News and Events

EarthLab’s mission is to work in partnership with others to accelerate and focus UW expertise to address large-scale environmental challenges, making a positive impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. Underpinning this mission is a commitment to put equity and justice at the core of our work. We recognize that addressing complex environmental challenges requires an understanding of how inequities and injustices are both causes and consequences of such issues. 

EarthLab has announced a new matching gift challenge through the end of 2019. College of the Environment Advisory Board Member John Eyler and his wife, Gail, have established a generous 1:1 challenge match for EarthLab supporters. They will match gifts of $5,000 or more, up to a total of $100,000, in support of the EarthLab Innovation Fund.
“We are so pleased to offer our support to the EarthLab Innovation Fund because of EarthLab’s deep commitment to environmental justice and actionable science,” said John Eyler. 

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 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.