Message from the Dean: Excelling in hard times
Engineering at the University of Washington is expanding its reach. Travel around the Puget Sound and you’ll see the evidence. Visit a middle school and you may see our students helping kids design their first Web page or one of our faculty members explaining the ins and outs of nanoscience. At the high-school level, you’ll find our people guiding teams in designing robots for international competitions. The annual College of Engineering Open House drew more than 6,000 students, teachers and parents from across the state this year to become the biggest science-related event in the Pacific Northwest. Engineering, it seems, is everywhere.
This inaugural edition of Washington Engineer is filled with stories about our people reaching beyond their labs and classrooms, not just to those who live here, but also to a national audience. Cindy Atman, one of our faculty members in industrial engineering, for example, has conducted groundbreaking research over the past several years into how engineering students learn their craft. Now she is taking her research to the national level with a $10 million NSF grant to establish the Center for the Advancement of Engineering Education (see “Crossing Boundaries”). The results could transform how universities across the country train new generations of engineers.
We were thrilled when, over a month ago, the UW announced that it had received the largest gift ever given to a Pacific Northwest university – $70 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for bioengineering and genome sciences (see “Opening Doors”). This gift augments other recent achievements, including a new NIH-funded center for advanced genome research co-directed by two of our faculty, Deirdre Meldrum and Mary Lidstrom. That center was one of just three awarded nationwide – a second went to the UW’s health sciences division. Given the fact that the Puget Sound has a strong private biotech presence (much of it driven by the university), the Gates Foundation gift solidly establishes the area as an emerging world leader in genome research.
On a somber note, we, with the rest of the country, were saddened by the sudden loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia in February. As people nationwide tried to come to grips with the tragedy, several members of our faculty who worked on the initial stages of the shuttle project in the ’70s were able to shed some light on what might have gone wrong. And amid our sorrow was a glimmer of pride as Ron Dittemore, manager of NASA’s shuttle program and an alum of our Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, masterfully handled the aftermath of the accident.
Finally, I want to mention another generous local benefactor, Paul Allen, who will help dedicate a new building named for him in the fall (see “Coming Up”). He is one of many who helped make the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering a reality. The structure represents the power of public-private partnerships. More than half of the $72 million for the facility came from private donors, gifts made during an economic downturn that hit our region harder than most. That’s a strong statement about the commitment residents here have to higher education in general and engineering and technology in particular. It lets us know that they are confident we are moving in meaningful directions. It bodes well for the future. We win when we can demonstrate our relevance to the public and convince the private sector to help. Therein, I believe, lies the secret to our continuing success.
Sincerely,
Denice D. Denton
Dean