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
HuskyADAPT: Toying with Accessibility
BioE students seek to increase access to accessible play through toy adaptation for children with disabilities, and foster knowledge of the benefit inclusive design can have on communities.
Ph.D. grad David Younger aims to improve drug safety with synthetic sex in yeast
Beyond its humble role in baking bread and brewing beer, yeast has helped scientists establish modern understanding of cell biology and genetics. And now, yeast may lead the way to safer drugs. A team of UW synthetic biologist led by BioE Ph.D. grad David Younger has reprogrammed yeast's mating habits to create a sophisticated drug testing platform.
Senior fellows Ryan Nagao and Mary Wallingford receive NIH K99/R00 grants
Dr. Nagao pursues development of a framework for studying renal vascular disease by creating a model of the renal microvasculature environment. Dr. Wallingford investigates placental phosphate transport, a phenomenon essential to cellular energetics, growth and bone biology.
Fall 2017 Scholarship & Fellowship Roundup
The following students have received local, national and international scholarships and fellowships for the 2017-18 academic year: Undergraduate Levinson Emerging Scholar The Levinson Emerging Scholar Program supports talented and highly motivated juniors and seniors pursuing [...]
University of Washington iGEM team wins silver at international competition
In early November, the University of Washington’s student-led undergraduate iGEM team won the silver medal at the 2017 iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) Giant Jamboree conference, held Nov 9-13 in Boston, Mass. The students were [...]
Michael Regnier: From champion weightlighter to research heavyweight
Michael Regnier, the Washington Research Foundation Endowed Professor in Bioengineering and adjunct faculty in physiology and biophysics at UW, once had his sights set on the '88 Olympics — but decided instead to focus on researching diseases of the muscles, and developing therapies that improve human health.