UW News

November 24, 2020

Faculty/staff honors: Grants received, a top ‘Innovator Under 35’ and a career political science award

Recent honors and awards for University of Washington faculty and staff include a top young innovator, a new endowed faculty fellow, research grants awarded and a career achievement award in environmental political science.

Several honors, grant awards in 2020 for Nadya Peek of HCDE

Nadya Peek, UW assistant professor of human centered design and engineering, received an honor in 2020 as well as several research grants. MIT Review in June named her to its annual list of Innovators Under 35, celebrating those whose work "has the greatest potential to transform the world."

Nadya Peek

Nadya Peek, UW assistant professor of human centered design and engineering, received an honor in 2020 as well as several research grants. MIT Review in June named her to its annual list of Innovators Under 35, celebrating those whose work “has the greatest potential to transform the world.”

Peek leads the UW’s Machine Agency, a research group that uses machine precision to assist human creativity, and co-directs the UW Center for Digital Fabrication.

In recent months, Peek received a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study testing and verification of quality control strategies for manufactured products responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. She and a University of California colleague also were awarded a two-year National Science Foundation grant to research digital manufacturing tools for low-volume manufacturing.

Peek is a co-principal investigator on a $2 million, three-year grant from the NSF’s Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation Program, announced in October, to develop distributed chemical manufacturing using synthetic biology. UW chemical engineering professor Lilo Pozzo is the project lead, along with UW chemistry assistant professor Alshakim Nelson and chemical engineering associate professor James Carothers.

Also, Peek and Joshua Smith, professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, will share a three-year NSF grant to develop open source, customizable “co-bots,” or collaborative robots designed to work alongside humans in scientific work as well as other fields such as advanced fabrication and quality control.

Read more at Peeks’ page on the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering website.

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Miranda Belarde-Lewis a new iSchool endowed faculty fellow

Miranda Belarde-Lewis, assistant professor in the UW Information School, has been named the inaugural Joe and Jill McKinstry Endowed Faculty Fellow in Native North American Indigenous Knowledge.

Miranda Belarde-Lewis

Miranda Belarde-Lewis, assistant professor in the UW Information School, has been named the inaugural Joe and Jill McKinstry Endowed Faculty Fellow in Native North American Indigenous Knowledge.

Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit) is an independent curator as well as a professor of North American Indigenous Knowledge with the iSchool, and her work examines the role of social media in protecting, perpetuating and documenting Native American information and knowledge.

The award comes with funds Belarde-Lewis can use to apply for grants, bring speakers to campus and the community, or help with her research.

Jill McKinstry is the former longtime director of the UW’s Odegaard Undergraduate Library and was the iSchool’s Distinguished Alumna for 2020.

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American Political Science Association honors Aseem Prakash

Aseem Prakash, UW professor of political science, has received the 2020 Elinor Ostrom Career Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association's Science, Technology and Environmental Politics division.

Aseem Prakash

Aseem Prakash, UW professor of political science, has received the 2020 Elinor Ostrom Career Achievement Award from the American Political Science Association’s Science, Technology and Environmental Politics division.

Elinor Ostrom (1933-2012) was a well-known American political scientist, who received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. Prakash, who knew Ostrom and her husband well, is the Walker Family Professor for the Arts and Sciences and directs the UW-based Center for Environmental Politics. The award was announced in the summer.

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