Twenty scientists and engineers at the 天美影视传媒 are among the 38 new members elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2021, according to a July 15 . New members were chosen for 鈥渢heir outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the Academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.鈥�

Current academy members selected 29 of the new members. An additional nine were elected by virtue of joining one of the National Academies.

New UW members who were elected by current academy members are:

• , professor and Port of Tacoma Chair in Environmental Science at UW Tacoma, director of the and science director of the , 鈥渇or foundational work on the environmental fate, behavior and toxicity of PCBs.鈥�
• , professor of psychology, 鈥渇or contributions in research on racial and gender inequality that has influenced practices in education, government, and business鈥� and 鈥渇or shifting the explanation for inequality away from individual deficiencies and examining how societal stereotypes and structures cause inequalities.鈥�
• , professor of chemistry and member faculty at the , 鈥渇or leadership in the innovative synthesis and chemical modification of nanoscale materials for application in light emission and catalysis.鈥�
• , professor of global health and of environmental and occupational health sciences, and founding director of the , 鈥渇or work on the health impacts of climate change, on climate impact forecasting, on adaptation to climate change and on climate policy to protect health.鈥�
• , professor of environmental and forest sciences and dean emeritus of the College of the Environment, 鈥渇or foundational studies of regional paleoenvironmental history and sustained excellence in academic leadership to catalyze and sustain transformative research and educational initiatives.鈥� Graumlich is also president-elect of the American Geophysical Union.
• Dr. , the Joseph W. Eschbach Endowed Chair in Kidney Research and co-director of the , 鈥渇or pioneering contributions and outstanding achievements in the development of the novel wearable artificial kidney, as well as numerous investigator-initiated clinical trials and multi-center collaborative studies.鈥�
• , professor of environmental chemistry and chair of the Physical Sciences Division at UW Bothell, 鈥渇or leadership in monitoring and understanding the global transport of atmospheric pollutants from energy production, wildfire, and other sources, as well as science communication and service that has informed citizens and enhanced public policy.鈥�
• , professor and chair of psychology, 鈥渇or contributions demonstrating how psychological science can inform long-standing issues about racial and gender discrimination鈥� and 鈥渇or research that has deep and penetrating implications for the law and societal efforts to remedy social inequities with evidence-based programs and actions.鈥�
• , the Leon C. Johnson Professor of Chemistry, member faculty at the and chair of the Department of Chemistry, 鈥渇or developing new spectroscopy tools for measuring energy flow in molecules and materials with high spatial and temporal resolution.鈥�
• , professor of astronomy, 鈥渇or founding the and leading the decades-long development of the interdisciplinary modeling framework and community needed to establish the science of exoplanet astrobiology鈥� and 鈥渇or training the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists who will search for life beyond Earth.鈥�
• , professor and chair of aeronautics and astronautics, 鈥渇or leadership and significant advances in nonlinear methods for integrated sensing and control in engineered, bioinspired and biological flight systems鈥� and 鈥渇or leadership in cross-disciplinary aerospace workforce development.鈥�
• , associate professor of chemistry and member faculty with the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute, 鈥渇or exceptional contributions to the development of synthetic polymers and nanomaterials for self-assembly and advanced manufacturing with application in sustainability, medicine and microelectronics.鈥�
• Dr. , Associate Dean of Medical Technology Innovation in the College of Engineering and the School of Medicine, the Graham and Brenda Siddall Endowed Chair in Cornea Research, and medical director of the UW Eye Institute, 鈥渇or developing and providing first class clinical treatment of severe corneal blindness to hundreds of people, for establishing the world premier artificial cornea program in Washington, and for leading collaborative research to translate innovative engineering technologies into creative clinical solution.鈥�
• Dr. , professor of medicine and director of the , 鈥渇or global recognition as an authority on drug and vaccine development for viral and parasitic diseases through work as an infectious disease physician and immunologist.鈥�
• Dr. , professor of pediatrics and of anesthesiology and pain medicine, and director of the , 鈥渇or outstanding leadership in pediatric anesthesiology and in the care of children with traumatic brain injury鈥� and 鈥渇or internationally recognized expertise in traumatic brain injury and direction of the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center for the last decade as an exceptional mentor and visionary leader.鈥�

UW members who will join the Washington State Academy of Sciences by virtue of their election to one of the National Academies are:

• , professor of biostatistics, 鈥渇or the development of novel statistical models for longitudinal data to better diagnose disease, track its trajectory, and predict its outcomes鈥� and 鈥渇or revolutionizing how dynamic predictors are judged by their discrimination and calibration and has significantly advanced methods for randomized controlled trials.鈥� Heagerty was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021.
• , the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering, 鈥渇or foundational contributions to the mathematics of computer systems and of the internet, as well as to the design and probabilistic analysis of algorithms, especially on-line algorithms, and algorithmic mechanism design and game theory.鈥� Karlin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , professor emeritus of applied mathematics and data science fellow at the , 鈥渇or inventing key algorithms for hyperbolic conservation laws and transforming them into powerful numerical technologies鈥� and 鈥渇or creating the Clawpack package, which underpins a wide range of application codes in everyday use, such as for hazard assessment due to tsunamis and other geophysical phenomena.鈥� LeVeque was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , the Benjamin D. Hall Endowed Chair in Basic Life Sciences and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 鈥渇or advancing our physical understanding of cell motility and growth in animals and bacteria鈥� and 鈥渇or discovering how the pathogen Listeria uses actin polymerization to move inside human cells, how crawling animal cells coordinate actomyosin dynamics and the mechanical basis of size control and daughter cell separation in bacteria.鈥� Theriot was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , professor and chair of biological structure, 鈥渇or elucidating cellular transformations through which neurons pattern their dendrites, and the interplay of activity-dependent and -independent mechanisms leading to assembly of stereotyped circuits鈥� and 鈥渇or revelations regarding the fundamental principles of neuronal development through the application of an elegant combination of in vivo imaging, physiology, ultrastructure and genetics to the vertebrate retina.鈥� Wong was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.

New members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences are scheduled to be inducted at a meeting in September.

Tolstoy succeeds , who is stepping down at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year to serve as president-elect of the American Geophysical Union.

Currently a professor at Columbia University鈥檚 Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Tolstoy is a marine geophysicist specializing in seafloor earthquakes and volcanoes.

鈥淧rofessor Tolstoy has extensive experience in both scientific and academic leadership, including important work on issues of gender, racial, and ethnic diversity,鈥� Richards said. “Her commitment to experiential learning and interdisciplinary approaches to addressing critical issues such as climate change will serve the College and the University well. We could not be more pleased to have her join us next year to lead the College of the Environment.”

Tolstoy has served as the interim executive vice president and dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Columbia, a role in which she oversaw five schools with more than 3,000 faculty and staff, and 11,000 full-time students, across 28 departments. She also has led faculty governance groups, including the Columbia Senate鈥檚 Commission on the Status of Women and the primary faculty governance committee of Arts and Sciences at Columbia. In those positions, she steered initiatives on developing a faculty voting process, and initiated a variety of studies on issues impacting faculty.

In addition, Tolstoy led a two-year effort to document the experiences of women and BIPOC faculty across Arts and Sciences at Columbia, which resulted in a public equity report that was the subject of a in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

鈥淭he UW College of the Environment is unparalleled in the combined breadth, depth and strength of its environmental scholarship. It has a complete pipeline from foundational research through applied research and solutions,鈥� Tolstoy said. 鈥淪et in one of the best research universities in the world, with vital and strong ties to the community, it is exceptional in its ability to meet the urgency of the moment.聽There has never been a more important time for this work, and I am thrilled and honored to join the extraordinary team of faculty, staff and students as the Maggie Walker Dean of the College of the Environment.鈥�

The namesake deanship, recently created by Seattle philanthropist Maggie Walker, elevates the importance of climate change, increases the visibility of the College and supports recruitment of talented faculty, students and staff. Tolstoy is the inaugural dean to hold this position.

Tolstoy has led 18 research expeditions at sea as chief or co-chief scientist and has 66 peer-reviewed scientific publications, including 10 in the journals Science or Nature. She also has led or co-led over $22 million worth of federally funded research.

The recipient of the Wings Worldquest Sea Award honoring women in exploration, Tolstoy also was a finalist for NASA鈥檚 2009 Astronaut selection. She recently completed a six-year term on the National Academy Committee on Solid Earth Geophysics and was honored by the American Geophysical Union as the Birch Lecturer in 2016.

Born in New York, and growing up mostly in Scotland, Tolstoy earned her bachelor鈥檚 degree in geophysics from the University of Edinburgh and her doctorate from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Tolstoy鈥檚 interest in marine seismology was ignited during an undergraduate internship,聽which included the opportunity to sail on a research vessel, an experience that propelled her career as a scientist, teacher and academic leader.

The 天美影视传媒 today announced a major gift that elevates the importance of climate change and secures the legacy of Seattle philanthropist Maggie Walker by creating a namesake deanship for the College of the Environment.

Honoring her life of service and commitment to the UW, in addition to an initial 10-year pledge of more than $400,000 annually, the Maggie Walker Deanship will provide a stable source of discretionary funding for the incoming dean and attract world-class talent to fill the position. A global search is currently underway to replace Dean , who previously announced she is stepping down at the end of the 2020-2021 academic year and has been elected to serve as president-elect of the American Geophysical Union.

鈥淭his generous gift to support leadership in the College of the Environment is a fitting legacy for a philanthropist who has made an extraordinary impact in the realm of environmental preservation and sustainability,鈥� said President Ana Mari Cauce. 鈥淲e are deeply grateful to Maggie Walker for this profoundly personal investment to help ensure a livable future for our planet and the generations who will inhabit it.鈥�

Today鈥檚 environmental challenges demand a combination of discovery, leadership and an impactful connection with communities. The Maggie Walker Deanship will contribute to these goals by providing the necessary resources to increase the visibility of the College of the Environment nationally and globally, and support and recruit talented faculty, students and staff.

鈥淚 just think that there’s a real opportunity here. I always operate off the principle of leverage. So, my gift is intended to leverage much more. It’s not seen as an end in itself,鈥� Walker said.

The College of the Environment itself was born out of a conversation that took place over Walker鈥檚 dining room table in the mid-2000s. By 2008, the dream of a single College of the Environment was realized and the inaugural dean, Graumlich, was hired in 2010. Walker served on the search committee for the first dean and then, along with her husband, Doug, agreed to chair the College Advisory Board.

Maggie Walker, who is board chair of the National Audubon Society and president of the Walker Family Foundation, has spent more than a decade pursuing climate justice and serving on multiple nonprofit boards. Together, the Walkers have created six Walker professorships and curatorships and three fellowships across the UW, touching the arts, sciences and humanities, including the Doug Walker Endowed Professor of Nature, Health and Recreation in the College of the Environment鈥檚 School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

Doug Walker died in a hiking accident in late 2015, and in 2016 with the UW鈥檚 Gates Volunteer Service Award.

College of the Environment researchers study all aspects of the natural world, from the Earth鈥檚 core to the edges of the solar system, and merge advanced technology and innovation to resolve some of the most pressing issues facing our planet and its inhabitants.

鈥淢aggie Walker has recognized for years that addressing our world鈥檚 greatest environmental challenges is a team sport, requiring engagement across disciplines and with partners to achieve meaningful progress,鈥� said former U.S. Secretary of the Interior and UW Regent Sally Jewell. Jewell served for a year as distinguished fellow with the College of the Environment and currently chairs the EarthLab Advisory Council. 鈥淲ith her support and powerful name, the College of the Environment will be able to recruit a dean to build on Lisa Graumlich鈥檚 groundbreaking efforts to unite scholars across the UW with partners around the world in service to a sustainable future for our planet.鈥�

Maggie Walker said she hopes her gift will inspire others to invest in the College of the Environment, especially during this critical period to combat climate change.

鈥淭his is about all of our grandkids and what their world is going to look like. We need to pay attention to it, not just by giving to nonprofits, but also by giving to the basic research that will inform how we approach these issues,鈥� Walker said. 鈥淪o for me, it’s an indication of confidence, and a recognition that the College has reached a certain point in its development where it deserves this kind of investment.鈥�

To find out more about making a gift to the College of the Environment, click .

With more than 62,000 members from 144 countries, AGU represents an interdisciplinary mix of atmospheric, ocean, Earth, hydrology and space scientists. Results of the biannual election were on Nov. 12.

鈥淎t AGU we had the most diverse slate of candidates ever step forward and offer to serve,鈥� wrote current President Robin Bell in her post-election message to the AGU board. 鈥淚鈥檓 so proud that we elected Lisa Graumlich, a paleoclimatologist and the first openly LGBTQ+ president-elect of AGU. Lisa, together with the rest of the newly elected board, council, College of Fellows and section leaders, will comprise the most diverse AGU leadership when Susan Lozier takes over as the new president in 2021. We have a chance to continue to lead, and the opportunities for our science and our scientific community are now much more hopeful.鈥�

In 2010 Graumlich was named the inaugural dean of the UW College of the Environment, joining the UW faculty from the University of Arizona. She has announced she plans to step down as dean at the end of the 2020-21 academic year. Graumlich also holds the Mary Laird Wood endowed professorship in the UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

Graumlich earned her undergraduate in botany and her master鈥檚 in geography from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and her doctorate at the UW in Forest Resources. She has held faculty and leadership positions at the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Arizona and Montana State University, conducting research using tree-ring data to study long-term climate trends. Graumlich is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Ecological Society of America and the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program, and was previously on the board of the AGU.

鈥淚 am honored and, frankly, thrilled to be AGU鈥檚 next president-elect,鈥� Graumlich said. 鈥淢y decade as dean of the College of the Environment was, I believe, the very best preparation for taking the helm of AGU. I will always be grateful to my UW colleagues for giving me a front-row seat to what excellence and innovation in Earth and space sciences looks like. Those lessons are immeasurably beneficial and will accompany me as I move forward to be, I hope, a strong and affectual leader on the board.鈥�

As AGU president-elect, Graumlich will chair the AGU council and serve as vice chair of the AGU board for the next two years before moving into the president鈥檚 role as scientific leader for the organization and its public spokesperson. This voluntary role works with AGU staff and board members to advance the organization鈥檚 strategic priorities.

鈥淚鈥檓 very excited to lead AGU as it implements its new strategic plan,鈥� Graumlich added. 鈥淚t鈥檚 their most ambitious plan to date, asking the larger community to partner globally to work toward a thriving, sustainable and equitable future supported by scientific discovery, innovation and action. There are such incredible opportunities for our scientific community under that umbrella, and I am eager to help find the best pathways forward.鈥�

Other newly announced elected positions include Charles Nittrouer, UW professor emeritus of oceanography, who is . Graumlich鈥檚 predecessor, who will become president Jan. 1, is Georgia Institute of Technology鈥檚 , who earned her doctorate in physical oceanography at the UW.

Now, Jewell brings a lifetime of experience in business, nonprofits, government and the outdoors to the 天美影视传媒, where one of her tasks is to help shape the future of , a new university-wide institute that seeks to connect scholars with community partners to solve our most difficult environmental problems.

, U.S. Secretary of the Interior under President Barack Obama and former CEO of REI, has returned to her alma mater to work as a distinguished fellow with the College of the Environment and to serve in a volunteer capacity as chair of the advisory council for EarthLab.

As a fellow with the College of the Environment, she will guest lecture with various units across campus, mentor students and collaborate with faculty and staff. In her capacity as chair of EarthLab’s advisory council, she will develop a team of advisors composed entirely of people outside the university with varied backgrounds and expertise that will provide strategic guidance, support and direction for EarthLab.

“By coming to the university, I’m trying to help students understand how you can create a future that’s both economically successful and environmentally sustainable 鈥� one that you are proud to leave to future generations,” said Jewell, who received her bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the UW and served on the Board of Regents for 12 years. “EarthLab is addressing that by working outside the university to identify and raise support for solving big challenges, especially those in the environment, then bringing together multidisciplinary teams from across the university to help.”

In addition to the outside advisory council, whose members Jewell will name by the end of 2018, EarthLab is supported by a leadership board of deans and a steering committee made up of faculty and academic leaders across all three campuses and disciplines. This broad leadership translates to the variety of projects EarthLab will tackle 鈥� projects that will require multidisciplinary teams.

“Think of EarthLab as a bridge that connects our diverse scholarship with people who can use it to make better decisions about the significant environmental challenges we’re facing,” said , EarthLab’s executive director. “We couldn’t ask for a better person than Sally Jewell to help us launch this advisory council. She’s full of passion for the university to be more engaged in these big challenges, and she knows from her experiences how to navigate across sectors.”

While the EarthLab concept has been percolating at the UW for nearly a decade, in the past year the idea has coalesced into a tangible organization led by Packard, who previously worked at The Nature Conservancy and Starbucks. At its core, EarthLab will connect researchers at the UW with decision-makers to develop actionable solutions to the most pressing environmental challenges.

What makes this different from previous collaborations is an intentional push to establish long-term, working relationships between scholars and outside organizations to address messy, complex issues that won’t be solved with the publication of one paper, or the funding of one project.

That might involve partnering with a city to find environmentally sustainable ways to build affordable housing, or working with shellfish growers to lessen the impact of ocean acidification on their businesses, or advising a municipal agency on how to deal with contaminated stormwater runoff.

“This is really about deep involvement, thinking locally and globally, and bringing people who have never been at the table before into a partnership where the UW is just one of the entities. For me as an academic, it’s a really different way of thinking about our role,” said College of the Environment Dean and Mary Laird Wood Professor , who was the college’s founding dean in 2010 and has envisioned a program such as EarthLab from the start.

Similar programs exist at a handful of universities across the U.S., including Arizona State University, Columbia University, Stanford University, the University of Minnesota and the University of Vermont. These various institutes also work at the boundary of university scholarship and society, putting science into action and engaging in ongoing research with decision-makers from all sectors.

“Many people outside the university describe UW as a building with no doors. There are a lot of windows and they can see something is going on, but they don’t know how to get in,” Packard said. “The university’s mission to serve society will be met if we’re more accessible and engaged, listening more and adjusting to serve society’s needs without compromising the integrity of our independent scholarship.”

The UW’s and are two existing organizations that are members of EarthLab. Both have track records of working with local communities and municipalities to address relevant issues related to climate change. For example, researchers with the Climate Impacts Group and Washington Sea Grant recently that offered the clearest picture yet of sea level rise at more than 150 coastal sites in Washington. These localized projections will help coastal communities better plan infrastructure projects and evacuation routes, among other things.

Because these kinds of projects can cross many academic fields, EarthLab will be a home for multidisciplinary, applied research, and will provide administrative support and services for “nontraditional” grants that could fund an applied research project that addresses an environmental problem in society.

An EarthLab grants program will begin in early 2019, geared toward faculty who are working on “first mile” or “last mile” problems 鈥� either beginning a project that involves engaging community partners, or finding ways to make completed research relevant to communities. One goal is to involve students who want to work on interdisciplinary research teams.

“Students almost universally want this,” said Jewell, referencing her conversations with students at the UW and at Harvard during a recent fellowship. “They want to have an experience here, and in their work with professors, that has applicability when they leave. We have the chance to do this here through EarthLab. I think there will be many opportunities for students to work on real-life issues.”

Another long-term goal of EarthLab is to reward faculty who are working on multidisciplinary, applied research that addresses current societal problems. Most units across campus award tenure and career advancement in a way that encourages researchers to focus narrowly and maximize their number of publications, Packard said.

EarthLab’s leaders realize the scale of such a change.

“What we’re talking about is nothing short of how the UW shows up in the 21^st century,” Packard said. “If we’re going to invest in this and support our faculty and students to engage in this way, then we will fundamentally change the way the university shows up.”

EarthLab received foundational support from the Bullitt Foundation, the Stolte Family Foundation and several individuals.

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For more information, contact Packard at bwpack@uw.edu or 206-616-0357.

The coalition, which launched Feb. 6 at the 2018 Second Nature in Tempe, Arizona, includes universities from the U.S., Canada and Mexico that have committed to mobilize their resources and expertise to accelerate local and regional climate action in partnership with businesses, cities and states.

For more than a decade, member schools have pursued carbon neutrality in campus operations. The schools are also creating new climate solutions through innovative research and are preparing students to solve the urgent climate challenges of the 21st century.

“Climate change isn’t a future problem 鈥� it is affecting people’s health and well-being right now. Universities have the capability to not only help understand the effects of climate change, but to also develop the technologies and policies to reduce carbon emissions. The 天美影视传媒 is proud to be part of the University Climate Change Coalition and to renew our commitment to protecting the health of our planet,” said UW President Ana Mari Cauce.

At an operational level, the UW is by 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, and 36 percent below 2005 levels by 2035, in accordance with laws passed by the Washington state Legislature in 2009. The university also is working to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, as technology developments allow.

The UW is also a leader in climate and clean energy research. The supports the advancement of next-generation solar energy and battery materials and devices, as well as their integration with systems and the grid.聽The UW hosts the , a yearly competition for students to tackle some of the world’s most pressing environmental problems through innovation and entrepreneurship.

At the , organizations such as the and are tackling climate resiliency and our most pressing climate challenges through continued research, analysis and community partnerships. Hundreds of UW students, faculty and staff conduct research and projects on all seven continents and all five oceans, focusing on critical issues such as ocean acidification, freshwater resources, natural hazards and the disappearance of ice in polar regions.

“UW scientists are leaders in groundbreaking, collaborative research to advance climate science, understand impacts and build pathways to solutions. We’re excited by the new partnerships and opportunities that the University Climate Change Coalition offers. Working together will strengthen our ability to sustain the health and wellbeing of our communities and our planet,” said UW College of the Environment Dean and Mary Laird Wood Professor Lisa Graumlich.

In addition to the UW, other coalition members are Arizona State University, California Institute of Technology, Instituto Tecnol贸gico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, La Universidad Nacional Aut贸noma de M茅xico, Ohio State University, the State University of New York, University of British Columbia, University of California, University of Colorado, Boulder, University of Maryland, College Park, University of New Mexico, and University of Toronto.

Every UC3 institution will convene a climate change forum in 2018 to bring together community and business leaders, elected officials and other local stakeholders. Meetings will be tailored to meet local and regional objectives shared across sectors and will aim to speed the implementation of research-driven climate policies and solutions.

A coalition-wide report, to be released in late 2018, will synthesize the best practices, policies and recommendations from all UC3 forums into a framework for continued progress on climate change goals across the nation and the world.

In 2016, the U.S.-based members of the UC3 coalition together performed about one-quarter of the environmental science research conducted by all U.S. institutions, according to data collected by the National Science Foundation. From 2012 to 2017, researchers at UC3 member institutions were responsible for 48,518 publications on climate science-related topics, including environmental science, agricultural and biological sciences, energy, engineering, earth and planetary sciences and more.

This post was adapted from and news releases.

The 天美影视传媒 published the most earth and environmental science research last year, outpacing all other universities worldwide, according to a new from Nature Index.

is a database compiled by the journal Nature that tracks nearly in real time the number of research articles per institution published in 68 selective, high-quality journals. Two panels of scientists select the journals included in the index.

Researchers in the UW’s as well as the UW’s were lead or co-authors on 126 journal articles that lifted the university to the in 2015. Papers on topics including sustainable forestry, invasive species, climate, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis landed in journals such as Science, Ecology, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Geology.

“You clearly see the depth of our disciplinary expertise in all aspects of earth, atmosphere and ocean sciences. But if you look deeper, there’s a lot of collaboration and boundary-crossing going on. There are key papers in which faculty from several different disciplines are working together to understand the coupled dynamics of the entire earth system,” said UW College of the Environment Dean .

“It doesn’t stop at the physical sciences. The index includes papers on the ecology of old-growth forests and salmon as well as ecological impacts of global nitrogen deposition. It’s a testament to our faculty’s keen ability to identify leading-edge scientific problems and to assemble the teams to tackle these problems.”

Article output is counted in and Nature Index, updated monthly, provides information on research output at the institutional, national and regional level.

The other schools in the top five for earth and environmental science research are the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich; the University of California, San Diego; the California Institute of Technology and the University of Colorado Boulder.

The UW’s College of the Environment has more than 20 degree programs and receives about $126 million in annual funding.

The top five entries in each age group will be critiqued and judged by a panel of climate scientists, artists and filmmakers and screened in a public viewing at Seattle’s Town Hall this spring.

First-place teams in both age categories will win $5,000, second-place finishers will get $1,000 and third-place contestants will win $500. The contest runs until April 4, and is open to any student in the state who wants to enter as an individual or as part of a team.

Contest organizers encourage creativity, originality and a powerful message for each submission. Videos can take many different forms 鈥� claymation, music video, stand-up comedy routine and mini documentary, to name a few. The contest creators write:

“Climate change is already shaping the world you’ll inherit. It will impact all aspects of society and the environment, affecting each of us in a variety of ways.”

To that end, students are challenged to express how they feel about a changing climate, and the impacts, challenges and solutions associated with climate change in their neighborhoods, cities, state, nation and world.

Last spring, in the contest’s inaugural year, organizers received more than 90 video submissions, mostly from high school students around the state. In some cases, entire classrooms were involved in filming and editing the short videos. Some of the winning ideas included accurate presentations of science, thoughtful and creative plots and scripts, and attention to details like audio volume and clarity.

The top 10 videos and four judges, including College of the Environment Dean , picked the winners. ( from last year’s screening event.)

Visit the for entry information, including acceptable video file formats. The contest is funded by the Denman Endowment for Student Excellence in Forest Resources.

Watch last year’s first-place videos in the high school and college categories:

The 天美影视传媒’s new “” initiative seeks to build on that research in a region now undergoing rapid changes. The initiative includes several new hires, a new minor in Arctic studies and a winter lecture series.

“This is partly recognizing how much is going on in polar research at the UW,” said initiative director , a UW professor of Earth and space sciences who studies ice cores. “This initiative is designed to bring more visibility, integration and investment in an area that is experiencing dramatic changes.”

The UW College of the Environment will hire in polar research, while the UW Applied Physics Laboratory will hire two or three . The two units, along with the Quaternary Research Center, will hire up to three joint for interdisciplinary work relating to polar science.

“This initiative is about building the pipeline, attracting new talent and promoting collaboration so the UW can continue to be a strong player in high-latitude research,” said , chair of the Applied Physics Laboratory’s Polar Science Center.

A winter quarter , organized with support from the UW Graduate School and the Alumni Association, will feature UW faculty and off-campus experts.

Among those attending the talks will be UW undergraduates doing a winter quarter based around the series. Roughly 30 students will meet with the speakers and do coursework around each topic, ranging from Arctic governance to the marine organisms that live in sea ice.

Students in that course will be earning the first credits toward the new, interdisciplinary , pending UW faculty council approval. The minor, which is open to students in all departments, is being led by of the UW Canadian Studies Center, of aquatic and fishery sciences,聽 from the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and from oceanography.

The initiative and minor also include faculty from international studies, Earth sciences, anthropology, law, policy and the Burke Museum.

Over time, the initiative seeks to connect researchers from across campus and create a central hub for polar education and scholarship.

“Our goal is to bring together people working on different pieces that help us to understand the connections, to provide better insight into policy decisions and give communities a better understanding of their options,” said initiative co-director , a UW associate professor of anthropology. Fitzhugh’s archaeological studies in Northern communities reveal how early people developed the adaptations that made it possible for humans to live in very cold and highly seasonal environments.

The Future of Ice initiative’s first large research event will be a spring workshop, supported by the UW College of the Environment, that brings together UW faculty, colleagues, industry experts, non-governmental organizations, Arctic leaders and others to discuss research priorities.

“The reason for creating a College of the Environment was to achieve new levels of integration,” said , dean of the college. “The UW has tremendous depth in Arctic research, and it’s shared among a number of units. Pulling these threads together will allow researchers to take their scholarship to the next level, and more closely connect it to policy 鈥� a key component of the vision for our college.”

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For more information, contact Steig at 206-685-3715 or steig@uw.edu or Graumlich at 206-221-0908 or graumlic@uw.edu.

Speaking at a national meeting on a panel of academic leaders who focus on natural resource sustainability, College of the Environment Dean said the college’s successful sustainability initiatives are grounded in long-standing relationships among scientists, local communities and decision-makers as well as widely accessible research data and results.

She was among the directors, deans and department heads exploring the challenges academic institutions face in undertaking sustainability science as part of a at the annual conference of the American Association for Advancement of Science.

Sustainability science is about taking what’s being learned about ocean acidification, climate change and other phenomena and helping policy makers and citizens develop strategies to deal with challenges that may arise. It’s scientific knowledge linked with societal action.

Graumlich said the UW鈥檚 and the , for example, have critical ties with user communities, providing them with tailored information, teaching resources and apps to help people make decisions about issues from daily fishing conditions to climate change adaptation.

She also pointed to the importance of long-running relationships that college researchers, like forest ecologist , have with the various communities that bring multiple perspectives to the table when dealing with natural resource issues. 鈥淔ranklin is known as the father of modern forestry precisely because he continually brings people together, so that they can identify logging practices that will work for them in the long-term,鈥� Graumlich said.

These relationships require both social and financial investment, a critical issue that Graumlich said is often overlooked.

鈥淣ew institutional arrangements are necessary if we are going to reconcile our development goals with the planet鈥檚 environmental limits,鈥� said panelist James Buizer, one of the developers of Arizona State University鈥檚 to increase sustainability science and practice. Because research to address environmental problems is inherently complex, researchers require skills, like mediation and facilitation, for which they are often undertrained.

That message was echoed in the “Careers” section of Nature the week following the AAAS meeting that said, “Sustainability training is on the rise, and institutions are working out how to best translate it into marketable skills.”

The quotes , associate dean in the UW College of the Environment, who said, “When we talked to employers, whether they’re top-tier universities, federal labs or large environmental non-government organizations, they said ‘we want disciplinary experts with cross-cutting skills in communication, problem-solving and leadership.”

An example is James Thorson, now with NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Services. While earning his doctorate in aquatic and fishery sciences at the UW, he also worked on a team advising the Washington Restaurant Association on sustainability guidelines. But his contributions didn’t concern fisheries, they concerned such things as energy-efficient lighting.

That “pushed him out of his area of expertise and into one with varied stakeholders,” the Nature article said. “He learned about everything from environmental auditing to certification programmes to project management.”

“It’s an example of how universities are seeking new institutional models to effectively engage with the grand challenges of sustainability,” Graumlich said.