An accompanying commentary by David Montgomery, a UW professor of Earth and space sciences, discusses how this finding supports the historical basis for traditional tales about China’s Great Flood. It even explains some details of the classic folk story.
Global learning on campus
40 UW students engaged in a case simulation this summer, working to defuse the developing crisis in the South China Sea.
Thanks to a partnership between the Jackson School of International Studies Master of Arts in Applied International Studies (MAAIS) and the U.S. Army War College, students from the Jackson School, Foster School of Business, School of Law, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, and other departments tackled a major global challenge – right from campus.
Innovative cup designed to save babies
Experts from the University of Washington and PATH have invented a special low-cost cup for feeding special needs babies. Each year in the developing world, millions of babies are born with health challenges that impair feeding and can lead to starvation. The $1 NIFTY cup provides a new solution.
US-India collaboration finds molecular signatures of severe malaria
The University of Washington’s International Center of Excellence for Malaria Research in South Asia — along with partners at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) and Goa Medical College (GMC) of India — have discovered that specific types of parasite proteins, when combined with high parasite biomass, strongly predict severe malaria disease in adults. The discovery, published May 16 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a significant advancement in understanding the causes of severe malaria. Quantitative characterization of disease presentations and biotechnology capabilities at the ICEMR lab at Goa Medical College combined with specialized assays for molecular host-parasite interactions and machine learning tools at the CIDR helped unlock the mysteries of what leads to the development of severe malaria disease.
Learn locally, speak globally: welcoming students to a world of language study
UW students can choose from 45 different languages. Videos created by Asian Languages & Literature introduce students to the study of Bengali, Indonesian, Hindi and Urdu, and offer tips on career opportunities and scholarships available to students of these languages.
Myanmar goes mobile, with UW’s help
A reformist government speeded Myanmar’s transition to democracy three years ago, dramatically increasing access to information. In 2011, just four percent of the population had mobile phones. Now the figure is closer to eighty percent, with many people owning smartphones. But navigating the flood of online information can be problematic for new users with no experience assessing the trustworthiness of sites and sources. An initiative launched by UW faculty aims to change that.
The initiative, Information Strategies for Societies in Transition (ISST), is designed to build digital literacy, information literacy, and data literacy across Myanmar. Professors Mary Callahan and Sara Curran in the Jackson School of International Studies, Chris Coward, director of the Technology & Social Change Group in the Information School, and Michael Crandall, a principal research scientist in the Information School, lead the project in collaboration with USAID, Microsoft, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Boosting global health partnerships for Chinese universities
Supported by the Global Innovation Fund, a landmark symposium hosted by the UW last week brought together leaders and faculty from five Chinese universities, across the UW campus and the Seattle community. “Collaborating with Chinese colleagues is a tremendously high priority, both personally for faculty and institutionally here at UW,” said Judy Wasserheit, chair of the Department of Global Health and symposium co-chair.
Exploring the history of Jewish refugees in Shanghai
From 1933 to 1941, Shanghai became a modern-day “Noah’s Ark” accepting over 18,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe. Most were from Germany and Austria, but the refugees also included students of the famed Mir Yeshiva, the only yeshiva in occupied Europe to survive the Holocaust. In the “Designated Area for Stateless Refugees” in Ti Lan Qiao historic area of Shanghai, Jewish refugees lived harmoniously with local Chinese, overcoming numerous difficulties together. By the time the Second World War ended in 1945, most of the Jewish refugees had survived.
The Jewish Refugees in Shanghai Exhibition (1933-1941) brings together for the first time photos, personal stories, and artifacts from Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum. The exhibition will run at Hillel at UW from April 5 through April 30, 2016. It is free and open to the public Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM. School field trips are available with advanced notice.