A culture of Belonging in UW Bioengineering
At the University of Washington, diversity, equity, and inclusion are integral to excellence. We value and honor diverse experiences and perspectives, strive to create welcoming and respectful learning environments, and promote access, opportunity, and justice for all.
What Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion means to the UW Bioengineering Community
Towards Justice, we believe that engineers must understand the social justice aspects of technology research and development practices, and are therefore including these topics in our curriculum. Towards Equity, we believe that admissions, hiring and retention practices must utilize best practices shown to overcome institutional and individual biases. Our Department values Diversity as individual differences (e.g., personality, prior knowledge, and life experiences) and group/social differences (e.g., race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, country of origin, and ability as well as cultural, political, religious, or other affiliations)1. We seek to have our educational and research programs represent the diversity of our country. Towards Inclusion, the Department focuses on intentionally creating a welcoming environment for everyone, absent of negative feelings and experiences such as fear, insecurity, social tensions, and unaddressed microaggressions, as well as fostering active, intentional, and ongoing engagement with diversity (1,2). These efforts are multi-dimensional and include collaborations with numerous UW programs, recruitment efforts, policies, curriculum, practices, faculty/staff promotions, decision making, and mentoring and continuing education for members of our community.
Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee
The UW Bioengineering JEDI committee has been tasked with developing mechanisms and providing guidance to increase our department’s level of expertise on equity and inclusive teaching and mentoring, and to provide similar expertise to our trainees.
JEDI Resources
Race and Ethnicity
- Graduate Student Equity & Excellence (GSEE)
- Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity (OMA&D)
- UW Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center
- UW Chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers (UW NSBE)
- UW Chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (UW SHPE)
- UW SACNAS Chapter
- w??b?altx? – Intellectual House
- Undocumented student resources
Gender
LGBTQ
Individuals with disabilities
- D Center
- Disability resources for Students
- Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology
International students
- UW International Student Services (ISS) office
- Undocumented student resources
- Career Center @ Engineering
- Counseling Center
INCLUSIVE ADMISSIONS OR HIRING
INCLUSIVE TEACHING
- PR2ISM
- Teaching@UW
- Equal Access: Universal Design of Instruction | DO-IT
- UW Well-Being for Life and Learning Guidebook
UW INSTITUTIONAL MISSIONS, POLICIES, AND RESOURCES
- UW 2022-2026 Diversity Blueprint
- Diversity at the University of Washington
- Diversity council
- Diversity statistics & policies
- Office of Inclusive Excellence in COE
- Strategic planning in the College of Engineering
- Disability Services
Feedback & Reporting Mechanisms
It is our goal that all members of the BIOE community feel included and supported. We want to highlight the resources available to you if you would like to provide feedback to improve the program or resolve a situation, or would like support in an incident of bias. We have provided links to different methods of providing feedback or reporting, and some information to help you decide which suits your purpose.
See also
Diversity at the University of Washington
UW Equity Focus, the UW’s hub for stories highlighting diversity and equity
In the News
Promising research for enhancing brain health through neural stimulation
Karam Khateeb, a PhD student in Associate Professor Azadeh Yazdan-Shahmorad’s lab, has earned recognition for his research on neural stimulation through an NIH D-SPAN F99/K00 grant. The research aims to improve the [...]
Maddalena Di Piazza (‘22)
Maddalena Di Piazza (‘22) currently works for Cepheid, a company specializing in point-of-care molecular diagnostics. She credits the MAB program’s clinical shadowing and capstone requirements with helping to prepare her to tackle real-world challenges within the biotechnology industry. “My job requires me to be creative in solving tough problems, and quickly assess the feasibility of new technologies,” she says. “I can confidently say that I wouldn't be where I am today without my experience in the MAB program.”
Christopher Allan (20)
After many years as a hand surgeon and surgery instructor, Christopher Allan got his Masters of Applied Bioengineering to expand his research role. Currently a research associate professor in the UW Orthopaedics Musculoskeletal Systems Biology Lab, he’s the principal investigator in a Department of Defense-funded clinical trial, assessing the safety and efficacy of the research team’s negative-pressure wound therapy glove for hand injuries.
Sandra Oluoch (‘20)
MAB grad Sandra Oluoch (‘20) is a scientific data engineer with the Allen Institute in Seattle, WA. She was drawn to the MAB program by a desire to transition from more traditional lab research to computational analysis. “[The program] gave me the skills I needed to network and break into a different career field,” she says. “The internship requirement helped me get my foot in the door in this field.”
Jay Walcott (’19)
Alumna Jay Walcott (MAB ’19) is in her third year in the joint Ph.D. program at Georgia Tech and Emory. Her research involves bioprinting with stem cells to create cardiac tissues. As a MAB student, Jay enjoyed the clinical rotations. “While the procedures we witnessed were great to see, it was really inspiring to know we were working on projects that clinicians and patients actually cared about,” Jay said.
Ayokunle Olanrewaju honored with the Rogel Faculty Support Award
Ayokunle (Ayo) Olanrewaju, assistant professor for UW Bioengineering, has been awarded a Rogel Faculty Support Award. The grant honors an outstanding junior faculty member who has made important contributions to the Department of Bioengineering, [...]