The latest news from the UW

By Steve Hill
University Week

It sounds a lot like the beginning of a joke: have you heard the one about the computer programmer, the manager, and the librarian?

The threesome – three brothers, actually – walked into a bar two and a half years ago.

Applications and nominations for the 2002 Jeff and Susan Brotman Diversity Award are now being accepted, President Richard L.

Changes being implemented this month in the UW Service Recognition Program will for the first time include employees all over campus who reach five-years of service and give employees with greater service new choices in the gifts they receive.

Human Resources recently announced a series of tools to help supervisors evaluate research scientist and engineer positions, determine appropriate salary ranges and to identify career progressions.

Neuroscientists examining the brain activity of people who learned to speak American Sign Language (ASL) at different times in their lives have found the first evidence that there is a critical period for acquiring a nonverbal language, just as there is for spoken languages.

Greenhouse warming and other human effects on the environment may increase the possibility of large, abrupt changes in global climate, according to a recent National Research Council report issued by a panel of 11 scientists that includes the UW’s Peter Rhines and John Wallace.

Most solutions to fisheries problems have been shortsighted and don’t provide the right incentives for fishermen, resource managers or scientists, according to Ray Hilborn, UW professor of aquatic and fisheries sciences and lead speaker for this year’s Bevan Series on Sustainable Fisheries.

Unit Head: Corey Fagan, director

Location: Guthrie Annex 1

Number of Employees: Eight paid staff members plus approximately 30 graduate student staff therapists who provide services as part of their training in the clinical psychology doctoral program.

Burke welcomes storytellers

“Stories of Exploration and Adventure” is the theme for this year’s Winter Storytelling Festival at the Burke Museum, to be held on Thursday evenings and weekend days throughout January.

Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch? UW employees got one last week, in exchange for serving as guinea pigs for a new restaurant system.

Joel Waller, the University’s catering coordinator, displays some of the Husky Den Dollars that visitors used to “purchase” free food at the renovated facility in the HUB.

Where are we? Okay, you’ve convinced us that you’re experts on the campus.

Academic Opportunities

Funding available

The Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health (CEEH) is offering pilot project funding in broadly defined areas of “gene-environment interactions.

FEEL LIKE DANCIN’: When renowned choreographer Pat Graney presents a retrospective of her work over the next two weeks at the Moore Theater, there will be some UW representation on the stage.

Another El Niño could be brewing in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. If it is, Pacific Northwest residents can expect generally warmer, drier weather next fall and winter, University of Washington scientists say.

Emerging strategies of using “land trusts,” where private forests and wildlands are purchased or donated, or of managing such lands under “conservation easements,” where the use of the property is restricted but the landowner retains the title, will be explored by regional and national experts at a lecture that is free and open to the public Wednesday, Jan. 16, at the University of Washington’s College of Forest Resources.

Harborview Medical Center will celebrate the legacy of Rev.

Most solutions to fisheries problems have been shortsighted and don’t provide the right incentives for fishermen, resource managers or scientists, according to Ray Hilborn, University of Washington professor of aquatic and fisheries sciences and lead speaker for this year’s Bevan Series on Sustainable Fisheries.

Recent research at the University of Washington has found that a series of land-use decisions dating from the 1930s, from road building and streamside logging to dam construction, led to sedimentation that has made the Skokomish perhaps the most flood-prone river in the state.

The University of Washington Academic Medical Center is offering the general public the chance to learn about medical science, patient care and cutting-edge research by attending Mini-Medical School 2002.

An investigation of the activity of individual human nerve cells during the act of memory indicates that the brain’s nerve cells are even more specialized than many people think.

Neuroscientists examining the brain activity of people who learned to speak American Sign Language (ASL) at different times in their lives have found the first evidence that there is a critical period for acquiring a non-verbal language, just as there is for spoken languages.

Beds of thousands of tiny pulsating artificial “hairs” can provide a precise method for steering small satellites to docking stations on larger vessels, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Washington.

Most of the people at greater risk of acquiring HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, don’t know it, according to an analysis by researchers at the University of Washington.

During the last 40 years, chemists have developed an understanding of how an electron transfers from one group to another to create new compounds. Now a team of University of Washington chemists has found that the same ideas apply to transferring a hydrogen atom — an electron and a proton together. That understanding could prove important to scientists trying to devise new classes of chemical reactions.

The Discovery Health documentaries produced at Harborview this summer are scheduled to air Sunday, Jan. 6. The shows focus on HMC’s orthopaedics and neurosciences programs. Two video crews were on-site at the medical center for eight weeks under the direction of Community Relations. Many thanks to the staff, patients and families who gave permission to document the outstanding programs and services at Harborview.

The Learning Disabilities Center at the University of Washington is looking for 250 Seattle and Puget Sound children in the fourth through ninth grades to participate in a family genetics study of spelling disabilities.

Pancreatic cancer seems swift and unforgiving to its victims. Typically, the disease is not detected until after it has spread to other organs, and it is highly resistant to chemotherapy and radiation. Of the 29,000 people who will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year, approximately 28,900 will die within a few months of that diagnosis. Experts at the University of Washington say this situation is changing, and they predict huge breakthroughs in both early detection and therapy in the next 10 years.

UW robotics students, K-12 observers, College of Engineering faculty and staff and 13 self-controlled robot golfers participate in a tournament featuring student-designed and built golfing robots

The Washington State Executive Ethics Board today approved settlement of a case involving allegations that University of Washington President Richard L. McCormick and Athletic Director Barbara Hedges violated provisions of the state’s Executive Ethics Law when the UW participated in the 1999 Holiday Bowl and 2001 Rose Bowl. The allegations dealt with whether travel to the bowls by University Regents, staff and their families, and in some instances guests were in violation of state ethics laws.

The dates for the 2002 Health Sciences Open House have been set for Friday, April 26, and Saturday, April 27.

National Medical Fellowships (NMF) has presented a 2001 Community Service Award to Dr.

A UW public health professor is one of 30 people from around the world who make up the first group of scholars for the Fulbright New Century Scholars Program, a U.

By Pam Sowers
HS News & Community Relations

For years, people suffering through alcoholism or drug abuse with a family member have been told they have to confront the problem head-on, by holding an intervention and making him or her face up to the problem.

By Pamela Wyngate
HS News & Community Relations

Adult stem cell research may lead to great advances in science and health research, but first researchers must literally find a method to the madness.

The Center for Urban Horticulture’s Miller Library reopened Dec.

Last December, the new Mary Gates Hall was the scene of a musical experiment – a performance of medieval chant in the Commons.

Crows and ravens are depicted as being clever and tricky animals in countless American Indian stories and legends.

You are all aware that the state of Washington is facing severe financial challenges.

When Aaron Hoard met with Ave.