Distinguished emeritus professors Merrill and Bertil Hille are partners in wellness and paragons of active — even adventurous — aging Like many retired couples of a certain age, Bertil and Merrill Hille log their engagements in an old-fashioned paper calendar. Theirs would look pretty unremarkable, actually, if not for the sprawling range of scribbled triangles [...]

Continue Reading →

It would not be too far a stretch to describe Ashwini Sadekar as a Renaissance woman. That’s not to say she is some kind of modern-day Leonardo da Vinci (though the 15th century polymath is one of her foremost inspirations). But, in her own way and time, Sadekar is fusing disparate disciplines into a body [...]

Continue Reading →

Not all superfans wear capes. But Barry Erickson does. Or did. For a quarter century, beginning in the mid-1980s, he entertained the home fans and antagonized visitors at UW football games in the guise of Captain Husky, a kind of vigilante mascot, whose DIY costume, broad comic skits and thundering crowd spell outs became an [...]

Continue Reading →

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” This question, posed by the poet Mary Oliver, was designed to inspire a bit of introspection. But when Maria Lamarca Anderson encountered it — on a milestone birthday at her physical and emotional limit in the thin air of [...]

Continue Reading →

“History never repeats itself,” wrote Mark Twain, “but it often rhymes.” That famous notion by the iconic American author certainly tracks with UW Rowing, a program that has been so good for so long that its storied history sometimes achieves a measure of rhythmic symmetry. To wit: In 1936, an understated former Washington oarsman named [...]

Continue Reading →

The University of Washington Q Center and director Brennon Ham wholeheartedly celebrate Pride and the progress of the LGBTQIA+ community this and every month. But that doesn’t mean that Brennon (who uses they/any pronouns) is content with the status quo. “When we become stagnant and stop evaluating whether behaviors or policies or words are harmful, [...]

Continue Reading →

Marie Cockerham felt ready for a new challenge. She had worked nearly two decades as a clinical nurse and, increasingly, a nurse educator when she took on a staff support position at UW Medical Center that was created to address the pervasive emotional stress and strain borne by healthcare providers. In this new role, Cockerham [...]

Continue Reading →

When teaching a course called “Leading Across Cultures,” Xiao-Ping Chen engages her students in a probing discussion of the 2020 Academy Award-winning documentary “American Factory.” This uncommonly perceptive account of a Chinese glass manufacturer’s attempts to open a plant in Ohio is hardly a textbook MBA case study. But Chen, a professor of management at [...]

Continue Reading →

Identifying the root cause of the climate crisis is simple enough. Finding solutions? Not so simple. It requires enormous creativity, commitment and collaboration, often among traditional antagonists in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. To foster these ad hoc collaborations, there is UW EarthLab, a transdisciplinary institute within the College of the Environment that is [...]

Continue Reading →

The curriculum vitae of Anita Ramasastry is awe-inspiring. And a bit exhausting. The Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law has compiled an impressive record of traditional academic activities and achievements, from directing the UW School of Law’s Sustainable International Development Graduate Program and serving as senior advisor to the UW’s Office of Global Affairs to [...]

Continue Reading →

Women have played a central part in the University of Washington history, from its very first faculty member (Lucia Carr) in the 1860s and first bachelor’s degree graduate (Clara McCarty) in 1876 to the remarkably diverse learning environment it has become today. Through its eras and across its varied disciplines, countless extraordinary women have defined [...]

Continue Reading →

As she leads a tour of the diverse vegetation proliferating inside the UW Biology Greenhouse, Katie Sadler compulsively collects dead leaves, desiccated flowers and spent branches, almost without noticing, the way a mother casually fusses with her child’s hair or straightens his collar. “I wish I had my pruning shears,” she says, with a knowing [...]

Continue Reading →