Where in the World is Arts & Sciences?

Click on locations above to see where Arts & Sciences faculty, students, and staff have traveled over the past few months. Scroll below for more about their adventures.

Africa

Erik Andersen and Jason Kerwin with four people -- schoolteachers and others -- in Ghana.

Cape Coast, Ghana

Erik Andersen
Doctoral Student, Economics

Erik Andersen (far right in photo) spent three weeks in Ghana this summer, along with Economics professor Jason Kerwin (far left), to study how a structured pedagogy program for first graders improved the students’ reading skills. Erik’s doctoral research explores the economics of education in developed and developing countries.

Amina Moujtahid in Morocco, with mosaic walls in the background.

Rabat, Morocco

Amina Moujtahid
Professor, Middle Eastern Languages & Cultures (MELC)

Amina Moujtahid leads an annual MELC study abroad program in Morocco that blends immersive language learning in Arabic with exposure to the cultural, historical, and social fabric of the Arab world. Daily classes, coupled with interactions in marketplaces, cafes, and host families, provide opportunities to apply linguistic skills in real-life situations. The program also visits Marrakesh, Fes, and the Atlas Mountains, each part of Morocco revealing its own unique identity.

Botswana

Leigh West
Doctoral Student, Biology

Leigh West spent time this summer at the Botswana field site of her supervisor, UW Biology professor Briana Abrahms, along with two other Abrahms Lab members. The Abrahms Lab studies how environmental variability and change impact vertebrate populations, including changes to animal behavior, individual fitness, population persistence, and community dynamics.

Asia

About a dozen UW students posing along the Great Wall in China.

Beijing, China

Xi Ma, Assistant Teaching Professor
Liping Yu, Teaching Professor
Asian Languages & Literature

Liping Yu and Xi Ma led an intensive language program at the Beijing Language and Culture University, providing second- and third-year Chinese instruction for UW students. The group also took excursions to other parts of China, including a one-week cultural program in Xi'an.

Christina Sunardi with a tall Japanese gate structure in the background.

Tokyo, Japan

Christina Sunardi
Chair, Dance; Professor, Music (Ethnomusicology)

During a visit to Tokyo to develop a music course that includes coverage of Japanese performing arts, Christina Sunardi attended performances, met with Japanese professors, and visited temples, shrines, and other sites to learn more about Japanese arts, culture, and history.

Hong Kong

Isaiah Hoagland
Interaction Design major (School of Art + Art History + Design)

Isaiah Hoagland spent the summer in Hong Kong as a Product Design intern at Goodnotes, a company known for its digital note-taking app. As an intern, he collaborated with the AI Co-Editing team to design and test new AI product features. In his free time, Hoagland explored the city’s culture and food scene.

Ellie Hoffman in India, looking surprised by the cows roaming the street behind her.

Bangalore, India

Ellie Hoffman
History, Comparative History of Ideas majors

Ellie Hoffman spent July in India through a Comparative History of Ideas study abroad program, “Art and Social Change in South India,” led by Professor Anu Taranath. Hoffman participated in a Theatre of the Oppressed performance and engaged in numerous hands-on experiences, including textile weaving, city tours and hiking, and community dialogue with front-line activists and thinkers.

Federal Way Youth Symphony performing, with the performance projected on a large screen above them.

Seoul & Busan, Korea

Rylan Virnig (MM, Instrumental Conducting, 2022)
Assistant Director of Admissions, Recruitment, and Community Outreach, School of Music

Beyond his role in the School of Music, Rylan Virnig is the music director of the Federal Way Youth Symphony Orchestra. This summer he toured Korea with the symphony for two weeks, conducting works by Mozart and Shostakovich in two Korean cities.

South America

A team studying Galapagos penguins crosses the water in a small boat. Six people are visible in the boat.

Galápagos Islands, Ecuador

Dee Boersma
Professor, Biology

Dee Boersma and research team members Caroline Cappello and Sue Moore (shown with Aura Banda and other local collaborators in the Galápagos Islands) spent a week on Silver Origin, weighing and marking Galápagos penguins — the rarest species of penguin — to determine how the penguins are doing in this neutral phase of El Niño. They are happy to report that the penguins are laying eggs, raising chicks, molting, and in fine body condition.

On a grassy hillside, Caleb Bonilla sits and communes with a cow.

Machachi & Cusubamba, Ecuador

Caleb Bonilla (BA, 2025)
Comparative History of Ideas

After participating in a Comparative History of Ideas/Jackson School of International Studies study abroad program last summer that focused on agroecological and traditional farming systems in Ecuador, Caleb Bonilla — who graduated in June 2025 — returned this summer to volunteer his time and labor on a multi-generational family dairy farm and with Indigenous farmers he met and worked with last summer.

Eduardo Viana da Silva in Brazil, with water and palm trees in the background.

Pantanal Region, Brazil

Eduardo Viana da Silva
Associate Teaching Professor, Spanish & Portuguese Studies

Eduardo Viana da Silva led a study abroad program in the region of Pantanal, the tropical wetlands in South America, where he and students explored the relationship between the arts, activism, and the environment. The course introduced students to the work of Brazilian artists and activists, with visits to Indigenous and other BIPOC communities.

Rebecca Beard in Quito, Ecuador, with the city and mountains in the background behind her.

The Andes and the Galápagos, Ecuador

Rebecca Beard
Academic Advisor, Applied Mathematics

Rebecca Beard and her partner, Santiago Lopez, adjunct professor of geography and professor of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at UW Bothell, are co-leading “Global Engagements through Geotechnologies in Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands," a course that gives students hands-on experience in one of the world's most biodiverse regions as they apply geotechnologies and data analysis techniques to study environmental systems.

Europe

Scott Magelssen and Geoff Korf with people behind them hiking up a grassy hill.

Edinburgh, Scotland

Scott Magelssen, Professor and Director
Geoff Korf, Professor
School of Drama

During a School of Drama study abroad program in Edinburgh, UW students saw 30+ shows at the Edinburgh International Festival and Festival Fringe, along with other performances. Scott Magelssen (left in photo) and Geoff Korf (right), the School’s current and former directors, co-led the program, which is offered annually.

Sena Noaman with Nobel Prize recipient Akira Yoshino

Lake Constance, Germany

Sena Noaman
Doctoral Student, Chemistry

Sena Noaman attended the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting in Germany, joining 600 Young Scientists from all over the world to engage with 33 Nobel Laureates in Chemistry. (In the photo, Sena is with 2019 Nobel Laureate Akira Yoshino.) The travel was supported by the Department of Chemistry’s George H. Hitchings Endowed Scholarship Fund.

Ann Frost in Amsterdam, with a canal and bridge visible in the background.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Ann Frost
Associate Teaching Professor, Sociology

Ann Frost led a study abroad program in Amsterdam for students in sociology and law, societies & justice that looked at the key social control mechanisms that make cities function, comparing how these mechanisms work in Amsterdam and Seattle. In addition to lectures and readings, students were immersed in the local culture.

Mia Bennett on a snowmobile with a vast snowy arctic landscape behind her.

Tromsø, Norway & Nuuk and Sisimiut, Greenland

Mia Bennett
Associate Professor, Geography
After spending time in Norway through a Fulbright Arctic IV Initiative fellowship, Mia Bennett traveled to Greenland with other scholars from the program. Bennett’s research focuses on geopolitics of infrastructure development in two areas commonly thought of as frontiers: the Arctic and orbital space.

Skylar Rhim wearing a traditional metal armor helmet on her head.

Sweden & Finland

Skylar Rhim
Art (Painting + Drawing) major
Skylar Rhim (trying out armor during a museum visit) spent a month in Scandinavia on an Honors study abroad program led by Scandinavian Studies teaching professors Lauren Poyer and Kim Kraft. The program, which explored concepts of art and activism in Sweden and Finland, included interactive workshops, guest lectures, visits to museums and other sites, and an introduction to Nordic languages.

Sarena Sabine at a restaurant in Lithuania, with bowls of various food crowding the table.

Vilnius, Lithuania

Sarena Sabine
Doctoral Student, Psychology

Sarena Sabine presented her research at the International Conference in Environmental Psychology in Lithuania, as part of a symposium titled “Nature and Health: Measurement, Mechanisms, and Modern Contexts." Her talk explored whether different ways of measuring time in nature affect associations with mental health.

North America

Johnathan Tran at a conference in Canada, with a Canadian flag in the background.

Toronto & Ottawa, Canada

Johnathan Tran
Doctoral Student, History

With scholarship support from the UW’s Canadian Studies Center, Johnathan Tran traveled to the Critical Canadian Studies Summer School at the Glendon Campus of York University, which brought together doctoral students across five countries for talks and workshops. He also traveled to Ottawa for archival research at the National Library and Archives Canada and the Canadian War Museum. Johnathan researches the international dimensions of the Vietnam War with a focus on Canada's role as peacekeepers.

Julia Hayes-Siltzer in Jamaica, with a palm tree, flowers, and a bright blue building in the background.

Kingston, Discovery Bay & Mandeville, Jamaica

Julia Hayes-Siltzer
International Studies major
Julia Hayes-Siltzer traveled to Jamaica through a study abroad program focused on disability rights, led by Stephen Meyers, associate professor of international studies and law, societies & justice. Students in the program volunteer with grassroots organizations and meet with human rights advocates, educators, policymakers, and others to explore what it means to live with a disability or as an older person in the context of a developing country.

Brittany Kamai in a sailboat with blue skies in the background. Photo courtesy of the Polynesian Voyaging Society.

Hawai`i, USA

Brittany Kamai
Affiliate Professor, Astronomy

While Hawai`i isn’t international, the Department of Astronomy’s Domestic Study Abroad Program is too unique to leave off this list. Brittany Kamai, affiliate professor of astronomy, created this immersive program to share the cultural and scientific ways that Pacific Islanders connect with the lands, ocean, and night sky. The Hawai`i-based program explores traditional techniques for ocean navigation, guided by the natural world.