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.

Two women in Lutz lab at whiteboard

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.

Three students in Lutz lab

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

Gender

LGBTQ

Individuals with disabilities

International students

INCLUSIVE ADMISSIONS OR HIRING

INCLUSIVE TEACHING

UW INSTITUTIONAL MISSIONS, POLICIES, AND RESOURCES

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

  • Bekcy Darrow

Humans of BioE: Becky Darrow

May 23rd, 2019|

Becky Darrow is a senior in the Department of Bioengineering at UW, and she will work as a consultant at Accenture after graduation. Read more to learn about her love of dance and lessons she learned throughout college.

Two UW concepts for helping kidney-failure patients advance in national contest

May 3rd, 2019|

Two ideas put forth by UW's Center for Dialysis Innovation (CDI) - a next-generation wearable dialyzer and a new vascular access graft - advanced to the finals in a national competition aimed at speeding innovations in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of kidney diseases. 

  • closeup of 3D bioprinted air sac

3D organ bioprinting gets a breath of fresh air

May 2nd, 2019|

Bioprinted tissues with entangled vascular networks for air and blood are a major step toward 3D printing of replacement organs. Bioengineers from University of Washington and Rice University teamed to create the 3D bioprinted vascular networks and tested them in mice.

  • Jayleen Leon

Humans of BioE: Jayleen Leon

May 2nd, 2019|

Jayleen Leon is a junior in the Department of Bioengineering at UW, and wants to continue her education in graduate school. Read more to learn about her journey to BioE.

Humans of BioE: Levi Davis

April 26th, 2019|

Levi Devis is a senior in the Department of Bioengineering at UW, and wants to continue his education in graduate school. Read more to learn about his transition from community college to UW.

  • Bonnibelle Leeds

Humans of BioE: Bonnibelle Leeds

April 18th, 2019|

Bonnibelle Leeds is a senior in the Department of Bioengineering at UW, and wants to continue her education in graduate school. Read more to learn about her transition from community college to UW.