Announcing a new Lunch & Learn series

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Come grab some lunch and partake in an interesting conversation with others from various disciplines! The EarthLab Lunch & Learn series provides a space to learn more about the skills needed to collaborate across diverse fields and communities.

Every month, two or more individuals from different disciplines are invited to share lessons from their efforts to collaborate with each other. Such partnerships might include artists collaborating with scientists, researchers collaborating with community members, academics collaborating with practitioners, and researchers collaborating across wide disciplinary divides (e.g. sciences and humanities). The discussion will include reflection on challenges and opportunities they encounter, the specific awareness and skills they have developed in order to collaborate, and recommendations for others attempting similar feats. 

Each event will last two hours. The first hour will consist of a 20-30 minute panel followed by discussion with a general audience and socializing. The second hour will be an opportunity for students to meet with the panelists, and learn from those who are a few steps ahead about how to become collaborative boundary-crossers.

Learn more here

Thank you to our co-sponsors:

        

 

2020 – 2021 Innovation Grants: Now accepting proposals

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EarthLab is pleased to announce the second round of funding with the 2020 – 2021 Innovation Grants program! The Innovation Grants is an exciting opportunity to make an innovative idea or project come to fruition. Funding is intended to support new partnerships that address pressing environmental challenges and that are led by and with those most impacted by a particular environmental challenge. Those most impacted may refer to the people, communities, municipalities (e.g., a city planning for sea level rise), industries (e.g., agricultural industry facing increased flooding or drought), or other entities directly affected by an environmental challenge.

Any community partnerships with interdisciplinary academic teams are encouraged to apply!

Learn more

EarthLab Salon 2020: Propose a talk

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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. Furthermore, we must redress inequities and injustices in how we bring people and knowledge together in our work and workplaces to make decisions and co-create solutions.

We are only beginning to fully explore what our commitment to equity and justice means. It is not always obvious how equity and justice relate to environmental issues. Yet we know there is considerable experience on this subject across the University of Washington. By providing a venue to share your insight with a broad audience, we hope to start a much-needed cross-disciplinary conversation on the question of “What does it mean to center equity and justice in environmental work?”

Opportunity

The EarthLab Salon is a 3-part quarterly public lecture and workshop series designed to highlight expertise and leadership on this subject in the UW-wide community, especially among students, and build a foundation of shared understanding, values and language among participants. In doing so, we hope to foster opportunities for a new cross-cutting community to connect and collaborate on shared interests. We plan to take lessons learned into our work at EarthLab.

We invite proposals from pairs of presenters from two distinct fields, who will work collaboratively and present contrasting or complementary perspectives on a theme. Joint talks will take place that centers around the question: What does it mean to center equity and justice in environmental work?  We encourage presenters to seek new colleagues from across units, professions, and positions, and to integrate creative modes such as dance, spoken word, or music, into presentations that enable multiple perspectives to be expressed.

Presenters will be invited to deliver a 35-minute evening public lecture or performance followed by a Q&A and social hour at one of UW’s three campuses (Seattle, Tacoma, or Bothell). We will also invite presenters to share advanced readings, videos or other related resources and join a subsequent lunch and workshop with the EarthLab community to discuss their work in a more informal setting. All presentations will be live-streamed and curated in a UW Libraries digital publication. An honorarium of $200 will be available for community partners.

Any member of the UW community is eligible to submit a proposal, including students, staff, faculty, post-docs, visiting scholars, and more. One of the pair may be from outside UW, such as a community partner. Student-only pairs must designate a faculty or staff contact.

Selection Process

Proposals will be evaluated by a committee composed of a mix of students, faculty and staff from across the UW community representing different units and disciplines, according to the following criteria:

Content

-Addresses goals of the salon series with a clear, focused rationale
-Expresses perspectives not often heard in the environmental field

Presentation

-Design/format makes sense given the content that is presented
-Communicated in a clear way that reaches a diverse audience

Quality of collaboration

-Each member contributes in a clear and valuable way to the project
-Innovative pairing of disciplines, units, professions, or etc.

Inter/transdisciplinary perspective

-Integrates concepts, methods and resources from 2 or more relevant disciplines
-The inter- or transdisciplinary integration results in novel or unexpected insights

Timeline

Applications Due *Extended to January 13, 2020
Selection Process January 14, 2020 – January 17, 2020
Selections Announced January 20, 2020
First Lecture Early spring, 2020
Second Lecture Late spring, 2020
Third Lecture Fall, 2020


Presentation ideas are due January 13, 2020

To Apply

Write a proposal of up to 500 words that describes how you will answer the question, “What does it mean to center equity and justice in environmental work?” Include a description of your chosen topic (250 words), a description of your joint presentation format (100 words) and a brief biography of each presenter that illustrates why this topic is important to you (75 words each). For questions, contact sarajo@uw.edu.

Submit Your Talk

Co-sponsored by EarthLab; the College of the Environment Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; and the Center for Communication, Difference, and Equity

Thanks to the UW Diversity Seed Grant Award for inspiring this series and making it possible

New student program focuses on sustaining freshwater services

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From large lakes where fish populations thrive to running rivers that generate electricity, freshwater ecosystems supply our world with critical food, water, and power. With a changing climate and projected environmental changes, little is known about the potential impacts these changes may bring to communities. Enhancing the sustainability of these essential freshwater resources by developing a dynamic workforce is necessary in the face of change.

There is an urgent need for scientists from a range of disciplines to work together in innovative ways to solve problems. The Future Rivers Initiative, a new organization in EarthLab, aims to build a culturally-aware STEM workforce fluent in state-of-the-art quantitative approaches that will be necessary for sustaining food-energy-water (FEW) services in large river ecosystems. The Future Rivers training program will support up to 60 trainees as they prepare to effectively safeguard freshwater ecosystem services for a growing world population.

Graduate training that breaks down barriers

“How do we take the perspectives of all of these complementary but different disciplines here at the University of Washington?” asked Gordon Holtgrieve, associate professor for the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. “We have engineering, forest science, fisheries, landscape architecture, geosciences, and more. How do we take those disciplines and use each of their strengths to solve problems around freshwater sustainability?”

To address this question, Holtgrieve recruited faculty from across the University to create Future Rivers. This National Science Foundation supported graduate training program at the University of Washington focuses on building collaborative bridges between disciplines to think outside-the-box when it comes to building a foundation of freshwater sustainability.

“The students here at the university really made this happen. Our students voiced that they want to gain skills around data science while connecting with people outside of their discipline,” says Holtgrieve. “These students want to learn more about communication and issues of inclusivity and culture in STEM. Future Rivers was designed and pursued in order to meet this request.”

Building a workforce of the future

Students accepted into the program will get to experience data science courses, science communication trainings, STEM inclusivity workshops, and social gatherings along with professional networking.

As an EarthLab initiative, students will learn to work in applied ways within career fields outside of academia. Future Rivers is creating a solid foundation that connects academic government and industry partners when addressing freshwater issues.

“Enduring solutions to complex environmental challenges usually come from multiple disciplines and sectors cooperating and using actionable science,” explains Ben Packard, EarthLab’s executive director. “EarthLab is thrilled to welcome Future Rivers and to help build the workforce of the future, competent in transdisciplinary work and prepared for careers in a variety of roles.”

As the program moves forward and prepares for its first cohort of students in Fall 2020, the team hopes this program will equip students with the skills and experiences needed to conduct science in an innovative way.

“The metric of success is coming up with new and interesting ways to do science with an interdisciplinary approach,” explains Holtgrieve. “This is the goal for each of our students to achieve and take with them throughout their careers.”

Application and program details

Graduate students interested in the Future Rivers program are encouraged to apply in January 2020. For more Future Rivers program details, please visit earthlab.uw.edu/program-details.

Learn more

EarthLab announces John and Gail Eyler 2019 matching gift challenge

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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.

John and Gail Eyler
John and Gail Eyler

“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. “We challenge anyone who is serious about solving our climate problems to join us in supporting EarthLab this year.”

EarthLab catalyzes new partnerships between the University of Washington and civic and community organizations to co-produce meaningful, science-based solutions to our greatest environmental challenges. Already this year, EarthLab welcomed a new Advisory Council, led by former Interior Secretary and REI CEO Sally Jewell, and funded its first round of Innovation Grants to six new community research projects that showed high potential for real impact and change. The 2019 matching gift challenge will help EarthLab continue its momentum into 2020 and beyond. 

“We couldn’t be more grateful to the Eylers for their generous matching challenge. We’ve made significant headway this year, and we have big plans for the future of this program,” said EarthLab Executive Director Ben Packard. “The complex environmental challenges we face require unprecedented urgency and collaborative action. This support to catalyze additional collaborations is crucial.”

Interested in doubling your impact to EarthLab? Contact Kathleen Phan at katphan@uw.edu or make a gift below.

Make a Gift

New Day NW shares the couch with EarthLab

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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.

EarthLab's Sally Jewell and Ben Packard sat down with New Day NW's host Margaret Larson.
EarthLab’s Sally Jewell and Ben Packard sat down with New Day NW’s host Margaret Larson.

2019 Ocean Acidification Symposium

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The Washington Ocean Acidification Center will convene its Third Biennial Science Symposium on Thursday, May 30 at the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture in Seattle, WA. This day-long symposium will consist of invited presentations from regional experts. Presentations will focus on new results from research relevant to ocean acidification in Washington waters, including field observations, biological experiments and modeling. Presentations will be followed by plenary discussions and will offer numerous opportunities to enhance communications and strengthen regional communities of practice.

There is no fee to attend, but registration is required.

Please see the draft agenda for the symposium.

EarthLab funds first round of Innovation Grants

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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. “It was a great opportunity for me to really see the creativity of the faculty, staff and students here at UW, and I was excited to see  EarthLab serve as a spark for some amazingly innovative and impactful projects.”

During this round of funding, persistent themes emerged across proposed projects. These included the urgent need to partner with the communities that are most impacted by climate and environmental change and the importance of co-creating knowledge that is both usable and used. Project teams included faculty from a range of disciplines at the University of Washington, including public health, global health, environmental and occupational health sciences, engineering, environmental and forest sciences, and more. Partners from beyond the university included city, county and state agencies, local and regional non-profit organizations, and other universities.

“We were encouraged by the strong response to the request for proposals. There was a clear need for funding that supports collaborative, transdisciplinary projects,” says Anastasia Ramey, Grants Program Lead for EarthLab. “We are looking forward to supporting the grantees in this work. ”

The Innovation Grants Program, a signature initiative of EarthLab, seeks to achieve numerous outcomes. These include increasing capacity across the UW for innovative transdisciplinary scholarship, deepening engagement with diverse community partners, and funding research projects that address co-defined problems from multiple perspectives. The goal with all funded projects is to generate knowledge aimed at environmental problem solving that is useable and used, ultimately helping support peoples’ lives and livelihoods.

During this first year, the Innovation Grants Program will focus on first-mile funding to support convening and building teams in novel, sometimes high-risk, high-reward directions that may take a variety of forms. This funding will give teams the chance to test a concept, scope out a project or take the first steps in developing a larger team to tackle a collaborative project.

EarthLab leaders hope to learn from this first year of funding, and are approaching it as a pilot. From it, they hope to learn what investments are most effective and then apply that knowledge to future investments.

Funded Projects

Assessing Climate Driven Zoonotic Disease Risk in Washington State
In the State of Washington, West Nile virus, valley fever, hantavirus, and leptospirosis are a significant concern. This project will explore the relationships between climate conditions and these climate-sensitive disease threats to community health in Washington. A project goal includes generating seasonal maps that identify high-risk conditions for each pathogen, which can be an important tool for determining, managing and preventing risk of human and animal infections.
Principal Investigator: Cory Morin, Department of Global Health

Clean Safety & Health in Food Trucks Program (SHiFT)
This project brings together a multidisciplinary team to work with the food truck industry to promote best cleaning practices and technical assistance to shift toward safer chemical alternatives. The project team will include diverse and traditionally underserved communities, and small business owners not previously engaged in safe chemical transition and hazard awareness campaigns. A new toolkit will be introduced to food truck owners/operators/workers and other stakeholders so they can reduce their use of chemicals, their hazards to living systems and the risks to our waterways and the environment.
Lead Co-Principal Investigator: Nancy Simcox, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences

Digitizing Holistic Environmental Studies
This project will collaborate with local community leaders and youth to integrate a Native American knowledge forming process to script digital stories. Stories will be action-oriented and visualize sustainable holistic solutions for complex and multi-disciplinary environmental problems. This project aims to develop a tool and platform to communicate and inform decision-makers what the intervention points of local environmental problems are by contextualizing the interconnectedness among multiple information streams.
Lead Co-Principal Investigator: Kristiina Vogt, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences
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From Risk to Resilience: Connecting Communities to Coastal Hazards through Interactive and Immersive Design
A collaborative team of researchers, including the UW’s Climate Impacts Group, recently released new projections of sea level rise for Washington state. In order to increase awareness and use of this science by Washington communities and decision-makers, the Climate Impacts Group, UW Reality Lab, Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) and Seattle-based data visualization company Tableau have teamed up to create two different interactive data visualization tools – an interactive tool of sea-level projections for 171 different coastal sites in Washington state, and creating several public-facing virtual reality experiences that showcase community-relevant impacts of future sea level rise to 2150.
Principal Investigator: Heidi Roop, UW Climate Impacts Group

Voices Unbound: Amplifying Perspectives of Disenfranchised Communities to Provoke Environmental Change
A considerable gap exists among the discourses of those who implement environmental policies and the underrepresented communities that disproportionally experience environmental issues. This project seeks to transform discourses of policymakers by directly incorporating underrepresented community members’ voices. Enviro-postcards will be distributed to communities that ask “what environmental challenges are most important to you” and “how are you coping with or surviving these challenges?” Concurrently, the project will pilot in-person science booths and a podcast series to amplify community voices. This will culminate in an eco-art gallery open to the public that will prominently showcase community perspectives and promote a novel blueprint for inclusive environmental engagement.
Co-Principal Investigators: Christopher J. Schell, School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, UW Tacoma; Robin A. Evans-Agnew, School of Nursing and Healthcare Leadership, UW Tacoma

2019 EarthLab + Population Health Initiative Grantee
In addition to the Innovation Grants, EarthLab jointly funded one award addressing environmental resilience in partnership with the University of Washington Population Health Initiative. The funded project, Ethnoforestry: Applying Traditional Ecological Knowledge for Ecosystem Sustainability on the Olympic Peninsula, focuses on applying traditional ecological knowledge of local people to forest management on public lands. Learn more on the Population Health website.

More information will be shared about the funded projects in coming weeks.

EarthLab welcomes new Advisory Council to help guide actions

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Inaugural Advisory Council members for EarthLab

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. Council members will also help to connect EarthLab with organizations, people and ideas outside of the university where UW faculty, students and staff can engage in work that has impact in our world.

“I am grateful that eleven exceptional individuals with wide and diverse backgrounds will join me in shaping and supporting EarthLab,” said Sally Jewell, chair of the Advisory Council.  “From a deep understanding of social equity and justice to business and the environment, the council will help open doors between the university and our community to shape a more sustainable future.”

The all-volunteer council will meet two times each year, helping shape EarthLab by raising awareness and support, creating connections that may lead to fruitful partnerships, advising the executive director and the EarthLab team on strategic initiatives, and assisting with planning efforts.

EarthLab Executive Director Ben Packard said he was ”looking forward to having this diverse group of people,  perspectives and experiences available to the UW community to guide and advance our efforts in these early days for EarthLab.”

Advisory Council Members and Bios

EarthLab and Population Health Partner to Fund New Interdisciplinary Research to Benefit People + Planet

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EarthLab and the new UW Population Health Initiative announced the award of $50,000 to a new pilot project that aims to develop solutions to pressing environmental challenges at the intersection of human health. Ethnoforestry: Applying Traditional Ecological Knowledge for Ecosystem Sustainability on the Olympic Peninsula,” focuses on applying traditional ecological knowledge of local people to forest management on public lands. This results of this project are expected in late 2020.

Investigators
Bernard Bormann, Environmental and Forest Sciences
Marc Miller, Marine and Environmental Affairs
Courtney Bobsin, Environmental and Forest Sciences

Project abstract
Across the Olympic Peninsula, widespread changes in forest management policy have altered rural communities over the last several decades. Many rural communities were hit hard by a decrease in available jobs due to a decline in timber supply from over-harvesting and spotted owl protections as well as mill modernization. Tribes have since suffered from a decline of some cultural keystone species adapted to early seral conditions precluded by efficient tree regeneration and late-seral reserves. In the aftermath of this, rural communities are left to rebuild with their primary sources of work and culture degraded.

We believe a key way to build community resilience and health is through ethnoforestry: using traditional ecological knowledge of local people and applying it to forest management on public lands. Applied ethnoforestry can put the space in between regenerating conifers over the first 15 years after harvest to work. Species that are culturally valuable to nearby communities will be planted, tended, and then harvested for personal or semi-commercial use. If successful, ethnoforestry will add new small businesses and jobs and boost the local economy.

Through this grant, we will work will tribal and non-tribal communities on the Washington Coast to determine what plant species they would like to see us bring back in nearby ecosystems. We will develop a research proposal to test the growth and success of these species in permanent plots. This interdisciplinary approach will not only enhance the resilience and health of the local community, it will also benefit the local ecosystem.

More information about the Population Health Pilot Grant program can be found here.

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