2025 Fleagle Lecture: Steve Davis on Overcoming the Key Barriers to Net-Zero Emissions
The Environmental Destruction and Degradation of Gaza: The Resulting Public Health Crisis (11/05/25)
The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee of the Department of Global Health and Public Health for Peace and Justice in Palestine invite you to join the second session in a series exploring Environmental Health in Palestine on November 5, 2025 at 10am PT with Dr. Amira Aker and Dr. Ahlam Abuawad. Register here.
The environmental destruction and degradation of Gaza: The resulting public health crisis
Gaza is currently facing an unprecedented environmental and public health catastrophe, driven by extensive military operations carried out by Israel and its military, which have systematically collapsed the region’s essential life-support systems. General conditions are defined by a profound multi-faceted environmental health crisis stemming from a systemic breakdown of infrastructure. This presentation examines the interconnected threats across water, sanitation, waste management, and pervasive contamination. The immediate consequences are a catastrophic surge in communicable diseases, extreme food insecurity, and the saturation of the environment with approximately millions of tons of hazardous debris and contaminants. The crisis locks in a legacy of intergenerational harm. Exposure to contaminants, chronic noise pollution, and the total destruction of essential services will likely drive adverse health outcomes for generations to come.
Dr. Amira Aker is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her inter-disciplinary research is focused on identifying the exposures sources of environmental contaminants and their potential health impacts in collaboration with Indigenous communities.
Dr. Ahlam Abuawad is a postdoctoral fellow in the Epidemiology Department at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. She is a Palestinian-American who earned her PhD in Environmental Health Sciences, and her research primarily focuses on arsenic, nutrition, and metabolic outcomes such as BMI and diabetes.
*New* AI Triad: A Dialogue Across Differences (11/05/25)
Join the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University on November 5, 2025 from 12:30 – 1:30 pm ET for a dialogue competing values, incentives, and worldviews around AI. Register to attend on zoom.
This conversation brings together Jason Crawford (Roots of Progress), Amba Kak (AI Now Institute), and Brian McGrail (Center for AI Safety Action Fund) to explore the fault lines and shared assumptions among three major schools of thought, what we at the Berkman Klein Center call the AI Triad. Together, they’ll examine where accelerationists, safetyists, and skeptics most productively disagree, and where their goals may unexpectedly align.
Moderated by BKC Faculty Director Jonathan Zittrain, this event is part of our ongoing effort to foster dialogue across divided intellectual communities and to surface the moral, technological, and empirical premises driving the AI debate.
Accelerationists see AI as a force for human progress, unlocking new frontiers of innovation and economic growth. Safetyists warn that its rapid development could unleash existential risks that outpace our capacity for control. Skeptics take issue with salvation and doomsday narratives, instead grappling with how AI’s deployment amplifies existing social and economic inequalities. Too often, these camps speak past one another. Yet to chart a responsible path forward, their dialogue is essential
2025 Fleagle Lecture: Steve Davis on Overcoming the Key Barriers to Net-Zero Emissions (11/06/25)
Join the UW Department of Atmospheric and Climate Science for the 2025 Fleagle Endowed Lecture featuring Steve J. Davis, Professor of Earth System Science, Stanford University. The lecture will be held in Kane Hall, Room 210 on November 6, 2025 from 7:00-8:30 PM.
Over the past decade, the focus of climate mitigation has shifted from incremental progress to achieving true net-zero emissions. This talk explores the hardest-to-abate sources of greenhouse gases—why they’re so challenging, and the most promising solutions emerging today. Drawing on recent research into net-zero pathways for the power sector, transportation, heating, and industry, the presentation highlights what we’ve learned and what lies ahead. Attendees will gain insight into how evolving technologies, geopolitics, and global ambitions continue to shape the path toward a stable climate.
This event is free and open to the general public. A recording of the lecture will be available to those who register for the event.
Free AI Workshop for UW Disaster Resilience Researchers (apply by 11/10/25)
The Center for Disaster Resilient Communities (CDRC) is hosting a free, two-day in-person workshop on Monday, December 8 and Tuesday, December 9, 2025, designed for UW researchers with little to no background in artificial intelligence (AI). This hands-on workshop will introduce practical ways to apply AI to disaster resilience research. Apply here.
Eligibility: UW Principal Investigators (PIs) or their delegates (e.g., graduate students, research staff)
Application deadline: Monday, November 10, 2025
Call for LOIs from the Washington LHS E-STAR Center (11/10/25)
The third Call for Letters of Interest (LOI) for a training opportunity at the Washington Learning Health System Embedded Scientist Training and Research (LHS E-STAR) Center. This third and final round of scholars will conduct research projects at Community Health Association of Spokane and HealthPoint. Learn more about the E-STAR Center on their website: Applications :: ACT Center (act-center.org)
We encourage you to share the instructions for the LOI with early career faculty and postdocs who may be interested in this exciting opportunity. An informational webinar on the LOI and application process will be held on October 16, 2025 from 12:00-1:00 PM. Please register for the informational webinar here. All LOI materials will be due on November 10, 2025.
In the meantime, should you have any questions, please contact Monica Fujii (monica.m.fujii@kp.org).
Advocating For the Value of Your Favorite Federal Dataset
If you have a data set that is really important for you and has valuable impact more generally, then consider telling your story to Essential Data U.S. (https://essentialdata.us/). They are seeking to build a compendium of cases that convey compelling real-world examples of how federal data can benefit the American people and economy. Your story will help data users and advocates be more effective when engaging with lawmakers and federal agencies for continued resourcing of federal data programs. Your story will also help federal agency data stewards and their leadership to better understand the true value of their data, especially as it relates to administration priorities.
Resource for Narrative and Computation Text Analysis on Migration and Citizenship
The Centre for Migration Studies at University of British Columbia has just posted materials from a September conference on Narrative and Computational Text Analysis for research on migration and citizenship. The materials are relevant to anyone who is relatively new to computation text analysis and curious to learn more. You can download the materials from the workshop here.
It includes:
- a one-page summary of the workshop
- one page of recommended materials for those new to computational text analysis
- a .pdf of slides from the workshop
- an .html file of the demonstration, using historic judicial decisions on anti-Chinese legislation in BC.
Will von Geldern to Present Research on Evictions at UW eScience Institute (10/28/25)
On October 28, Will von Geldern (CSDE Trainee) will be presenting their research at the UW Data Science Seminar. The seminar will be held in IEB G109 from 4:30 to 5:20 p.m. PT. Von Geldern will present preliminary results from a project that uses computer vision and natural language processing to document tenant responses to eviction summonses and connect tenants’ response patterns to subsequent case outcomes. As a part of the eScience Institute’s Data Science and AI Accelerator, von Geldern worked with eScience Data Scientist Curtis Atkisson to measure tenant behavior and case outcomes using text extracted from ~195,000 pdf documents from ~8,500 eviction cases in Pierce County, WA filed between 2022 and 2024.