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
Ph.D. grad Joshua Buser engineers low-cost diagnostics, mentors next generation
A drive to engineer solutions to global health problems compelled recent Yager lab Ph.D. graduate Joshua Buser to pursue bioengineering. He aims to bring diagnostic testing to low-resource settings – and increase access to affordable health care closer to home.
BioE families foster community, mentoring, leadership for undergraduates
Bioengineering has become a popular undergraduate major, and the cohort size has grown. New BioE 'families' seek to maintain the cohort's sense of community, and offer undergrads opportunities for leadership, mentoring.
UW, Academia Sinica researchers develop “drug capture system” to treat limb ischemia
UW Bioengineering faculty James Lai, Suzie Pun and Patrick Stayton, and BioE Ph.D. alumnus and affiliate faculty member Patrick Hsieh, are among contributing authors of a paper describing a novel treatment for limb ischemia.
BioE honors team trains clinicians in toy adaptation
On November 29, the WHAT! (Washington Has Adapted Toys!) Bioengineering Honors team trained 9 clinicians at UW Valley Medical Center’s Children’s Therapy in toy adaptation for children with disabilities.
Anna Blakney, Mary Wallingford selected for MIT’s Rising Stars in Biomedical
Ph.D. graduate Anna Blakney and senior fellow Mary Wallingford were selected to participate in Rising Stars in Biomedical, held at MIT November 9-10, 2016.
Allan Hoffman, David Baker and Miqin Zhang recognized among 2016’s ‘highly cited researchers’
BioE's Professor Emeritus Allan Hoffman, and adjunct faculty David Baker and Miqin Zhang are among 29 UW researchers to be included on 2016's "Highly Cited Researchers" report by Clarivate Analytics.








