Yakama Nation Tribal Council and SEFS leadership meet to discuss the continued support of students in earth sciences, fisheries and environmental science

In the beginning of 2025, SEFS Director Dan Brown met with Polly Rigdon from the Yakama Nation Tribal Council. Rigdon teaches a class called, “Role of Culture and Place in Natural Resource Stewardship: The Yakama Nation Experience.” Rigdon leads UW students and faculty onto the closed portion of the reservation to learn about natural resource stewardship by the Yakama Nation. 

SEFS remembers one of its oldest friends Carolyn Scott

Carolyn S. R. B. Scott (1921-2025)

The School of Environmental and Forest Sciences has lost one of its oldest friends, Carolyn Scott. She died peacefully at home on Sunday, February 2, 2025, surrounded by family. 

ONRC and others awarded $4.2 million grant to advance indigenous forestry resource industrial development in Port Angeles, Washington

In January the U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced that a $4.2 million grant will be awarded to the Clallam County Economic Development Council in Port Angeles, Washington. The grant will be used to advance indigenous forestry resource development in the region.  

SEFS remembers College of Forestry Professor Emeritus Reinhard F. Stettler

We are saddened to share the news that Professor Emeritus Reinhard (Reini) Stettler passed on December 9, 2024. He was 94. Professor Emeritus Stettler was hired in 1963 as an Assistant Professor in the University of Washington’s College of Forestry, now the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. 

PhD student Sam Kreling’s research looks to better understand the consequences of urbanization on the adaptive evolution of coyotes

Kreling’s newest research looks at how our rapidly urbanizing world may influence the evolution of coyotes, the most prominent urban carnivore. Her research conceptualizes a framework that she hopes others will use to better understand the various pathways by which urbanization can influence the genomes of wildlife by using the coyote as a model for understanding urbanization’s effects. 

A Message from Clare Ryan, SEFS Acting Director: Winter 2024-25

As my time as SEFS Acting Director draws to a close I’m reflecting on the many successes that the SEFS community has achieved over the last quarter. Our faculty and students have been hard at work building a greater depth of understanding around our environmental systems. 

The Impact of Giving – A SEFS Donor Spotlight Series: Tom and Arline Hinckley

This is the first donor spotlight in a series. This series of stories reveals the impact that donors have on students, faculty and research here at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and more broadly at the College of the Environment. 

Associate Professor Brian Harvey awarded three grants to examine how climate-adaptive forest management can foster resilience to wildfire

Associate Professor Brian Harvey and the UW Harvey Lab have three new exciting grant-backed projects in the works. The lab will be looking at how climate-adaptive forest management can foster resilience to wildfire. 

Postdoctoral researcher Kaeli Swift and graduate student Fletcher Moore observe kleptoparasitism, a novel behavior, in Tinian’s Bridled White-eye

While conducting field research, Moore and Swift observed the Nosa’ or Bridled White-eye robbing nesting material from two different bird species on Tinian Island of the Northern Mariana Islands. This behavior is seldom reported in solitary nesting birds and is a behavior that reduces the costs associated with nest building. 

SEFS graduate student Sofia Saenz Kruszka awarded the Integral Big Data Research Fund Award

SEFS graduate student Sofia Saenz Kruszka has been awarded the Integral Big Data Research Fund Award. This fund supports graduate students who are incorporating a big data approach to their scholarly work.