ANNOUNCEMENTS & KUDOS

We’re excited to announce that construction is soon to begin on the 1.2-mile Arboretum Loop Trail, which, when completed, will connect to Arboretum Drive to create a 2.5-pathway through the Washington Park Arboretum. The trail is being funded through the Washington State Department of Transportation as part of mitigation for the SR 520 bridge project, and the paved, multi-use Arboretum Loop Trail will provide incredible public access to the Arboretum’s collections. For more information on the trail and construction updates, visit the Seattle Parks and Recreation project page.

We’ll jump from there to some big kudos for SEFS Director Tom DeLuca, who was recently awarded a $60,000 Amazon Catalyst grant in support of a project titled, “Charcoal: The Intersection of Sustainable Forestry and Farming.” The 12-month grant comes through a partnership between the University of Washington and Amazon, and Tom’s research team includes his grad student Si Gao and Kai Hoffman-Krull, CEO of the nonprofit Forage.

Kudos, as well, to SEFS doctoral student Caitlin Littlefield, who recently used SEFS Student Travel Funds to attend a conference in Tasmania, where she presented at the inaugural Species on the Move International Conference from February 9 to 12 (her talk was “Landscape connectivity to address climate change: tracking climates through time and space”). The conference drew researchers from all over the world, and UW brought one of the largest delegations, including Caitlin, Professor Josh Lawler and Scott Rinnan from SEFS, along with Julian Olden and Lise Comte from SAFS, and Professor Janneke Hille Ris Lambers and Leander Love-Anderegg from Biology. Great stuff!

We also have kudos for Professor Sally Brown, who took part in a 2014 meeting—organized by the U.S. Botanic Garden, American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America—which resulted in a recently released report, “Agriculture and the Future of Food: The Role of Botanic Gardens.”

On the events front, SEFS doctoral student Jason James will be giving a talk at Town Hall Seattle this evening at 6 p.m. as part of the “UW Science Now” series. Speaking right after Oceanography grad student Max Showalter, Jason will explain how soil reveals the mysterious history of Earth’s landscapes, with an emphasis on soil’s place in the global carbon cycle. Doors open at 5:30 p.m., and admission is free for anyone with a Husky card (and $5 otherwise).

Also, students, as you probably saw in an email a couple weeks ago, we are organizing a bus to take graduate and undergraduate students up for a free day at Mount Rainier National Park on Sunday, April 24, from 10 a.m. to 3 p .m. The National Park Service is celebrating its centennial this year, and the event will include both indoor and outdoor activities at Paradise, ranging from informal yard games in the snow to ranger-led snowshoe walks. If we’re able to get 25 students signed up, we’ll reserve a SEFS bus to drive up to the park that Sunday around 7:30 or 8 a.m. (and if we hit 50 sign-ups, we’ll get two buses!). We already have more than 20 students who’ve expressed interest, so send an email to Karl Wirsing if you’d like to be included. This is an informal sign-up, and we’ll have more details to share later.

COMMITTEE NOTES

The interview process has concluded for the Professor of Practice faculty position. A final decision is expected soon, after which point the faculty will vote on the candidate.

SEMINAR SCHEDULES

No seminars are scheduled during Spring Break, but we’ll resume normal scheduling next week (with full speaker line-ups posted later this week).

Wildlife Science Seminar: Mondays, 3:30-4:50 p.m., KANE 130

SEFS Seminar Series: Wednesdays, 3:30-4:20 p.m., AND 223

PUBLICATIONS

SEFS Director Tom DeLuca was a co-author on a recent paper in Environmental Research Letters, “Biomass offsets little or none of permafrost carbon release from soils, streams, and wildfire: an expert assessment.”

SEFS IN THE PRESS

In the last issue, we wrote about a new publication from SEFS doctoral candidate Meghan Halabisky and Professor Monika Moskal. Last week, Michelle Ma from UW News put together a great story about the research, “New technique tracks ‘heartbeat’ of hundreds of wetlands.”

SEFS Research Associate Van Kane's research in Yosemite was recently featured in a story from the April issue of Discover magazine, “Science in America's National Parks.”

An article Professor Sharon Doty wrote, “Key roles of the poplar microbiome," was featured in the quarterly newsletter of the International Poplar Commission.

ALUMNI UPDATES

This March, SEFS alumna Amy Clark Eagle became the director of science and certification for the Forest Stewardship Council US. Amy had been working for nearly 20 years with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and she earned her master’s from SEFS in 1995. Nice work, Amy!