Affiliate Alexes Harris, Professor of Sociology, was one of six UW faculty members elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. Faculty were chosen based on their “outstanding record of scientific achievement and willingness to work on behalf of the academy in bringing the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington”. Harris and the other new members will be inducted into the Academy at an annual meeting in September. 

In an article published in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society, affiliate Sherry Willis and colleagues explore the relationship between declines in cognition and functional abilities in older adults. Willis, Research Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, and her co-authors find that self-observed difficulties for older adults in carrying out instrumental daily activities (IADLs) predate and predict declines in memory, processing speed, and reasoning–as measured by cognitive tests.

Affiliate Rachel Fyall was quoted in a recent news article regarding Seattle’s rising rents and growing homeless population. Fyall, an Assistant Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, believes that shelters and other support services are a not a long-term solution to the issue of homelessness. “Without improving the affordability of housing more generally,” she says, “it’s going to be hard to have an impact.” 

Affiliate Scott Allard, Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, recently published an Op-Ed titled “Philanthropy’s Neglect of the Suburban Poor Hurts Us All” in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Allard discusses the lack of awareness about issues of poverty–which are often mistaken to be “solely urban problems, primarily affecting racial and ethnic minorities in cities”–in the suburbs, along with the comparatively weak capacity of suburban nonprofit and philanthropy efforts to address these issues.