UW Environment alumna Eliza Dawson to row across the Pacific Ocean for climate change awareness

Female rower wearing a hat and wetsuit rows on Lake Washington with Fremont Bridge behind her.

Eliza Dawson, a former UW crew member who majored in atmospheric sciences at UW’s College of the Environment, is part of a four-woman team that will row across the Pacific Ocean to Hawaii this June. She and her team hope to break the world record for women rowers — 50 days, 8 hours, 14 minutes — set in 2014. Dawson is also taking part in the 2,400-mile rowing race from Monterey, California, to Honolulu to spotlight the far-reaching impacts of humankind on the Earth by rowing across parts of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a vast gyre of plastic garbage occupying an area four times the size of California. 

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Using infosonics to tap into the emotional side of climate change

Judy Twedt remembers the moment when she started to think differently about her work on climate change: when the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Agreement. “It was a turning point for me. I realized I needed to start engaging with people on an emotional level.” She thought deeply about how she wanted to spend the remaining two years of her PhD work at the University of Washington, and how to build the emotional connection of climate change as a centerpiece of her dissertation. 

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Environment students win grand prize with innovative gardening product

The grand prize winners at the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge proved to judges that gardening and innovation go together naturally. BioPots took home the $15,000 Wells Fargo prize with their biodegradable planter pots made from biomass waste like spent beer grains. A team including students from the Bioresource Science and Engineering program captured the top prize ahead of 22 other teams from universities in Washington and Oregon. 

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