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Emeritus Spotlight: Gordon Bradley

There was a time, a little more than 40 years ago, when Professor Emeritus Gordon Bradley had to choose between taking a research job in Tennessee or accepting a faculty position at the College of Forest Resources. It was a stark choice—and not an easy one, either—though he eventually opted to give UW a try for a couple years. Well, a couple turned into 42, and Bradley is slowly tying up the many threads of a long, industrious academic career. “It seems like a rather trite comment,” he says, “but where did the time go? Well, if you hang around long enough, the time will go.”

BLOG BITS

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2015 SEFS Graduation Celebration: Slideshow!

While honoring the Class of 2015 this past Friday, June 12, we heard great student speeches from Sam Israel and Stuart Jergensen, as well as a powerful keynote from SEFS alumna Melody Mobley (’79). For a glimpse of the fun, take a look at a slideshow we put together from the ceremony and lunch reception afterward!

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UW Botanic Gardens: Summer Course Schedule!

The summer catalog is now online, and it’s loaded with great ideas to enrich your downtime the next few months! Also, one course that’s not in the catalog is an awesome Cob Oven Workshop at the end of August (28-30), when you’ll get a chance to build a wood-fired cob oven for the UW Farm! Contact urbhort@uw.edu for more information.

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UW-SER Awarded Grant to Expand Nursery Operation

The UW student chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration has received a UW Campus Sustainability Fund grant of $54,426 to expand the operations of their native plant nursery, established at the Center for Urban Horticulture in 2013. Read more about what they’ll be working on with this exciting project.

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Mark Thompson: 1963-2015

We were deeply saddened to learn that Mark Thompson, who was scheduled to earn his master of environmental horticulture degree last week, passed away on Thursday, June 11. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends, and to everyone who had the chance to know and work with him in the SEFS community. We are still collecting more details about this tragic news, and we’ll share more information as soon as we have it.

UPCOMING EVENTS


June 22, 2015:

Summer I Begins

July 23, 2015:

Summer II Begins

Sept. 23, 2015:

SEFS Annual Retreat, CUH

Sept. 30, 2015:

Fall Quarter Begins

 

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ANNOUNCEMENTS & KUDOS

We’ll kick things off with some major kudos for Professors Susan Bolton and Ben Spencer, who were just awarded $100,000 from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation to expand their fog water/garden project in Peru!

We also have some great kudos for Professor Kristiina Vogt, who received some wonderful feedback from one of her students this quarter in ESRM 101: “As we are finishing up the quarter, I started to realize that this class was one of the most interesting and engaging classes that I took at UW. I just wanted to thank you that I finally found something that I am really interested in studying. I originally had a thought of majoring in general biology, but I think I am really interested in minoring in ESRM as well. I didn't really have a chance to interact with you this quarter, but I do want to thank you for such a great class! I am curious if you are teaching or planning to teach any higher level classes? Once again, thank you and I hope you have a great summer.” Nice work, Kristiina!

We have three new hires to report, starting with the promotion of Chris Watson to serve as assistant manager of horticulture at the Washington Park Arboretum! Watson began his new duties on June 1, and he’s taking on a range of responsibilities, from supervising six permanent gardeners; to managing day-to-day operations of the Horticulture & Arboriculture Program at the Arboretum; to full management of the Integrated Pest Management Program; to daily oversight of the mitigation at the Union Bay Natural Area and the Arboretum Loop Trail, along with the Yesler Swamp Boardwalk project; to a host of others roles. He will still be reporting to David Zuckerman. Congratulations, Chris!

Next, we’re very pleased to welcome Leta Kao as a new fiscal specialist to bolster our financial services team in Anderson Hall! Kao joins us from the UW Medical Oncology Unit, and her first day was last Monday, June 8.

Finally, next month Maureen Black will be joining our school as the new rental manager for the UW Botanic Gardens. Black brings more than 20 years of experience in sales, marketing and operations, as well as executive-level experience in the hospitality industry, most recently with Argosy Cruises and Tillicum Village. Her first day will be July 1. Welcome, all!

KEEP SAVING THE DATE: The annual SEFS retreat has been set for Wednesday, September 23, at the Center for Urban Horticulture. More details will be available later this summer, but in the meantime please go ahead and block off that day!


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COMMITTEE NOTES

No news to report.


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SEMINAR SCHEDULES

No weekly seminars scheduled for the summer.


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PUBLICATIONS

SEFS Director Tom DeLuca, with doctoral student Melissa Pingree as one of the co-authors, has a new paper out in Soil Biology and Biochemistry, “A novel rhizosphere trait-based approach to evaluating soil phosphorus availability across complex landscapes.”

He also co-authored a new chapter in a book this year, Biochar for Environmental Management: Science and Technology (Chapter 15: “Bio-char effects on soil nutrient transformation”).


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SEFS IN THE PRESS

Professor Sharon Doty’s research with N-fixation in poplars caught the eye of the Poplar and Willow Council of Canada, which put together a nice blurb on their website, “Poplars fix nitrogen in leaves,” that links to the longer piece in Science.


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ALUMNI UPDATES

SEFS alumna Andrea Watts co-authored a great piece in the June 2015 issue of Seattle Business magazine, “Cross-laminated Timber: the Future of Building?” Among the researchers she interviewed for the piece was SEFS Director Tom DeLuca.