Skip to content

Helping refugees abroad with a Fulbright scholarship

Hamda Yusuf ’16 was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in a first-ever cohort for a “Community-Based Combined Grant,” which requires both community work and teaching in a foreign country. In fall 2016, she’ll be heading to Austria for 9 months to support Refugees Welcome, a non-profit that is dealing with the Middle East refugee crisis there, and will be an English teaching assistant in secondary schools.

Read more from the Jackson School of International Studies…

UW maintains No. 11 position in US News Best Global Universities ranking; third among public institutions

The University of Washington maintained its No. 11 spot in the 2017 edition of U.S. News & World Report’s Best Global Universities rankings. The UW remains the third-ranked public university on the global list, behind University of California, Berkeley (fourth) and UCLA (10th).

“This recognition reflects the work of our faculty and students in seeking answers to problems of global import in the areas of health and medicine, physical sciences and social sciences,” UW President Ana Mari Cauce said. “We are immensely proud of the work being done here, and it’s nice to see the world is noticing.”

Read more from UW Today…

As 1 Million Strong implementation partner, the UW is creating a pipeline of China-savvy leaders

On the anniversary of its 1 Million Strong initiative, the US-China Strong Foundation, a global nonprofit committed to strengthening US-China relations, announced its new 1 Million Strong implementation partners – including the University of Washington – who will help guide the initiative’s growth.

Announced in September 2015 by Presidents Barack Obama and Xi Jinping during the Chinese leader’s official state visit to the US, 1 Million Strong looks to create a pipeline of China-savvy leaders and employees in the US. The initiative calls for a five-fold increase from current numbers: today, approximately 200,000 US K-12 students are learning Mandarin, while there are more than 300 million English language learners in China.

Read the entire press release from the US-China Strong Foundation…

 

Research shows a single migration from Africa populated the world

In the journal Nature, three separate teams of geneticists survey DNA collected from cultures around the globe, many for the first time, and conclude that all non-Africans today trace their ancestry to a single population emerging from Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago.

“I think all three studies are basically saying the same thing,” said Joshua M. Akey of the University of Washington, who wrote a commentary accompanying the new work. “We know there were multiple dispersals out of Africa, but we can trace our ancestry back to a single one.”

Read more from The New York Times…

From Uganda to Washington: forestry doctoral student wins top prize for wildlife conservation

When graduate student Carol Bogezi heard that Washington has big carnivores, she was sold. Bogezi, who grew up in Uganda and began her doctoral degree several years ago at the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, was excited to track and tag cougars and investigate how the recent return of wolves affects ranchers.

Her graduate school research and resiliency in overcoming obstacles has caught the attention of the Bullitt Foundation, a Seattle-based organization that seeks to promote responsible human activities and sustainable communities in the Pacific Northwest.

Bogezi is the winner of the annual Bullitt Environmental Prize, which recognizes people with exceptional potential to become powerful leaders in the environmental movement. Bogezi will receive $100,000 to continue her work in wildlife conservation.