Happy New Year! Here at the college, 2017 is in full swing; we’re already looking forward to our spring signature events — Engineering Discovery Days and the Diamond Awards. Discovery Days is a two-day event where we invite our community to campus and demonstrate the exciting work of engineers. We have held this event for over a century and in recent years have experienced unprecedented demand from our community to attend; this year we reached capacity within an hour of opening registration. The Diamond Awards showcase the achievements of a half-dozen alumni or friends of the college. I am so impressed by the impact that our graduates and friends make in the world, and I am honored to lead the college and build on our history of educational excellence.

The Be Boundless campaign is key to ensuring that we continue to provide a leading-edge student experience. As you’ll see by our fundraising “thermometer” in this newsletter, fiscal year 2017 is already a banner year for private giving to the College of Engineering. Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, our ability to provide scholarships, fellowships, capstone projects and other transformative educational experiences for our students has increased; we are equally grateful for gifts for faculty support and capital projects — including a new building for UW CSE. The CSE building is an important piece of a plan to grow all our engineering disciplines and to expand and upgrade our facilities. I’m pleased to report that the Board of Regents approved the CSE2 project this month, which will allow us to begin construction. My deepest thanks to all who have contributed to the Campaign for Engineering.

Mike Bragg, Ph.D.
Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering

Extraordinary student demand, employer need, and opportunity for impact have spurred a significant expansion of UW Computer Science & Engineering. As a result, one of the college’s campaign priorities is to raise $70 million in private support (complementing a $32.5 million commitment by Washington state and $9 million from UW sources) to construct an additional building to accommodate this growth and provide an unparalleled education and research experience to more of Washington’s students.

Under a tight deadline to generate pledges so that construction could commence in January 2017, members of the CSE Campaign Committee — chaired by Brad Smith, Microsoft’s President and Chief Legal Officer — hosted fundraising events, reached out to their networks to advocate for the project, leveraged corporate support, and made their own leadership gifts to the building.

As fundraising for the building wraps up, CSE will pivot towards fundraising for its endowment to increase its capacity to recruit and retain top faculty, attract the most promising graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and keep a UW CSE education accessible to Washington students regardless of their means.

Established

1967

UW CSE educates tomorrow’s innovators and advances the field of computing to address societal challenges and improve quality of life for people around the globe. At the center of interdisciplinary initiatives across campus — including efforts in data science, neural engineering, game science, technology for global development, tech policy, and more — we enter our 50th anniversary year widely acknowledged as one of the world’s top programs.

Chair

Hank Levy

Highlights

• CSE is the #1 preferred major among incoming UW freshmen. Total enrollment in our introductory programming courses has surpassed 5,000 per year.
• Less than a decade ago, we awarded 225 degrees per year. Today, we are on track to reach 500 degrees, with more to come.
• Since 2000, 55 CSE undergraduates have been recognized as outstanding researchers by the Computing Research Association — more than at any other institution.
• The National Center for Women & Information Technology recognized CSE with its inaugural NEXT Award in 2015 for leadership in promoting gender diversity in computing.
• Entrepreneurship is thriving: CSE spin-off Impinj, a pioneer of RFID technology, recently celebrated a successful IPO, while machine learning startup Turi was acquired by Apple.

Tammy Teal, BS CEE ’17

Recipient of the 2016-2017 Undergraduate Education Access in Civil and Environmental Education Scholarship and the 2016-17 Helen E. Zromkowski Endowed Civil Engineering Scholarship

“Being selected as the recipient for such a wonderful scholarship brought equal parts of happiness and relief. As a sibling of ten and a daughter of an immigrant who suffers from post-traumatic stress and a woman with Multiple Sclerosis, I grew up in poverty. As a result, finances and family responsibilities have always burdened my dream to further my education. Despite these adversities, I am proud to say I am in my fourth year in UW Civil and Environmental Engineering. I am most interested in Construction and Geotechnical Engineering; outside of the classroom, I am membership chair for the American Society of Civil Engineers and a general member for Concrete Canoe and the American Public Works Association. Thank you for your support in furthering my goals.” — Tammy Teal