Becky Alexander reappointed as director of the Program on Climate Change

Becky Alexander has agreed to be reappointed as director of the Program on Climate Change (PCC), effective Sept. 1, 2023 to Aug. 31, 2025. Alexander is expecting to take a one-year sabbatical for AY22-23, so LuAnne Thompson will be serving as acting director, effective Sept. 1, 2022 to Aug. 31, 2023. Alexander is an atmospheric chemist in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences who studies the feedbacks that arise between climate change and the chemical composition of the atmosphere.

Five UW Environment students awarded Washington Sea Grant fellowships

Alanna Greene, Katie Shelledy, Natalie Lowell, Corinne Noufi and Katie Byrnes headshots

Five graduate students from the College of the Environment have been awarded Washington Sea Grant (WSG) fellowships. Corinne Noufi, Natalie Lowell, Katie Byrnes and Katie Shelledy from the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs (SMEA), were awarded the WSG Hershman Fellowship and Alanna Greene, a recent graduate of SMEA was selected as a finalist for the Sea Grant John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellowship.

Ice core data show why, despite lower sulfur emissions in U.S. and Western Europe, air pollution is dropping more slowly

The researchers in the drilling operation (left) and the drilled samples (right)

The air in the United States and Western Europe is much cleaner than even a decade ago. Low-sulfur oil standards and regulations on power plants have successfully cut sulfate concentrations in the air, reducing the fine particulate matter that harms human health and cleaning up the environmental hazard of acid rain. Despite these successes, sulfate levels in the atmosphere have declined more slowly than sulfur dioxide emissions, especially in wintertime.

Becky Alexander named director of UW Program on Climate Change

The UW College of the Environment is pleased to announce that Becky Alexander has been named the director of the UW Program on Climate Change (PCC). Becky is an atmospheric chemist in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences who studies the feedbacks that arise between climate change and the chemical composition of the atmosphere. She also has a long-standing relationship with the program, as she was initially hired as new faculty spearheaded by the Program on Climate Change to promote interdisciplinary climate research and teaching.

UW Program on Climate Change provides an interdisciplinary nexus for climate research and education

The UW’s Program on Climate Change was created in 2002 as a way for researchers in oceanography, atmospheric sciences and Earth and space sciences, then often located in separate colleges, to meet and collaborate on issues related to climate change. Back then, climate science was not as politically charged as it is today. Over 17 years, and since the 2008 launch of the UW’s College of the Environment, the program has evolved into a campuswide, interdisciplinary, student-driven program on climate change research, communication and action.