The Washington Research Foundation (WRF), a private nonprofit group that funds research and initiatives to commercialize innovations in the state, is making a $30 million grant to University of Washington efforts in data science, clean energy, protein design, and neuroengineering. The grant will help to attract and retain top tier faculty and post-doctoral researchers who work across multiple disciplines, with an emphasis on entrepreneurial researchers adept at advancing scientific discoveries from laboratory to society.

Numerous faculty across the UW developed the proposal to WRF, including Ginger Armbrust, director of the School or Oceanography. Ginger’s work is an example of the how the university is leading the development of novel approaches to data science to advance discovery. In a video produced by WRF, Ginger describes how oceanography has transformed into a data rich field in which her team must rely on and collaborate with computer scientists, statisticians, and the eScience Institute at UW. The WRF grant builds on a $37.8 million grant to UW, University of California at Berkeley, and New York University from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  Both Armbrust and John Vidale, professor in Earth and Space Science, are part of the eScience Institute.