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
Humans of BioE: Chrissi Nhan
Chrissi Nhan talks about her decision to pursue a career in consulting after she graduates, and how she has fit an internship, study abroad in Paris and exploring her academic and research interests into her time in the BioE major.
Director of Finance and Administration Ruth Woods nominated for UW Distinguished Staff Award
UW Bioengineering's Director of Finance and Administration Ruth Woods has been nominated for a UW Distinguished Staff Award. The Distinguished Staff Award highlights UW staff who display a commitment to UW and a passion for their work that never rests.
Humans of BioE: Karl Manner
Undergraduate Karl Manner discusses how bioengineering led to his interest in drug development, and future plans to work in biotechnology industry to focus on real-world applications of research.
Facile fabrication of tissue-engineered constructs using nanopatterned cell sheets and magnetic levitation
The researchers describe a novel method for fabricating scaffold-free tissue-engineered constructs using thermoresponsive nanofabricated substrates (TNFS) and magnetic levitation.
Deok-Ho Kim’s scaffold-free tissue engineering method featured in Nanotechweb.org article
In a recent paper published in Nanotechnology, UW Bioengineering Assistant Professor Deok-Ho Kim and colleagues describe a novel method for fabricating scaffold-free tissue-engineered constructs using thermoresponsive nanofabricated substrates (TNFS) and magnetic levitation.
Humans of BioE: Namratha Potharaj
Namratha Potharaj talks about exploring her passion for global health in BioE and Bioengineers without Borders, and her hope to, one day, apply her engineering skills as a physician.