News and Events

EarthLab’s Sally Jewell and Ben Packard sat down with host Margaret Larson to discuss how we are committed to using UW’s research science to inform help businesses and society prepare for the environmental challenges of the future. 

Providing resources for new approaches to environmental problem solving is the focus of the first EarthLab Innovation Grants funding. Projects funded in this first round of grants will support big ideas with high potential for impact and the ability to motivate change.
“I was blown away by the breadth of topics, the quality of the proposals, and the depth of engagement with community partners,” says Phil Levin, chair of the Innovation Grants review committee.  

EarthLab is pleased to announce and welcome the inaugural members of our Advisory Council. Chaired by former Interior Secretary and REI CEO Sally Jewell, the council will help guide and advise on EarthLab’s core mission – to focus and accelerate UW’s expertise on the most pressing environmental challenges and in so doing make a positive impact on peoples’ lives and livelihoods. 

EarthLab at the University of Washington envisions a world where nature and people thrive. To that end, EarthLab has launched an Innovation Grants program to provide funding for projects that are risky, new ideas with a high potential for impact and the ability to motivate change.
Through this program, EarthLab hopes to increase capacity across the UW for innovations in the application of transdisciplinary scholarship, deepen engagement with diverse community partners (e.g., practitioners, policy makers, tribes, community groups outside of UW), and fund research projects that address problems from multiple perspectives, ultimately generating knowledge that is both usable and used. 

Ann Bostrom, Weyerhaeuser Endowed Professor in Environmental Policy at the UW Evans School of Public Policy and Governance and member of the EarthLab Executive Steering Committee, was elected to the board of directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Her term starts in February 2019.
Congratulations, Ann! 

Ten years ago, the UW formed the College of the Environment. Across the UW, many researchers were already engaged in environmental studies, but were often isolated from each other by departmental niches. The College of the Environment strove to change this and developed a home for environmental science.
“It wasn’t enough to not only just bring all the Earth systems pieces together under the College of the Environment,” Harriet Bullitt Endowed Executive Director of EarthLab Ben Packard said. 

Sally Jewell has walked the halls of the White House and cared for a fifth of all U.S. land. She has practiced diplomacy at boardroom tables and leadership at one of the nation’s most successful outdoor retail companies. She has climbed Mount Rainier seven times.
Now, Jewell brings a lifetime of experience in business, nonprofits, government and the outdoors to the University of Washington, where one of her tasks is to help shape the future of EarthLab, a new university-wide institute that seeks to connect scholars with community partners to solve our most difficult environmental problems. 

Harriet Bullitt Endowed Executive Director Ben Packard and Advisory Council Chair Sally Jewell introduce you to UW EarthLab. EarthLab is a new institute that stands at the intersection of science and humanity, focusing where society’s needs are greatest and true impact can be made.

Learn more about the role EarthLab plays as a boundary-spanning organization at the University of Washington.