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. 

SEFS PhD candidate Autumn Maust awarded the Hall Conservation Genetics Research Fund

SEFS PhD candidate Autumn Maust has been awarded the Hall Conservation Genetics Research Fund. This fund supports graduate students working in the field of conservation genetics and is made possible by the generosity of Drs. 

PhD student Sam Kreling’s research cited in Washington Post article, “Why we celebrate black squirrels, but think of gray ones as pests”

In a Washington Post article published this October, Sam Kreling, a SEFS PhD student, discusses why humans are so fascinated by oddly colored animals. Kreling is one of the lead researchers on a new paper published in Human Ecology entitled, “Of Rarity and Symbolism: Understanding Human Perceptions of Charismatic Color Morphs.” The research was co-led by Kreling and Tyus D. 

Autumn quarter SEFS student funding opportunities are now open

The following funding opportunities are accepting applications through Monday October 21, 2024 until 11:59PM PST. Please note that the deadline is a hard deadline. 

Student Field Experience Support Fund

This fund is for field experiences of all kinds only in a variety of ways including course fees, equipment, transportation, etc. 

SEFS ushers in Autumn with annual salmon BBQ

SEFS students, faculty, alumni and friends gathered in the Anderson Hall courtyard in early October for the annual and much anticipated salmon BBQ. There were many familiar faces in the crowd and some new ones too – SEFS welcomed three new faculty members to its cohort this fall – Julie Larson, Gaj Sivandran and Mutian Hua. 

SEFS alumna and glacier research technician Kendall Becker is studying insulated rock glaciers in Utah’s Wasatch Range offering climate hope amidst wide-spread ice decline in the Western U.S.

NPR’s Nell Greenfieldboyce recently covered rock glacier research out of Utah’s Wasatch Range for All Things Considered. SEFS alumna Kendall Becker, a research technician, and mountain ecologist Scott Hotaling are on a mission to collect glacial ice samples from natural cravases on a rock glacier upslope of White Pine Lake.