The College of the Environment Dean’s Office is pleased to announce our 2014-2015 scholarship and fellowship awardees. Graduate and undergraduate students alike compete for multiple funds available and are able to apply them towards tuition and costs in the coming academic year. The Dean’s Office offers numerous scholarship and fellowship opportunities to match the diverse needs of our students and this year over $90,000 was awarded to a total of 23 students.
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Yesler Swamp is emerging as a great example of what once was a common feature on our local landscape, thanks to efforts lead by professor Kern Ewing in the College of the Environment’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Student groups and others are working to restore the area to what it was nearly 150 years ago, a swamp dominated by western red cedar.
Read more at the Seattle Times »
Comb jellies – and not sponges – may lay claim as the earliest ancestors of animals, according to Billie Swalla, University of Washington professor of biology an interim director of Friday Harbor Laboratories. Her contributions helped decode the genomic blueprints for 10 ctenophore – or comb jelly – species, an analysis that suggests these beautiful sea creatures form the first branch on the animal kingdom’s tree of life.
Read more at UW Today »
President of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Scot Medbury, an alumnus of the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, met with First Lady Michelle Obama to receive the National Medal for Museum and Library Service on behalf of his organization. Medbury, whose graduate studies at UW focused on the history of the Washington Park Arboretum, oversees the botanic garden and executes its programs with a mission to “inspire people of all ages through the conservation, display, and enjoyment of plants.”
Read more at the National Museum and Library Service »
The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which holds enough water to raise global seas by several feet, is thinning. Ian Joughin and other University of Washington researchers used detailed topography maps and computer modeling to show that the collapse appears to have already begun. The Thwaites Glacier will likely disappear in a matter of centuries, researchers say, raising sea level by nearly 2 feet.
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