48 posts of type: Spotlight

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Reflecting on more than a decade: a Q&A with Dean Lisa Graumlich

Lisa Graumlich

After serving as the inaugural dean of the College of the Environment, Lisa Graumlich will step down at the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Graumlich first joined the University of Washington in the 1980s as a graduate student in what is now the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, returning to her alma mater to unite earth sciences units and departments within the University of Washington to form the biggest College of its kind in the nation. 

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Equity and Inclusion at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

Juno O'Neill, Mark Sorel and Kimberly Yazzie

Working towards equity and inclusion is a community effort, and one that requires active participation and push for change. The Equity & Inclusion (E&I) Committee is at the helm of advancing diversity, equity, inclusion and justice initiatives at the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (SAFS), and they have been working to make the School and community a more welcoming place. 

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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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Diversity, equity and inclusion at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences

Students from Prof Brian Harvey’s Lab conduct research of the Norse Fire from 2017 in the Snoqualmie National Forest.

The School of Environmental and Forest Sciences (SEFS) has been hard at work ensuring that it is an equitable, supportive space for the entire community, both as a member of the SEFS community and physically in the hallways, field sites and labs once classrooms open back up for in-person learning. Armed with a diversity statement voted on and approved by faculty, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee focused their efforts on drafting a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Plan to carry out the diversity statement with actionable steps. 

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UW DawgCast trains future broadcasters

In pre-COVID times, a group of students would huddle around a computer practicing their skills to create professional-grade weather graphics like the ones seen on local news channels or practice giving weather reports while standing in front of a green screen in a mini-TV-studio classroom. They are part of The UW DawgCast, a year-long club offered in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences jointly with a broadcast meteorology course that welcomes weather-loving students of all majors to teach them how to read, synthesize, and communicate weather. 

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