Yocom has served as interim dean since October 2024 and is a professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, where he previously served as department chair. A longtime member of the UW faculty, Yocom brings deep institutional knowledge, a collaborative leadership style and a long-standing commitment to the college鈥檚 mission of advancing justice, sustainability and resilience through the built environment.

鈥淜en has been a thoughtful and steady leader during a critical period of transition,鈥� Serio said. 鈥淗e brings not only deep institutional knowledge but a clear vision for how the college can meet the challenges and opportunities of the future. His collaborative approach and student-centered focus will continue to strengthen the college鈥檚 impact in our region and beyond.鈥�

Yocom鈥檚 research and teaching examine the relationships between ecological systems and the built environment, with a particular focus on how infrastructure, water and landscape shape communities. His work reflects the college鈥檚 commitment to place-based, interdisciplinary solutions that respond to today鈥檚 most pressing societal challenges 鈥� from climate change to housing access to public health.

鈥淚t鈥檚 an honor to continue leading this remarkable college 鈥� a community defined by purpose, creativity and care,鈥� Yocom said. 鈥淎t the College of Built Environments, we don鈥檛 just prepare students to design buildings or plan cities 鈥� we help them imagine and shape a better world. I鈥檓 inspired by the ways our faculty, staff and students come together to confront urgent challenges, and I鈥檓 excited for what we will build 鈥� together.鈥�

Yocom holds a master鈥檚 degree in landscape architecture and a doctorate in built environments from the 天美影视传媒. As dean, he will lead a college that brings together architecture, construction management, landscape architecture, real estate and urban planning in pursuit of transformative solutions for communities and the planet.

The vast majority of earthquakes strike inside the , a string of volcanoes and tectonic activity that wraps around the coastlines of the Pacific Ocean. But when an earthquake hits, the areas that experience the strongest shaking aren鈥檛 always the places that suffer the greatest damage.

Take the massive , which caused extensive damage in Taiwan in the fall of 1999 and killed more than 2,400 people. The distribution of damage followed an uneven pattern: Deaths caused by the earthquake were concentrated not in densely populated city centers, but in those cities鈥� suburbs and outer fringes. A similar pattern has occurred following earthquakes in China, Chile and Nepal.

More than two decades later, researchers at the 天美影视传媒 have identified a hidden factor behind what they call 鈥榮uburban syndrome鈥� 鈥� migration. Workers from small, rural communities often move into the outer edges of cities, which offer greater economic opportunities but often have low-quality housing that is likely to suffer greater damage during an earthquake. The risk grows even more when migrants come from low-income or tribal villages.

The findings, , suggest that emergency management organizations should pay greater attention to migration and housing quality when developing disaster mitigation and response plans.

UW News spoke with lead author , an assistant professor of environmental & occupational health sciences and of urban planning, to discuss 鈥榮uburban syndrome,鈥� how migration can amplify disparities in a disaster鈥檚 impact, and what U.S. officials can learn from a Taiwanese disaster.

Your work on this study builds on an existing model that assesses earthquake risk by considering migration patterns and the movement of vulnerable populations. What does the existing model miss, and why is it important to fill those gaps?听听

Tzu-Hsin Karen Chen: This risk-assessment model has been used by many organizations internationally and in the United States. For example, FEMA uses a similar risk model to assess populations exposed to hazards, vulnerabilities and potential disaster impacts. They typically do a comprehensive risk assessment geographically within states and counties, identify areas with potential larger impacts, and then draft a preparedness plan.

In United States, temporary domestic migrants and undocumented immigrants don鈥檛 always officially register in government systems. One common reason is the fear of deportation or other legal repercussions. And so, when a government agency like FEMA allocates resources for disaster preparedness or recovery, relying on registered population data can lead to an underestimate of the support required in certain areas.

In Taiwan, our study case, many migrant workers moving from rural to urban areas don鈥檛 update their registered residence. They still have their registration back in their hometown, like in a tribal area. It just doesn’t make sense to re-register, because they might have multiple jobs within a single year in different places. To minimize expenses, some workers look for the lowest possible rent, and their rental housing might not be officially registered either. Those could be informal housing structures, like a metal floor added on top of a concrete building, which don鈥檛 comply with safety regulations. The informality of this process can help lower their cost of living, but can also leave them more vulnerable to disasters.

How did you get started in this research?听

TKC: I鈥檒l share my personal story, but I also want to acknowledge my co-authors for their years of work in risk assessments. For me, it started back in 2010, when I volunteered in a tribal area of Taiwan teaching computer skills. This provided bigger lessons for me than anything I could鈥檝e taught them. I learned how teenagers often move from their tribal areas downhill to nearby cities to take construction jobs during the off-crop seasons. Those jobs pay more than farm work, but they鈥檙e also very physically demanding and often lack worker protections like job security and health insurance. Seeing that put a seed in my mind.听

When I was a master鈥檚 student, a team from the National Earthquake Center and Academia Sinica in Taiwan was working on a risk assessment of the Chi-Chi earthquake using the exposure, vulnerability and hazard framework. They had already published a fundamental , and reached out to me to develop an extended study by incorporating spatial statistics. That collaboration eventually evolved into the study in this paper.听

The COVID-19 pandemic also shaped this study. I came across news about how migrant workers were stuck in urban fringe areas of India. Because of the lockdown, they weren鈥檛 able to continue their work, and their crowded living conditions left them at even greater risk during the pandemic. I started to wonder: How can we shift from a pure statistical model to something more meaningful? How can we bring migration into the center of the discussion?听

The final push came from colleagues鈥� work at the UW. I鈥檝e noticed initiatives for undocumented students and research efforts around environmental justice and health equity. For example, my co-author 鈥檚 research on migrant worker鈥檚 health was particularly motivating. We read and wrote back and forth to refine the framing and discussion in this paper. 听

How did you incorporate migration data into a larger earthquake-risk model, and what did you find?

TKC: At the time of the Chi-Chi earthquake in the late 1990s, we didn鈥檛 have any detailed migration data. Today, new research uses mobile phone signals to track people, but such data wasn鈥檛 available back then. So we adapted the 鈥� a model widely used to predict human migration 鈥� to estimate migration flow and used it as a new way to estimate migrants from low-income and tribal areas. This provided new variables to incorporate into the large risk model.听

Most of our findings are supportive of previous studies, where we can see, logically, if there鈥檚 stronger ground movement, there are likely to be more fatalities. That鈥檚 a very straightforward way of thinking of how disasters can happen. However, it鈥檚 not just a physical story. We also confirm that in areas where incomes are lower, there are more fatalities. Income is a known risk factor in the vulnerability theory. What鈥檚 unique in this study is that we tested whether an increase in migration flows leads to an increase in fatalities, and we found that to be true.听

Tell me about the migration model. What is it estimating?听

TKC: We applied the radiation model and adapted it to measure different migration populations. The fundamental idea of the radiation model comes from a simple model called the . In this context, gravity refers to the idea that larger populations have a stronger 鈥減ull鈥� on people in nearby communities. The model assumes that, for a place, the number of people who want to migrate to nearby cities depends on the population size of those cities. Larger cities tend to attract more people.听听

If the distance is too far, then it costs too much to travel, so the model will predict fewer migrants. But if the city is closer, or even far away but has a very large population, it becomes a more attractive destination, leading to greater migration flow.听听

The radiation model builds on these principles and adds another layer. It considers competitors along the way. In other words, migration flow may also be influenced by other cities or opportunities that lie between the starting point and the destination.听

At first glance, it seems obvious that greater migration would lead to higher fatalities in a given area, just because there are more people present when disaster strikes. Is that the primary driver, or are there other factors at play?听听

TKC: Logically, if there are more people, and the percentage of fatalities is equal, then there should be more people dying from a specific event. But we found it鈥檚 not just about population numbers. There are two additional factors: When migrant workers are from areas with lower incomes, or when they are from tribal areas, those factors significantly contribute to higher fatalities in the places they migrate to.听

Our hypothesis is that it鈥檚 about housing safety. Migrant workers tend to move to cities, and when cities are more expensive, affluent workers might be able to secure housing that offers better protection against disasters. However, workers from tribal or low-income areas tend to settle in urban fringe zones where affordable housing options might not meet safety standards, making them more vulnerable to earthquakes.

Why did you choose to study this earthquake from 1999 in particular?听听

TKC: The research team that invited me to work on this project was interested in the Chi-Chi earthquake, partly because it was one of the most disastrous in Taiwan鈥檚 history. And even 20 years later, there鈥檚 still a conference focused on the Chi-Chi earthquake that brings domestic and international researchers to talk about it.

How widely applicable are your findings? Could they help us better understand hazards in other earthquake-prone areas of the world, like, say, the Pacific Northwest?听听

TKC: It鈥檚 important to consider this risk assessment as a tool for preparedness for future hazards. When the next earthquake occurs, migrant communities will likely face elevated impacts if housing safety policies do not improve.

I believe the migration component is universally important, even outside Taiwan. There has always been a paradox, a structural dilemma of disaster governance: Because migrants are often invisible, they suffer from little support. But making them visible can sometimes lead to exclusion and discrimination. This model represents migrants in a geographic sense rather than identifying every person individually through government surveillance, which could address this challenge. By protecting anonymity while still accounting for migrant populations, the model might help ensure their needs are considered in housing safety and resource allocation.

Co-authors on this study include Diana Ceballos of the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences; Kuan-Hui Elaine Lin of National Taiwan Normal University, Thung-Hong Lin of Academia Sinica in Taiwan; and Gee-Yu Liu and Chin-Hsun Yeh of the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering in Taiwan.

For more information, contact Chen at kthchen@uw.edu.

The students combed the perimeter of the Nanoengineering & Sciences Building on a recent fall morning, as a pair of volunteers does every morning, looking for signs that a bird has met its end.

On this day, the students found only feathers 鈥� not remains 鈥� a sign that crows may have already scavenged the carcass.

With its facade of windows, NanoES is one of the buildings along a route 鈥� the route itself one of three campus loops 鈥� that volunteers trek as part of , a project led by College of Built Environments Ph.D. researcher . The goals: Count the number of bird-building collisions on campus, provide recommendations about bird-safe design to UW architects, and educate the community about the harm that transparent and reflective glass presents to wildlife.

鈥淲e can find a balance in design that benefits humans and birds,鈥� said Bowes, who discovered a love for birds while growing up in Pennsylvania. 鈥淏irds cannot detect glass. This is a design problem, not a bird problem. We can use less invasive designs and protect wildlife in ways that benefit all of us.鈥�

For the past year, Bowes has been training and leading volunteers to walk through campus, using a student-created app to log where they鈥檝e been and what they鈥檝e found, along with photos. The volunteers wear gloves and carry with them a kit for collecting dead birds to bring them to the Burke Museum. Teams have found 20 different species of birds, Bowes said, most commonly the varied thrush. And perhaps not surprisingly, numbers of dead birds increase during the local winter migration season.

Volunteers find only about 10% of the more than 10,000 birds that collide with campus buildings each year, estimates based on Bird Friendly Campus’ collision data from last year and formulas that predict yearly loss that have been developed by other researchers in the field. .

Just in the past month, of the McCormick Place Lakeside Center in Chicago in just one evening. The remains were found the next morning by a volunteer monitor. recently featured a Manhattan condominium building, dubbed by some in the city as a bird 鈥渄eath trap,鈥� and the efforts to retrofit the glass there so that it is more visible to birds.

Bird-safe glass is a key solution, Bowes explains, often in the form of tiny opaque dots, or a grid pattern made of weather-resistant vinyl that can be affixed to windows, allowing natural light to still enter the space. Apparent up close but not obstructive to the view of those inside a building, these tools can turn what is see-through or reflective into a barrier visible to birds, reducing collisions by as much as 80 to 90%. A few structures on campus, such as the Gallagher Law Library at William H. Gates Hall and the Life Sciences Building, use glass that incorporates bird-safe patterns.

Also helpful: leaving space between buildings and vegetation and limiting the use of artificial lighting at night.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a big eye-opener for most people, particularly architects,鈥� Bowes said. 鈥淚 believe that we can just treat hot spots on buildings. We don鈥檛 have to treat every square foot of glass surface area. It鈥檚 our responsibility, I believe, to protect living things and to prevent collisions.鈥�

Bowes and her team will submit data from their study to campus architects for inclusion in the UW鈥檚 Green Building Standards. An informational presentation is planned for the campus community this winter.

For more information, contact Bowes at jbowes2@uw.edu.

Emily M. Bender, Yejin Choi named to TIME100 AI list

TIME included two UW professors on its first TIME100 AI list, which highlights 100 individuals who are advancing major conversations about how artificial intelligence is reshaping the world.

The list features听leaders, policymakers, artists and entrepreneurs across a variety of fields and countries. , professor of linguistics, and , professor听in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, were honored as top thinkers.

Bender has consistently raised ethical concerns regarding large language models and has resisted the notion that AI systems are truly intelligent. 鈥渁 machine-learning myth buster,鈥� who is working to dispel 鈥渙verblown promises about what AI can do.鈥�

Among other topics, Bender studies the societal impacts of language technology, the implications for research and design and how to integrate it into the natural language processing curriculum. She was named an AAAS fellow in 2022.

Choi, a MacArthur Fellow, focuses on discerning the various distinctions between human intelligence and AI. She researches whether AI can develop common sense and a sense of humor. Choi is now working to develop AI systems that can comprehend social and moral norms.

鈥淎 calculator can calculate better and faster than I do,鈥� Choi , 鈥渂ut it doesn鈥檛 mean that a calculator is superior to any of us in other dimensions of intelligence.鈥�

The full TIME100 AI list is available on .

President Ana Mari Cauce receives Decrees Award for 鈥榗ontribution to society鈥�

天美影视传媒 President Ana Mari Cauce received a , which recognizes people and institutions that add value to and promote the economic and social improvement of Le贸n, Spain.

The awards were given for the first time in 2022. They are granted annually by the Association of Friends of the Decrees, which organizes the public reading of the Decrees of Le贸n of 1188 before the Royal Abbey of San Isidoro de Le贸n.听These documents contain the oldest known written information about the European parliamentary system.

President Cauce was honored for overseeing the launch of the in 2010. About 1,200 students have participated in 70 programs at the center, and the faculty includes representatives from 20 departments on all three UW campuses.

College of Built Environments鈥� Jeff Hou elected to American Society of Landscape Architects鈥� Council of Fellows

, UW professor of landscape architecture, has been named a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects.

Election to the ASLA Council of Fellows is based on members鈥� .

鈥淟andscape architects help build a better world for all of us, and ASLA Fellows represent the most respected and accomplished professionals in the entire field,鈥� said ASLA President Emily O’Mahoney.

Hou is one of 48 newly elected Fellows, recognized specifically for his knowledge in 鈥渄emocratic design in the global built environment,鈥� elevating 鈥済rassroots activism for environmental equity and justice into the public, professional, and academic spheres.鈥澨鼳 member of the UW Department of Landscape Architecture since 2001, Hou has worked in communities around the world, on projects from wildlife habitat conservation to urban open space design. In addition to his work with community members, Hou has edited, co-edited and co-authored 12 books, and he has written dozens of book chapters and journal articles. He also won the 2023 Outstanding Educator Award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture.

An investiture ceremony for the ASLA Fellows is planned for the 2023 Conference on Landscape Architecture in October.

Picture a bench. Maybe you imagine the wooden seat of a picnic table, the metal of a bus shelter, the plastic of a school cafeteria.

Different materials, different locations, same basic purpose: to welcome more than one person.

This spring quarter, in Architecture 231: Making and Meaning, that was the essential mission of the culminating project: Build a bench, create a social opportunity.

鈥淎rchitecture is taking an idea and turning it into a reality that someone can experience,鈥� said co-instructor .

And so, this month, there were some two dozen benches, scattered around both Gould Hall and Architecture Hall in a pop-up demonstration of student work. There were benches with backs, with ramps, with steps and shelves and swings. Benches in the shape of an L, or a C, or an ocean wave. Nicholls encouraged students to find places that were underused, or even overused, and 鈥渉elp them out with a bench.鈥�

The class started with small, individual projects, made of reclaimed and found materials, such as cardboard and sticks, to teach scale and structure. Then came the bench project, a team endeavor that involved planning and sketching, trial and error, and use of the College of Built Environments鈥� Fabrication Lab to cut and assemble the lumber.

Sophomore Jasmine Madrigal was part of a group that constructed a bench with squared-off, V-shaped legs and a corner shelf.

鈥淚鈥檝e learned about the materials, that not everything will stay the same as you first conceptualize it, and we sometimes had to compromise our ideas in order to develop it further,鈥� Madrigal said.

That鈥檚 the point of the class, co-instructor and Architecture alum said 鈥� to learn process, collaboration and attention to detail.

鈥淪tudents come into the class having an idea and think it鈥檚 built automatically,鈥� Leanos said with a smile.

While a few benches may find a permanent home at Gould or Architecture Hall, most will be taken apart, so the materials can be used again, in a future class.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the Trust for Governors Island on April 24 that a consortium led by Stony Brook University will found and develop a world-leading climate solutions center on Governors Island in the city鈥檚 harbor. The will be a first-of-its kind international center for developing and deploying dynamic solutions to our global climate crisis.听

The 天美影视传媒 is among the core partners of the consortium, along with Georgia Institute of Technology, Pace University, the Pratt Institute, the Good Old Lower East Side community group, Boston Consulting Group and IBM. Other academic partners include Duke University, Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Oxford.听

鈥淲e are very proud to bring our University鈥檚 deep and diverse strengths in climate and clean energy research and innovation to the New York Climate Exchange,鈥� said UW President Ana Mari Cauce. 鈥淎s the only core partner on the West Coast, we are excited to leverage our regional and global relationships to accelerate efforts to address and adapt to the impacts of climate change. This work is vital and urgent for the health and survival of our people and our world.鈥�听

In addition to convening the world鈥檚 leaders and climate experts, the exchange will host green job training and skills-building programs and partner with local institutions on addressing the social and practical challenges created by climate change.听

鈥淭he UW serves as a global hub for innovative research into climate change action and adaptation, and the resources and relationships provided by the Climate Exchange will help us grow our impact even further,鈥� said Maya Tolstoy, Maggie Walker Dean of the UW College of the Environment. 鈥淭his is a truly exciting partnership, and it presents a fantastic opportunity for us to collaborate with a diverse group of peers across academia, business and community organizations.鈥�听

Tolstoy will serve as the UW鈥檚 representative on the New York Climate Exchange board. The initiative will bring together universities, governments and businesses to address climate change action and adaptation.听

The New York Climate Exchange with 400,000 square feet of green-designed building space, including research labs, classroom space, exhibits, greenhouses, mitigation technologies and housing facilities. The facility will feature:听

• An all-electric-powered campus with onsite solar electricity generation and battery storage with capability to serve the local grid听
• All non-potable water demand met with rainwater or treated wastewater collection听
• 95% of its waste diverted from landfills听
• Climate-resilient design of new buildings, all raised to the design flood elevation of 18 feet above sea level听

鈥淲e are honored, excited, and proud to partner with the City of New York to build this historic center that will cement New York City as the world leader on climate change, the most pressing issue of our time,鈥� said Stony Brook University President Maurie McInnis.听

The Exchange鈥檚 activities will include:听

• A Research and Technology Accelerator that will source and nurture ideas, projects and new ventures dedicated to solving the climate crisis听
• Workforce development opportunities for communities disproportionately affected by climate change听听

• Partnerships and collaborative grant opportunities with community-based organizations already working to mitigate the impacts of climate change听
• Academic and community programs that prepare students at every level for careers focused on climate change solutions and environmental justice, encompassing hands-on learning, a semester 鈥渁broad鈥� on Governors Island, fellowship and internship programs and continuing education听

“The UW Clean Energy Institute is proud to bring our expertise in advancing clean energy research, training and stakeholder engagement to the New York Climate Exchange,” said Daniel Schwartz, director of the UW Clean Energy Institute and Boeing-Sutter Professor of Chemical Engineering. “Working as part of this global team, we see great opportunities to accelerate the energy transition through equitable deployment strategies.”听

UW faculty members who worked with UW leadership in the initial planning efforts include Shuyi Chen, UW professor of atmospheric sciences; Dargan Frierson, UW associate professor of atmospheric sciences; Jessica Kaminsky, UW associate professor of civil and environmental engineering; Jonathan Bakker, UW professor of environmental and forest sciences; and Himanshu Grover, UW assistant professor of urban design and planning.

鈥淎lthough built environments are intensely place-based, the systems that they influence are not bound by geography,鈥� said Ren茅e Cheng, dean of the UW College of Built Environments. 鈥淟inking our college’s research and teaching on carbon, water and socio-environmental factors with the New York Climate Exchange will facilitate positive impact at a national and global scale.鈥�听

March 7, 7:30 PM | Meany Hall

Cristina Vald茅s leads the UW Modern Music Ensemble in performances of works from the mid-20th century and beyond. Program includes pieces by Patricia Alessandrini, Kaija Saariaho, Christian Wolff, Huck Hodge, Sarah Hennies, and Huang Ruo.

$10 tickets |

March 7, 7:30 PM | Brechemin Auditorium

Seattle-based percussionist Jeff Busch presents a concert of Brazilian music, featuring students from his Winter 2023 percussion ensemble, and spanning genres from samba to maracat煤 to forr贸. With guest appearances by pianist Jovino Santos Neto, singer Adriana Giordano, and other luminaries of the local Brazilian music scene, as well as UW faculty Marc Seales, Steve Rodby, and Shannon Dudley.

Free|

March 8, 5 – 7 PM |Communications Building

Southeast Asian writers experience diaspora, and its losses, both within the region and without, both psychologically and socially. How do they contend with the multiple manifestations of diaspora in their writing? Jee Leong Koh (Snow at 5 PM), Jim Pascual Agustin (Waking Up to the Pattern Left by a Snail Overnight), Lawrence Lacambra Ypil (The Experiment of the Tropics), and Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint (Names of Light) read from their work and converse with Reuven Pinnata (天美影视传媒, English) on mapping the unmappable.

Free|

March 9, 6 – 7:30 PM | Architecture Hall

Understand how planners, civic leaders and activists are organizing around the idea of reparations for the damage caused by driving urban freeways through urban communities. Lauren Hood, Chair of the Detroit Planning Commission and a nationally known urban planner, Rosa Lopez, Reconnect South Park Organizer, and Madeleine Spencer, a leader of Placemaking US, will describe the project to restore Seattle鈥檚 South Park community, which was divided by State Highway 99.

Highway 99 in Seattle cuts through the heart of South Park. When Highway 99 was constructed, South Park was home to an immigrant population largely of Mexican heritage. It is now the home of numerous immigrant and refugee communities. Highway 99 through South Park is underutilized, and its path is another example of environmental racism. The Washington Legislature has appropriated $600,000 to explore possible actions to repair this rift. The City of Seattle is supporting this initiative and investing in community consultation around alternatives.

Creating great urban neighborhoods and taking action for environmental justice go hand in hand. This panel will make that crucial connection and show how we can envision and attain just and sustainable future cities.

Free |

March 9, 7:30 PM | 听Meany Hall

The UW Wind Ensemble director, Timothy Salzman, performs music by Chang Su Koh and Jennifer Higdon. The Symphonic Band director, Shaun Day, performs music by Darius Milhaud, Philip Sparke and Valerie Coleman. With Scott Farkas, percussion soloist on Jennifer Higdon鈥檚 Concerto for Solo Percussion and Band.

$10 tickets |

March 9, 5:30 – 7:30 PM | Solo Bar & Eatery

Seattle has become an exciting center of literary translation over the past few years. Visitors to the 2023 Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference and local fans of translation are invited to help celebrate Seattle’s translation community at a party hosted by the Northwest Literary Translators, the UW Translation Studies Hub at the Simpson Center for the Humanities, and Seattle City of Literature. This event features select readings by local translators, delicious food, and a cash bar.

Free |

March 10, 7:30 PM | Meany Hall

The UW Symphony director, David Alexander Rahbee, performs music by Sibelius, Gli猫re and Tchaikovsky in this end-of-quarter concert. With faculty artist John Turman, horn soloist on Gli猫re: Horn Concerto, Op. 91 in B flat Major; and Seattle Symphony assistant conductor Sunny Xia, guest conductor for Tchaikovsky鈥檚 Symphony No. 4, Op. 36, in F minor.

$10 tickets |

Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).

February 22, 7:30 PM | Meany Hall

2023 marks the 75th year of musique concr猫te with the premiere of Pierre Schaeffer鈥檚 Cinq 茅tudes de bruits (Five Studies of Noises), composed and premiered in 1948. In celebration, the Department of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS) is pleased to host Annette Vande Gorne, who will present a program of recent work from the pioneers of this art of spatial sound crafted for an orchestra of loudspeakers.

Free |

Jazz Innovations, Brechemin Auditorium

Student jazz ensembles pay homage to the icons of jazz and break new ground with original progressive jazz compositions.

February 22, 7:30 PM |

Directors:

Steve Rodby | Steve Rodby is a Grammy Award-winning acoustic and electric bassist, audio and video editor and producer. He began studying classical orchestral bass at age 10, and quickly developed parallel interests in pop and jazz.

Cuong Vu | Cuong Vu is widely recognized by jazz critics as a leader of a generation of innovative musicians. A truly unique musical voice, Cuong has lent his trumpet playing to a wide range of artists such as Pat Metheny, Laurie Anderson, and David Bowie.

February 23, 7:30 PM |

Ted Poor | Ted Poor is a Seattle-based drummer whose adventurous, soulful playing has vaulted him to the stages of some of today鈥檚 most important musicians and placed him amongst those drummers most in demand. Ted is a member of the band of Los Angeles based singer/song-writer Andrew Bird; appearing on and touring the albums Are You Serious and My Finest Work Yet (Loma Vista/Concord).

Marc Seals | A noted pianist, composer and leading figure in the Northwest jazz scene, Marc Seales has shared stages with many of the great players of the last two decades. He has played with nearly every visiting jazz celebrity from Joe Henderson and Art Pepper to Benny Carter, Mark Murphy, and Bobby Hutcherson. With the late Don Lanphere he performed in such places as London, England; Kobe, Japan; The Hague in the Netherlands; and the North Sea Jazz Festival.

Free

February 22, 4 PM | , Johnson Hall / online

Todd Mart铆nez, professor at Stanford University, will give a lecture titled “Discovering Chemistry and Photochemistry From First Principles Molecular Dynamics.” Novel computational architectures and methodologies are revolutionizing diverse areas ranging from video gaming to advertising and espionage. In this talk, he will discuss how these tools and ideas can be exploited in the context of theoretical and computational chemistry.

Free |

February 23, 3:30 PM | zoom

French-Algerian writer Le茂la Sebbar鈥檚 early work has frequently been framed as a subversion of Orientalist representational practices and their lingering impact on social and cultural relations in postcolonial France. More recently, however, subsequent works by Sebbar focusing on former colonial spaces in North Africa have been criticized for perpetuating the very traditions of representation that her first novels sought to call into question and for failing to engage with contemporary issues. This talk traces how Sebbar鈥檚 persistent attention to the past has shaped her attempts to engage with France鈥檚 present and future since the mid-1990s in writings that range from the everyday to the speculative, with particular attention to her interventions in ongoing debates about national identity centered on Muslim women鈥檚 bodies.

Free |

February 23, 5:30 PM | , Architecture Hall room 147

The discipline of architecture has long taken a managerial stance toward an environment that is understood to be “outside,” underground, or in the air. How might we see this relationship differently? This talk revisits the book Climates: Architecture and the Planetary Imaginary alongside other recent research on resource geology and atmosphere, moving through several scales of climatic thought鈥攆rom the planetary to the territorial to the community scale.

James Graham is an architect, historian, and assistant professor at the California College of the Arts. He is currently working on a research project on land, agriculture, and nationality during the Soviet Union’s First Five-Year Plan.

Free |

February 23 to March 5 | Floyd and Delores Jones Playhouse

February 26 |

Aren鈥檛 we better than our worst crimes? Are we just going to go on trading blood endlessly back and forth? What is the sense of that? Aren鈥檛 we tired?

When King Agamemnon returns home from the Trojan War, he finds his wife Clytemnestra waiting to take her revenge for his slaughter of their innocent daughter Iphigenia. Violence begets violence and the cycle continues, cursing the house鈥檚 descendants. The community, haunted by the sins of the present and the past, must then decide how to cleanse the royal house and balance both the need for justice and the desire for absolution. In her stunning new adaptation of Aeschylus鈥� ancient Greek drama, celebrated playwright Ellen McLaughlin challenges us today to embrace our collective responsibility for compassion and mercy in the face of uncertainty, enmity, and discord.

An MFA thesis production.

$10-$20 tickets |

February 24,听 7:30 PM |听 Meany Hall

UW piano students Tianhao Yao, Nicole Wang, Chiao-Yu Wu, Sandy Huang, and David Lin perform concerto works with special guest orchestra Philharmonia Northwest. Geoffrey Larson conducts.

$10-$20 tickets |

February 24, 3:30 PM | , Art 003 or zoom

The stewardship of artifacts from archaeological contexts is an increasingly complex practice. It demands not only an understanding of an artifact鈥檚 material properties but also engagement with complicated (and often contradictory) ethical frameworks. From the impact of the climate crisis on collections management practices to reckoning with the intertwined legacies of archaeology and colonialism, conservators of archaeological materials are often faced with challenging decisions for which there is no clear 鈥渞ight鈥� answer. Conservators have increasingly acknowledged that our work is not neutral, and that our actions have the capacity to highlight – or obscure 鈥� aspects of an artifact鈥檚 biography. This lecture will present several case studies which address these issues, from the story-telling capabilities of materials science and conservation intervention to highly complicated negotiations between sustainability and access.

Anna Serotta is an Associate Conservator in the Department of Objects Conservation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where her primary focus is on the ancient Egyptian collection. In 2014-15, she held a prestigious Rome Prize fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, where she combined modern technologies such as RTI (reflectance transformation imaging) with hands-on practice under a master sculptor for her project “The Documentation, Analysis and Replication of Tool Marks on Ancient Stone Sculpture.” Her interests are broad, including the ethics of conservation and ancient techniques and technologies, among other specialties.

Free |

February 27, 5 – 6:30 PM |, Zoom

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer or machine to mimic or replicate human-like thought processes and behaviors, such as learning and problem-solving. A recently released AI tool, ChatGPT, has been in the news because of its extraordinary ability to solve difficult coding problems and to answer questions in ways that are difficult to distinguish from human-generated responses. But AI is all around us, from the tools we use to search for movies or restaurants, to the cars we drive, to the factories that produce the products that we buy, to the warehouses that ship those products.

As with any technology, AI can serve constructive and destructive purposes. Autonomous drones can be used to deliver packages or missiles. Ultimately, society must ensure that AI is utilized responsibly and ethically. But what is at stake? How do we evaluate the tradeoffs? In this faculty panel, we will consider potential economic and political consequences of AI developments.

Free |

Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).

January 18 – February 15, 7:30 PM |, Kane Hall

The medieval period has always occupied a paradoxical position in our cultural memory. An age of fantasy unimaginably distant from historical reality, it is also an era onto which writers and artists鈥攁nd now moviemakers and gamers鈥攈ave long projected their fears and desires. Why do cultures remake certain figures from the past鈥攂ut not others–in their own image?

Join Professor Emerita Robin Stacey for this five-lecture series where she looks at the present鈥檚 relationship with the past through the lens of the making and remaking of important historical figures鈥攕ome real, some fictional, and some the creatures of myth.

Free |

New Exhibition: , Henry Art Gallery

February 3, 7 – 9 pm |

Thick as Mud explores how mud animates relationships between people and place, with works by an international roster of artists. Across multiple geographies and a range of aesthetic approaches鈥攆rom figurative clay sculpture to audio recordings of the swamp鈥攖hese artists engage mud as a material or subject that shapes personal and collective histories, memory, and imagination.

Free |

February 8, 5:30 PM | , Communication 120

This talk considers how theatre鈥攍ike television and photography鈥攚as vital to the cultural and political fronts of the Civil Rights Movement. It explores how black artists and activists used theatre to stage a radical challenge to a violent racial project that I call black patience鈥攁 project that has historically delayed black freedom as a means of reinforcing anti-blackness and white supremacy. Mounting plays like Samuel Beckett鈥檚 Waiting for Godot and Lorraine Hansberry鈥檚 A Raisin in the Sun, these cultural workers used theatre to demand 鈥渇reedom now.鈥� In exploring theatre鈥檚 intervention into the violent cultures of black patience, this talk foregrounds the centrality of race to theories of ephemerality and disappearance in performance studies scholarship.

Free |

February 9 – 11, 8 PM | ,听Meany Hall

Driven by the artistic vision of mother-daughters Ranee Ramaswamy, Aparna Ramaswamy (Artistic Directors) and Ashwini Ramaswamy (Choreographic Associate), Ragamala Dance Company is committed to the idea that while history is time bound, the stories we share are timeless. Rooted in the South Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam, Ragamala’s work is expansive 鈥� extending beyond the stage to embody their immigrant experiences and show a kindred relationship between ancient and contemporary within today鈥檚 world.

$48 tickets |

February 9, 6 PM | , Nordic Museum

The ever-popular Scand30 series returns with a twist! During the month of sweethearts and heartaches, join Olivia Gunn, Associate Professor in the Department of Scandinavian Studies, as she explores the practicalities of pairing off in modern Norway.

Co-presented with the听天美影视传媒’s Department of Scandinavian Studies, this latest iteration of our popular Scand30 series听uses one object in the Museum’s collection as a point of departure for the speaker’s topic. These short, snappy talks are delivered by 天美影视传媒 faculty and reflect current research. A light reception will follow the presentation.

Free |

February 10, 10:45 AM | Online

Gregg Colburn, Assistant Professor of Real Estate, and Emily Levesque, Associate Professor of Astronomy, will welcome NASA Astronaut Josh Cassada, LIVE from the International Space Station.

The highlight of this Friday in Space will be a 20-minute downlink with astronaut Cassada, currently stationed on the ISS. A downlink affords participants on Earth to see video and hear audio from the ISS, while the astronaut will have audio only from Earth鈥檚 side of the conversation. During the downlink, UW students, moderated by Prof. Colburn, will have the chance to ask questions directly of astronaut Cassada.

Free |

February 10, 4 PM |,听Communication 206

Celebrate the launch of Going Public, a podcast dedicated to exploring public scholarship and publicly-engaged teaching in the humanities. From 2015-2022, two successive Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded grant initiatives under the name Reimagining the Humanities PhD and Reaching New Publics supported public scholars at the 天美影视传媒. The Going Public podcast showcases the public-facing graduate seminars and doctoral student projects made possible by this generous support.

At this special event, you鈥檒l be able to independently listen to clips of the podcast and explore the Reimagining the PhD digital archive of graduate seminar syllabi and doctoral student projects. You鈥檒l have a chance to learn more about public-facing scholarship and teaching at the 天美影视传媒 from many people who have been involved in the Reimagining the Humanities PhD program and talk with podcast host and co-producer Annie Dwyer about her vision for the Going Public project.

Free |

Have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).

Four recent books from 天美影视传媒 professors cover a variety of topics including neuroscience, Chinese filial piety and the history of Irvine, California. UW News talked with the authors to learn more about their recent publications.

Chantel Prat introduces you to your brain听

In her new book, UW psychology professor wants to make one thing clear right away: There鈥檚 no such thing as a 鈥渘ormal鈥� brain.

鈥�,鈥� published this month by Dutton, is the distillation of years of research by Prat into how our brains work 鈥� and a guide for the everyday person into why we think and act the way we do. Every human brain is designed differently, and it鈥檚 those differences, Prat explains, that render a traditional definition of 鈥渘ormal鈥� not only irrelevant, but also inaccurate.

鈥淚 wanted to talk about differences in a different way, debunking the idea of normal as an ideal set point instead of normal as a multidimensional and variable space,鈥� Prat said. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 even define 鈥榥ormal鈥� without understanding the ways people vary. And within that space, 鈥榙ifferent鈥� doesn鈥檛 have to be better or worse. There鈥檚 a reason we鈥檝e got multiple design choices when brains are engineered. Different types of brains excel in some subset of the variety of environments we put them in.鈥�

The book is organized into two parts: brain designs and brain functions. And within those parts are chapters devoted to the brain鈥檚 two hemispheres and chemistry, for example, as well as sections that dive into how our brains adapt to environments; focus on the different types of information they鈥檙e bombarded with; and affect how we communicate with other people. That interpersonal connection piece is important, Prat notes in the book, because two people might get along swimmingly 鈥� or not so much 鈥� due in part to how their brains are designed.

鈥淭he challenge is that our most instinctive way of understanding others is through 鈥榤irroring鈥欌�攁 process by which our brains activate the programs we would be using if we were engaging in that same behavior. But if the brain of the person you鈥檙e trying to understand doesn鈥檛 work like yours, the inferences you make about why they鈥檙e behaving a particular way are more likely to be wrong,鈥� Prat said.

Prat draws heavily on decades of research 鈥� her own, and that of others, including UW colleagues such as Andrea Stocco (her spouse), Patricia Kuhl and Jonathan Kanter in psychology; and Rajesh Rao in computer science and engineering. She also peppers personal anecdotes throughout the text and footnotes and provides a series of quizzes and puzzles to help readers gain insight into their own brains. Prat invites readers to dive deeper by visiting her website and participating in her ongoing research through the very sorts of puzzles she offers in the book.

Prat said she wanted to write a book that was more accurate than the typical 鈥渙ne size fits all鈥� book about neuroscience and accessible to a general audience.

For more information, contact Prat at csprat@uw.edu.

Around the world for clean air

was diagnosed with asthma when she was 2 years old, but she鈥檚 likely had the condition since birth. She spent her childhood in and out of the hospital. Barely able to get out of bed, she fantasized about traveling the world one day.

Holmes-Eber is now an affiliate professor in the Jackson School of International Studies. More than a decade ago, she bicycled a complete circle around the world with her family to raise awareness and funds for clean air and asthma. Holmes-Eber and her husband, Lorenz Eber, documented the 480-day journey in 鈥�.鈥�

鈥淏reathtaking鈥� follows the Ebers and their two daughters, who were homeschooled by their parents, as they travel 9,332 miles on bikes. The family raised $65,000 for World Bike for Breath, a non-profit organization focused on inspiring people to travel by bicycle and promoting clean air. They are the only family on record to complete a full circumnavigation of the world by bicycle.

The journey took the Ebers across four continents 鈥� Europe, Asia, Australia and North America 鈥� and through 24 countries. Holmes-Eber said Mongolia was a highlight of the trip. A traditionally nomadic people, Mongolians have often been forced by outside countries to remain sedentary. But that鈥檚 no longer the case.

鈥淭he downtown core of the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, is maybe 10 blocks of buildings,鈥� Holmes-Eber said. 鈥淎s soon as you get out of that central core, the entire city is ringed with tents. People live throughout the country, still wandering with their animals. We got to stay in the tents with some Mongolian families. I was just so impressed that they kept their culture and their way of life intact and protected it.鈥�

Still, Holmes-Eber said more work needs to be done. People worldwide are living with the levels of pollution and air quality, despite an increase in disease.

鈥淭he numbers of people with asthma have increased,鈥� she said. 鈥淚n fact, all sorts of lung diseases are going up. I thought this book could push that issue, raise awareness and connect people to the reality that we鈥檙e accepting.鈥�

The book was published in June by Falcon.

For more information, contact Holmes-Eber at pholmese@uw.edu.

From country to campus to community: The birth of the city of Irvine

The Southern California suburb of Irvine is home to more than 300,000 people, dozens of corporate headquarters and a University of California campus that has a 21-acre park in the middle.

A little more than 60 years ago, the siting of that campus was the spark for a development that would transform what was then farmland into the sprawling city it is today.

, affiliate instructor of real estate at UW, and co-author Michael Stockstill explain that history in their new book, 鈥�.鈥� What began as the 110,000-acre property assembled by James Irvine from Spanish and Mexican land grants in the 19th century grew to be the site of a UC campus and a master-planned community in the 1960s.

鈥淟arge-scale development on the Irvine Ranch commenced at a time when there was strong interest in creating alternatives to the suburban sprawl that exploded across the United States during the 1950s,鈥� Oliver said.听 鈥淢y coauthor and I thought it important to tell the story of how this largest and most successful example of planned development came to be.鈥�

With a professional background in urban planning, Oliver has worked on planned communities since the 1970s, including at the Irvine Company, which led the planning and development of the Irvine Ranch. In telling the relatively short history of the city of Irvine, Oliver and Stockstill focus just as much on the change to the land as on the people who brought about the change. This includes the competing interests of the Irvine family and the principals of the Irvine Company, as well as conflicts with some environmental groups and community activists.

The UC system, being the catalyst to the master-planned community, features prominently, particularly in a chapter titled 鈥淚nclusions, Exclusions and the Campus that Never Was.鈥�

鈥淣ot all of what was envisioned for the neighborhoods surrounding UC Irvine has come to pass,鈥� the authors write. 鈥淪till, the university has been a significant factor in attracting residents and innovative commercial enterprise to the Irvine Ranch.鈥�

The book was published in June by Routledge.

For more information, contact Oliver at hpo@uw.edu.

Examining the origin and evolution of Chinese filial piety

In 鈥�,鈥� recently published by Routledge, brings an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of ancient Chinese history.

Porter, professor in the Jackson School of International Studies, uses social neuroscience, cultural evolution, cognitive archaeology and historical analysis to trace the evolution of filial piety.

Commonly attributed to Chinese philosopher Confucius, filial piety is a deep reverance for the lives of preceding generations. In her book, Porter argues that the conceptions of filiality evolved from a structure of feelings that were inherited from the ancestral past, starting with China鈥檚 earliest farmers and their relationship to the stars above.

Porter begins by asking why Confucius views a model filial son as one experiencing psychological grief so devastating that he can no longer participate in life. Borrowing the neuropsychological concept of 鈥渃omplicated grief,鈥� Porter looks to evolutionary conditions that would account for the prominence of this relational emotion.

鈥淚 think neuroscience really opened my mind to understanding how psychological processes are inextricably connected to our nervous system,鈥� Porter said.

This perspective allowed Porter to discern a crucial relationship between inhabitants of a Neolithic settlement and a constellation in the sky, Turtle. This relationship could account for Confucius’ proscribed filiality. For more than 1,000 years, Turtle’s appearance in the sky coincided with the start of agricultural activities in the spring.

This constellation was revered, Porter said, and became like a member of the community due to its reliability. However, due to the gradual shift in the orientation of the earth鈥檚 axis over generations, the constellation eventually moved positions. The people couldn鈥檛 explain why Turtle no longer marked the start of the season. They were shamed, believing the constellation was reluctant to participate in their activities.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 the core of this notion,鈥� Porter said. 鈥淐onfucian filial piety can be understood if we go back to a problematic relationship in mourning Turtle. I establish a line that traces the evolution of the Chinese nervous system and how that system influenced Chinese cultural production to explain Confucius’ vision of a filial son.鈥�

For more information, contact Porter at debzport@uw.edu.