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Category: UW researchers

Apply Now! Global Innovation Fund

The deadline for all three awards is November 1, 2022.

The Office of Global Affairs (OGA) is now accepting applications for the Fall 2022 Global Innovation Fund (GIF) cycle. GIF seeds projects focused on expanding international research and learning at the UW, advancing interdisciplinarity and transformative global collaborations.

OGA is especially interested in supporting proposals by new entrants and early-career faculty.

There are three categories of awards for this cycle:

Research Awards

UW faculty members, research scientists, and non-faculty researchers from the Seattle, Tacoma, and Bothell campuses are encouraged to apply for a Tier 1 Research Award (up to $5,000) or a Tier 2 Research Award (up to $20,000).

Research projects may include:

  • Research collaborations with international universities and/or organizations
  • Cross-college and interdisciplinary conferences, symposia, and workshops
  • Visiting scholar support and faculty exchanges

Apply for Research Awards

Teaching & Curriculum Awards

UW faculty members, lecturers, and staff engaged in course development are eligible to apply for awards up to $2,000 to add a global module, project, or innovation to a course.

GIF Teaching & Curriculum project examples include:

  • International virtual exchange or Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)
  • Global student consulting or research projects
  • Incorporation of international speaker(s)
  • Interactive international learning activities

Apply to Teaching Awards

Study Abroad/Away Awards

OGA is pleased to offer this award for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

GIF Study Abroad/Away award request types include:

  • Pre-program visit, international (up to $5,000)
  • Pre-program visit, domestic (up to $3,000)
  • Embed a global component to a spring or winter class (three years: up to $10,000/year)
  • Create a new domestic study away program (three years: up to $10,000/year)
  • Fund an additional faculty member to attend an existing program to share responsibility of maintaining the program in the future (domestic: up to $3,000, international: up to $5,000)

Awarded programs must be run through UW Study Abroad.

Learn more & Apply

For any questions regarding GIF, please reach out to our office at uwgif@uw.edu.

*The next planned award cycle for the Global Engagement Fellows Award is Spring 2023.

Meet the Global Engagement Fellows

The Office of Global Affairs is excited to announce that three faculty members have been awarded Global Engagement Fellows grants for the 2022-2023 academic year. Each fellow will receive $3000 from the Global Innovation Fund to build an inclusive UW global faculty community.

The Global Engagement Fellows (fellows) will convene new cross-disciplinary groups of faculty (referred to as “communities”) that share a common interest. The fellows will convene these communities on a pilot basis for the 2022-2023 academic year.

The purpose of the Global Engagement Fellows grant program is to increase connections and foster deeper ties among faculty across units at the UW. The grants were developed and awarded in response to the work of the Global Engagement Task Force.

Please visit our 2022-2023 Global Engagement Fellows page to learn more and to request to participate in a community.

The Global Engagement Fellows for 2022-2023 are:

Dr. Taso LagosDr. Taso Lagos

Multi-sustainability Academic Program

Goals of Community:

  • To create a community of UW Study Abroad program directors who are dedicated to creating environmentally conscious overseas programs.
  • To encourage UW Study Abroad program directors to adopt environmentally sustainable best practices in faculty-led UW Study Abroad programs.
  • To create a database of environmentally friendly companies, organizations, and stakeholders involved in the travel and hospitality industries for countries that host UW Study Abroad programs.

Questions? Contact Dr. Taso Lagos (Lecturer, Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies) at taso@uw.edu.

Dr. Yen-Chu WengDr. Yen-Chu Weng

Interdisciplinary Cross-Cultural Classroom Exploration on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Goals of Community:

  • To convene a faculty community that explores pedagogical tools to engage with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) in their courses to promote global literacy and cross-cultural competence.
  • To discuss best strategies for using the UN SDGs in cultivating global awareness and international perspectives among college students.
  • To develop a collection of lesson plans that focus on the UN SDGs, that connect the UN SDGs to UW curriculum, and that incorporate interdisciplinary cross-cultural approaches.

Questions? Contact Dr. Yen-Chu Weng (Lecturer, College of the Environment) at yweng@uw.edu.

Dr. Kristie L. EbiDr. Kristie L. Ebi

Global Environmental Change Engagement

Goals of Community:

  • To bring together a community of faculty and staff who are interested in international environmental change processes, committees, and organizations.
  • To increase understanding of and explore opportunities for engagement with processes/organizations such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, and Future Earth.
  • To deepen ties and strengthen collaborations across units at the UW to address the challenges of global environmental change.

Questions? Contact Dr. Kristie L. Ebi (Professor, Center for Health and the Global Environment) at krisebi@uw.edu.

Reframing Global Engagement at UW

Written by Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Endowed Professor of Law, Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program, and Faculty Director, International, Comparative and Transnational Programs

Anita RamasastryIn autumn of 2020, I was appointed as chair of the Global Engagement Strategy Task Force and charged with reimagining the role that the Office of Global Affairs (OGA) plays in informing and shaping the future of global engagement at the University of Washington.

Over the last year, I had the pleasure of not only diving deeply into discussion with seven peers from diverse units, but meeting with and learning from over 100 stakeholders from across the university.

This work took place at a time of inflection both for the UW broadly and for OGA. The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly transformed UW’s model for teaching and learning, it also put global travel including study abroad on hold. The pandemic also underscored the importance of UW providing administrative and social support structures for international students and researchers during a major global crisis. The Black Lives Matter movement and a renewed call to action for greater focus on anti-racist approaches to education prompted us to grapple with what it means for us to be globally engaged in a way that confronts issues of historica and contemporary racism and colonialism and is consistent with the UW’s overall approach to diversity, equity and inclusion. These challenges and opportunities shaped our process and our recommendations.

Five key recommendations emerged for the future work of OGA:

  1. Shift OGA’s focus from being a steward of policies and procedures to being a builder of global learning and research communities
  2. Serve as a portal and ambassador for stewarding and advancing institution-wide relationships with key global actors — from international organizations, such as the UN and the World Bank, to key foundations and think tanks
  3. Catalyze global teaching and education beyond study abroad, ensuring a global education for all through the use of technology
  4. Identify and work to eliminate the structural barriers that prevent many BIPOC faculty, staff, and students from leveraging OGA’s services and programs
  5. Continue to provide broad administrative support (travel security, MOUs, etc.) for the myriad global partnerships, but also invest more substantially in fewer, deeper, and bi-directional partnerships

Collectively, we are eager to see OGA build a richer ecosystem for global engagement at the UW. UW has a strong commitment to global citizenship. We now have the chance to expand and reframe our approach.

Download the full report

OGA would like to give a special thank you and acknowledgement of the tremendous service of the task force members: Anita Ramasastry (Chair), School of Law; Gayle Christensen, Office of Global Affairs; Leela Fernandes, Jackson School of International Studies; Debra Glassman, Foster School of Business; Stephanie Harrington, College of the Environment; Joe Lott, College of Education; Rebecca Neumann, College of Engineering; Judd Walson, Schools of Public Health & Medicine

Population Health: UW & Aga Khan University partnership leads to research, learning, and health collaborations


The University of Washington and the Aga Khan University have partnered substantially over the past years to advance global population health and link their institutions. Through these collaborations, students, faculty, and researchers have benefited from the shared expertise and exchange in a range of areas and disciplines.

Read more about the history and impact of this partnership and the Office of Global Affairs and Global Innovation Fund’s involvement below:

Read

“There were a lot of synergies between our two institutions not just in terms of our social justice missions, but around the values of what this partnership holds,” Farzana Karim-Haji, director of the Aga Khan University Partnerships Office, said. “The Population Health Initiative at UW draws parallels to AKDN’s Quality of Life Initiative, where both are focused on a holistic view of improving the overall human condition from a variety of aspects in health, education, poverty alleviation, climate change, etc.”

Improving malaria detection through computer vision and machine learning

Electrical engineering doctoral students Charles Delahunt and Mayoore Jaiswal are applying their skills in computer vision and machine learning to the fight against malaria, a disease that affects over 200 million people each year and is one of the most severe public health problems globally. Working with a team at Intellectual Ventures (IV) Lab and with support from the Global Good Fund, they have developed Autoscope, a low-cost, portable and automated device for diagnosing malaria. For Jaiswal, who grew up in Sri Lanka where mosquito-transmitted diseases were and, in some cases, continue to be a serious threat, the project’s social impact is key.

Read more from the College of Engineering…

Clues in poached ivory yield ages and locations of origin

More than 90 percent of ivory in large, seized shipments came from elephants that died less than three years before, according to a new study. A team of scientists at the University of Utah, the University of Washington and partner institutions came to this conclusion by combining a new approach to radiocarbon dating for ivory samples with genetic analysis tools developed by UW biology professor Sam Wasser.

Read more about Ivory Poaching research from UW Today…

The fate of Salonica’s Jews in the city’s transition from Ottoman Empire to Greece

Devin Naar is the Isaac Alhadeff Professor of Sephardic Studies in the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies — part of the Jackson School of International Studies — and an associate professor in the Department of History. He is the author of “Jewish Salonica: Between the Ottoman Empire and Modern Greece,” published in September by Stanford University Press. His recently-published work will be celebrated tonight with a book launch. View more about registration.