Vice Admiral Fagan ’00 named USCG Vice Commandant

Vice Admiral Linda L. Fagan, MMA Class of 2000

School of Marine and Environmental Affairs alumna Vice Adm. Linda L. Fagan has been nominated by the White House to be the next Vice Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. If confirmed, Vice Admiral Fagan would serve as the first woman to be promoted to a 4-star rank in the Coast Guard. She currently serves as the commander of the Coast Guard Pacific Area, overseeing all Coast Guard missions from the Rocky Mountains to the waters off the East Coast of Africa. 

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Plant parenting 101: starting with soil

Plant parenting graphic

Plant parenthood has boomed since the onset of the pandemic, with many people frequenting local plant stores to find companionship during a time of social isolation or even trying their hand at growing produce. New and novice gardeners find themselves doting and caring for these plants only for them to stagnate or even (gasp) die. How can we prevent untimely death in our plants and encourage growth? 

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Simons Foundation funds fundamental questions in biology

A graphic view of tens of millions of bases of DNA extracted from a marine microbial community found in Puget Sound (photo: Vaughn Iverson)

How do environmental scientists unearth new discoveries about our planet? Many of us might imagine scientists observing the world around them, wading through tide pools or digging up soil. But what about questions surrounding the origins of life on Earth, or questions about microbes deep, deep within the ocean? Big questions like these require big investments, and the Simons Foundation is supporting University of Washington (UW) researchers to find some of the answers. 

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An oasis for scholars: the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center 

Sailing into Friday Harbor, you can’t miss the set of long, low-slung buildings along the water’s northern edge. They are home to the famed Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL), a research outpost housed within the larger University of Washington College of the Environment. The labs have operated over one hundred years, first gaining notoriety for their impact in evolutionary and neuroscience. Over the decades, the labs have added marine ecology, seawater chemistry, biomechanics and all flavors of oceanography to their research repertoire. 

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