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
Student invention to better diagnose tuberculosis wins NIH prize
A team of UW bioengineering and mechanical engineering undergraduates won second place overall – and took home a $15,000 prize – at the National Institutes of Health’s 9th annual Design by Biomedical Undergraduate Teams (DEBUT) challenge.
Blood vessel twists-and-turns cause cell changes
New 3D model reveals that curvature gives rise to a range of vascular shapes and sizes, important for engineering tissues and understanding disease. When it comes to engineering tissues and organs, creating a blood supply [...]
Kelly Stevens uses heat to control 3D organ-like tissues
UW Bioengineering's Kelly Stevens Lab and researchers at Rice University created radiatorlike systems to remotely control the positioning and timing of cell functions to build 3-dimensional, artificial, living tissues.
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Sara B. Keller, Dingjie Suo, Yak-Nam Wang, Heidi Kenerson, Raymond S. Yeung and Michalakis A. Averkiou Frontiers in Pharmacology, 30 September 2020 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2020.584344 Abstract Despite advances in interventional procedures and chemotherapeutic drug development, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) [...]
Buddy Ratner wins Bioelastomer Award
Biomaterials expert Buddy Ratner, joint professor in UW Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering, will receive the 2021 Bioelastomer Award
Buddy Ratner, dialysis team win prize for synthetic graft
UW bioengineer Buddy Ratner and his collaborators at Seattle’s Center for Dialysis Innovation (CDI) captured one of six prizes in a national contest to develop new solutions for dialysis care.