UPDATE Aug. 20, 2026: This story has been updated to include a faculty member who was originally omitted. 

Twelve faculty members at the �������� have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. They are among 30 scientists and educators from across the state July 16 as new members. Election recognizes the new member’s “outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement and willingness to assist the Academy in providing the best available scientific information and technical understanding to inform complex policy decisions in Washington.”

New WSAS members are selected by current members or by their election to national science academies. All 11 UW faculty members were voted on by current WSAS members: 

, chair and PACCAR Endowed Professor of mechanical engineering and adjunct professor of neurological surgery and of aeronautics and astronautics, for “significant contributions to scientific understanding of multiphase and biomedical flows, including the role of fluid mechanics on arterial disease, heart failure, biomedical devices, and surgical planning for respiratory disease, through work combining rigorous experimentation and analysis that has influenced both engineering and clinical practice.”

, professor of materials science and engineering, for “pioneering research on structure–processing–property relationships and the aging of hard tissues that has shaped modern oral health science, and for influential contributions to advanced manufacturing, biomechanics, and bioinspired materials — coupled with exemplary educational leadership — that have made a lasting impact across disciplines and the STEM community.”

, professor of health economics and Stergachis Family Endowed Director of The CHOICE Institute, for “pioneering health economic methods — including causal estimation of personalized treatment effects, cost-effectiveness frameworks, and value-of-information analysis — that have shaped national drug pricing policies, international discussions on the economics of innovation, and the scientific foundations of the economics of precision medicine.”

, affiliate professor of health services and biostatistics and professor in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, for “pioneering statistical models that transformed cancer early detection and screening policy, reshaping national and global guidelines and advancing equitable public health decision‑making, and for exceptional leadership, cross‑disciplinary collaboration, and mentorship, influencing generations of scientists.”

, Charles O. Cressey Endowed Professor of social work and executive co-director of the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, for “pioneering research across historical trauma, cultural buffers, and healing; substance use/misuse prevention; indigenous health disparities and family wellness; and youth health interventions.”

, Endowed Professor in Prevention in the School of Social Work and director of the Social Development Research Group, for “contributions to the economic assessment of prevention programs addressing substance abuse and mental health, and for advancing community-engaged research, and effective communication of findings to different audiences.”

, director of and research professor in the UW School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, for “leadership and contributions in ecosystem-based management, salmon conservation, urban ecology, and pioneering contributions to the development of social-ecological approaches to environmental problem solving.”

, research professor of epidemiology and associate director for public health sciences at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center for “integrating large‑scale genomic, environmental, and tumor data to advance colorectal cancer prevention and reduce population disparities, and for her leadership at Fred Hutch, shaping precision prevention and population health science.”

, affiliate professor of environmental engineering and chief scientist and laboratory fellow emeritus at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for “his seminal leadership and sustained contributions to soil and agricultural science and environmental geosciences, spanning basic and applied research, university-level teaching and mentoring, and exceptional service.”

, professor of bioengineering, the Dr. James B. Bassingthwaighte Endowed Faculty Fellow in Bioengineering, director of the Center for Translational Muscle Research, and  associate chair of research and translation for the Department of Bioengineering, for “internationally recognized leadership in discovering the molecular mechanisms of contractile dysfunction with familial genetic mutations that lead to muscle dysfunction with disease, the design of novel, targeted therapies, and training the next generation of scientists and engineers to have further impact in understanding and treating heart failure and skeletal muscle diseases.”

Dr. , professor and chair of radiology in UW Medicine, for “contributions to the science and clinical practice of radiological imaging and for leadership in national programs and professional and scientific societies that advance academic radiology.”

, affiliate professor of civil and environmental engineering and chief scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for “pioneering the integration of climate science with power systems studies through computational, data-driven, experimental approaches, resulting in significant cost savings for energy customers and a safer, more reliable grid.”

Additionally, Dr. , professor emerita of global health and of medicine and epidemiology in the UW School of Medicine, was elected to the WSAS Board of Directors. Wassersheit has been a member of WSAS since 2008. An infectious disease physician and epidemiologist, Dr. Wasserheit played a central role in launching the UW Department of Global Health and served as chair from 2014-2022. She also served as co-director for the UW Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness. She was the founding chief of the U.S. National Institute of Health’s Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Research Branch, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s STD/HIV Prevention Program and director of the FHCRC-based HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Her work on epidemiological synergy between HIV and sexually transmitted infections has shaped prevention policy worldwide.

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Spencer, who has been serving as interim dean since Jan. 1, succeeds Edwina Uehara, who has served as dean for 17 years and will return to the faculty.

Richards highlighted Spencer’s ongoing commitment to the school’s support of justice and equity to achieve lasting and meaningful change.

“The UW School of Social Work plays a critical — and growing — role in supporting the behavioral health and human services workforce in our state. President Ana Mari Cauce and I are grateful to Dean Uehara for her outstanding leadership, and we are confident that Dr. Spencer will propel this work forward in a collaborative and thoughtful manner,” Richards said. “We look forward to his leadership and vision, especially in the areas of inclusion and social justice.”

Spencer joined the School of Social Work faculty in 2018 where he was associate dean of academic affairs and Presidential Term Professor as well as the director of Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander and Oceania Affairs at the .

“I am extremely grateful for the confidence and support from Provost Richards and President Cauce, and the faculty and staff at the School of Social Work,” Spencer said. “I will work tirelessly to build upon the legacy of Dean Uehara and to promote the values of social justice and anti-oppressive social work practice through innovation and impact.”

Spencer, a Native Hawaiian or Kānaka Maoli, has focused his research, teaching and service on health equity, including physical and mental health, access to services, the role of racism and discrimination, and culturally centered, community-based, participatory research. His current research examines the added benefit of integrating Native Hawaiian healers into primary care. He also works with colleagues at the University of Hawai’i to promote food security and well-being through the use of backyard aquaponics systems among Native Hawaiians.

Before joining the UW, Spencer was professor and associate dean at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. He earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, a master’s in social work from the University of Texas, Austin, and a doctorate in social welfare from the ��������. He did a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan in the National Institute of Mental Health’s Center on Poverty, Risk and Mental Health.

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For children in foster care, having regular visits, or “family time” with their biological parents is considered critical for maintaining bonds and building toward a time when they may once again live together as a family.

The best visits are focused on the child, experts say, when parents ask questions, play or otherwise engage in activities that the child is interested in and which support the parent-child bond.

That’s not easy to do over video chat. But with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state of Washington began requiring remote, rather than in-person, family time, which can make meaningful visits a challenge.

It was something that , an associate professor in the �������� School of Social Work and executive director of Partners for Our Children, knew her team could help with. The research and policy center collaborates with the state Department of Children, Youth and Families on practice and policy reform to improve outcomes for children and families.

The Partners for Our Children team quickly developed a curriculum called Supportive Virtual Family Time to train those who supervise virtual visits between children and parents, until in-person visits can be safely resumed.

And through an ongoing collaborative effort of the UW School of Social Work called Project Connect, additional research components of the virtual family time program have been developed. Project Connect supports 15 different endeavors, all oriented specifically around community needs during COVID-19.

“When the pandemic struck, and the stay-at-home and social distancing orders were given, they had an immediate impact not only on the university, but also on the populations that social work exists to serve,” said School of Social Work Dean , who came up with Project Connect in late winter, as the UW was shifting to online instruction, and local restrictions were being enacted. “Project Connect is a reflection of the range of social issues and populations that we care for, that we have a commitment and capacity to serve.”

The research activities under the Project Connect umbrella, each led by a UW faculty member, involve at least one student and often a community organization or agency. They represent another form of fieldwork, a required component of both the undergraduate and graduate-level social work programs and the on-the-ground learning of how to gauge needs, make decisions and provide services.

Early in the pandemic, Uehara saw the urgent needs and social justice issues that were arising. With the help of faculty and their research centers and agency partners, she quickly organized a series of opportunities for students to sign up and get involved. Most projects will last through summer quarter and include:

• Four efforts focused on communication with and services to Native communities;
• Two projects that adapt parent-coaching resources for families with children in the foster care system;
• Refining an educational program on safe firearm storage and suicide prevention;
• Researching telehealth and other interventions for elders in marginalized communities;
• Addressing the needs of people who are incarcerated, and their families, during COVID-19

, faculty emerita and the school’s director of community engagement, leads Project Connect. Thanks to partnerships with agencies and organizations around the state, the school continues to learn of other needs, Spearmon said.

“We’ve had a very long history of collaborating with the community. There’s an openness to seeing how different minds can approach problem solving, and how we can promote equity and social justice. The more people you bring to the table from various disciplines and sectors to look at different situations, the richer and more creative the outcome,” she said.

The projects led by social work faculty at the collaborate with Native agencies, youth leaders and other community members. One, POP (Protect Our Population) Art, has begun working with Washington tribes to develop community-appropriate, preventive health messages, using poster art to spread the word.

Native Americans suffer of hypertension, diabetes and other conditions, putting them at greater risk of fatality related to the coronavirus. Here in Washington, Native Americans represent about 1% of COVID-19 . Native Americans’ history with disease since contact with white settlers has been devastating, said social work professor , co-director of the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute and faculty lead on the POP Art project. And the 1918 flu affected Natives of the general population. But just as communities have survived before, they will survive again, she said.

“Art is a vehicle to share prevention messages and a quick tool for public service,” said Walters, noting the legacy of various forms of art – drama, music, oral storytelling – in Native communities.

The messaging through POP Art will use Native humor and, likely, graffiti art to address themes that resonate, such as respect for elders, taking care of family, and the responsibility of all for the surrounding community. Researchers plan to work with Native artists to produce the posters.

While that project addresses one level of social work practice – community, other activities focus on the individual or family level, like Partners for Our Children’s .

or “out-of-home” care in Washington, awaiting reunification with their biological families. Regular family time sessions with parents are part of the arrangement, typically in a neutral location and supervised by a representative of a child welfare agency or private nonprofit.

But with Gov. Jay Inslee’s stay-at-home order effective March 26, “we realized pretty quickly that there was a need for a program to train those individuals who would be supervising visits,” Tajima said. “What can a parent do to maintain bonds when they can’t hold the child or give them a hug?”

So Tajima’s team developed a free training curriculum and guide for Supportive Virtual Family Time, which includes videos and tips for every step of the process, such as helping parents cope with stress leading up to the family time, and establishing some online hello/goodbye rituals with their children. The curriculum is piloting another strategy, too: a remote meeting, monitored by the family time navigator, between the parent and foster caregiver. It represents a shift in the approach to child welfare, Tajima explained, making it more about supporting the family rather than “saving” the child.

Two students joined the research component of Supportive Virtual Family Time: an undergraduate, who compiled a variety of activity ideas for parents and children to participate in during remote family time; and a graduate student, who designed a survey for navigators who have completed the new training and have tried the strategies when monitoring subsequent virtual family time.

The Supportive Virtual Family Time project, like many of the Project Connect efforts, is expected to continue beyond its immediate tasks and goals, the product of a rapid deployment of resources to meet a social challenge, said , the school’s assistant dean for field education.

“We’ve always been very active and committed, as a school, to community needs, but the convergence of the suffering and social injustices uncovered by the pandemic, and the continuing violence in society, will mobilize us to respond in even more innovative ways,” she said.

For more information, contact Spearmon at spearmon@uw.edu.

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When scientists have conducted research in Native American communities, the process and the results have sometimes been controversial.

There have been a few well-known cases, such as the 1979 , in which researchers examined substance use in the tiny Arctic Circle town and issued findings to the press, before briefing the local community. Media coverage interpreting the findings described an “alcoholic” society of Iñupiats “facing extinction,” while the people of Barrow (now known as Utqiaġvik) felt betrayed, and and criticism.

Then in 1990, members of the Havasupai Tribe gave DNA to an Arizona State University researcher for the study of diabetes; when they learned their blood samples had been used for other studies as well, they filed a lawsuit, ultimately winning a financial and the return of their DNA.

The cases illustrate what to , a research associate professor at the �������� School of Social Work, and others are avoidable tragedies. Research among American Indians and Alaska Natives can be a partnership, argues Pearson, who has developed a training curriculum for scientists and members of tribal communities that clearly explains informed consent, tribal sovereignty and culturally respectful study.

“There is a way you can produce and publish results without harming community,” said Pearson, whose article about the new curriculum and a related appeared online Feb. 20 in Critical Public Health. , a UW assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, co-authored the piece.

The curriculum is now being reviewed for inclusion by Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative Program (CITI), which provides online training in research ethics and conduct to scores of colleges and universities around the world. At the UW, CITI is one of the available trainings that are required for many researchers involved in working with human subjects.

In her article, Pearson outlines her Ethics Training for Health in Indigenous Communities Study (ETHICS). Three expert panels guided the development of the culturally tailored curriculum: one group composed of American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN) with experience conducting research in their communities; another composed of American Indians and Alaska Natives, along with outside researchers who worked in AIAN communities; and a third composed of academic Institutional Review Board (IRB) members and ethicists who review AIAN-focused research. Then, in a national study with about 500 American Indians and Alaska Natives (AIAN), that new curriculum was evaluated. The evaluation showed that at first attempt, about 28 percent of the group that took the traditional curriculum passed, whereas among those who took the culturally tailored version, nearly 60 percent passed. The results, she said, helped inform a new training curriculum that aims to enhance research capabilities and increase participation in federally funded studies in Indian Country.

Key to this approach to community-engaged research is clear, concise material that resonates with study participants and stakeholders, Pearson said. That means acknowledging historical trauma, understanding tribal authority and the significance of the community in daily life, and respecting the specific knowledge and values that American Indians and Alaska Natives possess.

Take the concept of risk, as typically outlined in a study involving human subjects. The adapted curriculum defines “group harm” as a risk for American Indian/Alaska Native communities, in which a tribe is identified by the public release of stigmatizing data regarding, say, substance use or at-risk behaviors for HIV. Similarly, the training points to the need to protect locations of research, just as a scientist would protect the name of an individual, because many Alaska Native villages are so small as to be easily identifiable.

When informed community members are involved in every step of the process, Pearson said, there is potential for reducing harm from research while enhancing trust and collaboration, and producing research reflective of community values.

“Originally developed for community members new to research, this training will provide valuable guidance for academic researchers and IRB administrators in the conduct of more accurate and respectful research among AIAN communities,” she said.

The ETHICS study was funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development. Other authors on the paper were Chuan Zhou of the UW School of Public Health; Caitlin Donald of Oregon Health & Science University; and Celia Fisher of Fordham University.

The curriculum is available for . For more information, including a trainer’s toolkit, contact Pearson at pearsonc@uw.edu or 206-543-9441.

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Grant number: R01HD082181

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“Our grandma taught us how to make everything we had to make,” said Fleagle, who lives in Fairbanks and is Inupiat Eskimo. “In my culture, that’s how we learn.”

Fleagle, 79, recently shared that way of learning at the �������� as one of 12 Elders participating in a new pilot program launched in January by the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, part of the UW’s School of Social Work.

The Elders, who belong to Native American and Alaska Native tribes from Washington and Alaska, will each spend a week on campus during winter quarter, joining in classes and sharing knowledge. During a recent week, Fleagle taught a beading workshop and participated in several classes along with Howard Luke, 90, an Athabascan Elder who lives in a traditional fishing camp near Fairbanks.

Other Elders participating in the program, which is being offered at the UW for the first time and runs through mid-March, include members of the Yakama Nation and the Makah, Klamath and Lummi tribes.

The program aims to create a welcoming environment for Native students, foster intergenerational learning and highlight the knowledge older people can offer. , an Aleut from Bristol Bay, Alaska, and an assistant professor of social work, hopes the initiative can help reframe perceptions of older people, who are revered in indigenous cultures as mentors and leaders.

“By having Elders in the classroom, we can see that they have skills and knowledge they can pass along,” said Lewis, who started the program with colleague , Yakama, the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute’s director of community relations and development.

“They’re not a burden — they’re a resource.”

For Native students who wish to work in indigenous communities after graduation, Elders can provide guidance on how to regain the trust required for entry, Olsen said, since people in those communities may be skeptical of others with an education considered too Western.

“It provides access to community,” she said. “You have to have these relationships to prepare tribal communities to welcome back students and support them to take leadership roles.”

Elders-in-residence programs have been established at post-secondary schools around Canada and are now appearing at colleges in the U.S. to promote awareness and understanding of indigenous history and culture.

, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and chair of the UW Department of American Indian Studies, which is co-sponsoring the program, said Elders bring a particular, valuable form of knowledge to the university.

“One of the lingering assumptions in academia is that what we need to know is housed here and faculty are all experts,” he said. “But within indigenous studies, there’s a recognition that knowledge exists in community and exists with Elders.

“It’s important to break down those boundaries and have Elders come and be part of the sharing of knowledge, which is what should happen at a university.”

The program will also serve as a platform for UW research about Elders who are productive in later life. Lewis plans to investigate the level of students’ engagement, as well as how Elders benefit from the initiative.

“Through the teachings and guidance of our resident Elders, we can create a community that fosters cultural strength among our indigenous students and a sense of pride and purpose among our Elders, as well as a heightened awareness of traditional knowledge and Elders’ roles in education and well-being,” he said.

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