Faculty | Staff News 2015

Submitted by Arts & Sciences Web Team on

Ann Anagnost is co-editor (with Lucy Jarosz in Geography) of a new UW Press book series called Food, People, Planet. The series publishes scholarly work that critiques the large-scale social inequities and environmental damage produced by international food production and distribution.

Dan Eisenberg’s research on dopamine receptors was highlighted in a New York Times Sunday Review article (10/31/14) titled, “A Natural Fix for A.D.H.D.”

Ben Fitzhugh was named Director of the Quaternary Research Center at the University of Washington. Founded in 1969, the QRC is reportedly the oldest interdisciplinary research center at the UW and the first Quaternary center in North America. It focuses on understanding the past 2.6 million-year history of the Earth’s surface including climatic, geological, biological, and human/cultural dimensions and interacting dynamics. Ben also received a grant from the National Science Foundation for an interdisciplinary group to explore the paleoecology of subarctic seas, connecting archaeology, paleoceanography and paleoclimate studies of the North Pacific and North Atlantic rims.

Sara Gonzalez and Branden Born (Urban Studies and Planning) received funding from the Mellon foundation for their proposed yearlong project, “Sharing Indigenous Foodways and Community Organization through Participatory Research.” As part of the project they facilitated a cultural exchange between local area Native American communities and tribal organizations and two indigenous communities in Oaxaca, Mexico to share locally based strategies for managing resources and preserving foodway traditions. The project sponsored the visit of representatives from CEDICAM and the community of Cuajimoloyas in Oaxaca to attend and participate in the “Our Food is Our Medicine” conference sponsored by the Northwest Indian College and the “Living Breath of WǝɫǝbʔaltxwIndigenous Ways of Knowing Cultural Food Practices and Ecological Knowledge Symposium” sponsored by American Indian Studies, UW-Seattle. In December, the project sponsored delegates from the Northwest Indian College, Nisqually Garden Project, Native Youth Leadership Alliance and Suquamish Fisheries Department on a research trip to the aforementioned Oaxacan communities to further collaborate with research partners at their home communities.

Don Grayson was selected (by a committee appointed by the UW President) for the 2015-16 University Faculty Lecture. Since 1976, this award has honored faculty whose research or scholarship has been widely recognized by their peers and whose achievements have had a substantial impact on their profession, on the research or performance of others, and on society as a whole. The recipient delivers the Annual Faculty Lecture to inform the UW community about their work.

Stevan Harrell was recognized with an Honorable Mention for the Marsha Landolt Distinguished Mentor Award. This was his second nomination, and his second Honorable Mention, in as many years.

Patricia Kramer is a co-PI with faculty in the College of Engineering on a funded NSF grant to acquire a million dollar 3D X-Ray Computed Tomography Scanner for Imaging of Large Size Infrastructure, Biological, and Mechanical Components. In conjunction with other funding for high-end computing workstations and software for her lab, this will allow her students to begin to explore detailed bone function in humans and non-human primates.

Peter Lape received funding from the Committee for Research and Exploration of the National Geographic Society for a project titled, “Were the First Farmers Fishers? Investigating the Early Neolithic Revolution in Island Southeast Asia.” The funding supports archaeological surveys on Seram Island and nearby atolls in eastern Indonesia, conducted in collaboration with Indonesia’s National Archaeology Research Center.

Peter Lape and Celia Lowe received funding from the Mellon Foundation for their proposed two-year project, “Climate Change and the Historical Record: Engaging Area Studies in the Large Research University.” As part of the project they will organize a series of workshops in 2015-16.

James Pfeiffer and Rachel Chapman’s review article called, “Anthropological Perspectives on Structural Adjustment and Public Health” was listed as the number one thing to read in a Washington Post article (1/5/15) titled, 5 things you should read before saying the IMF is blameless in the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

Bettina Shell Duncan is a member of a team of researchers that has been awarded a $13 million research grant from the British Government’s Department for International Development for a five-year project entitled, “Toward Ending Female Genital Cutting in Africa and Beyond.” The award is for an ambitious multi-country study intended to fill five major evidence gaps: 1) the reason for the recent decline in female genital cutting (FGC) in select countries, 2) the role of community and individual factors in influencing attitude and behavior change, 3) the role of gender in decision making and abandonment of FGC, 4) factors influencing un-programed changes in attitude and behavior, and 5) shifts in the nature of the practice. Shell Duncan’s collaborators include researchers at the University of California-San Diego, the Population Council, the Global Research and Advocacy Group, the Population Reference Bureau, and the African Coordinating Committee at the University of Nairobi.

Sasha Welland has been awarded funding from the Simpson Center for the Humanities to support a speaker series that will run in conjunction with a new ethnographic studio course that she will be offering in Spring 2016 called “Ethnographic Aesthetics: Image, Sound, Word.” The speaker series and micro-seminar will feature innovators in ethnographic aesthetics, whose work in poetry, prose, sound, and film expand the practice of ethnography through humanistic, sensory forms of knowing.

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