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Students in the Jackson School of International Studies delve into cybersecurity policy and its societal implications. 

When 50,000 visitors descended on New York's Central Park for Ultimate Block Party, an event celebrating the importance of play for children’s developing brains, a team from the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences was there.

HIGHLIGHTS Established in 1970 as Women Studies, the department changed its name to…

As Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, Dianne Harris is primarily responsible for establishing and implementing a vision and strategic priorities for the College, and for stewardship of the College’s resources. Keeping the University of Washington’s mission at the center of her work, Harris is privileged to work daily to ensure that students, staff, and faculty throughout the College can thrive and succeed. She works collaboratively with the four divisional deans, members of her Dean’s Office leadership team, department chairs and directors, and other staff and faculty to support the very best liberal arts education and a research enterprise that has a positive impact on the lives of all those in our region and beyond.

Harris’s role includes providing leadership and guidance for undergraduate and graduate education, a research enterprise that averages $120 million annually, fundraising for the College, and supporting infrastructure throughout the College. She feels honored to hold this position and regards it as an opportunity to give back and to lift up others through leadership. 

A professor of history, Harris began her appointment as dean on September 1, 2021. She was previously a senior program officer with The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Higher Learning program and was dean of the College of Humanities and professor of history at the University of Utah.

At the University of Utah, Harris substantially increased the number of underrepresented tenure-line faculty and generated retention-oriented programs; raised the research profile of the college; supported the creation of a digital humanities center; and supported a number of undergraduate student success initiatives.

At the Mellon Foundation, Harris’s responsibilities included program leadership, strategic framework generation, grantmaking innovation, program staff supervision, and the collaborative allocation of a grantmaking budget of $115-$130 million per year. Her grantmaking portfolio included leadership for a range of initiatives with a social justice and access-oriented focus, including higher education in prison, community college transfer pathways, and the reimagined humanities doctorate in the 21st century.

Throughout her career, Harris has been a tireless supporter of the humanities. As a principal investigator for many grants, she has fostered interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation in the humanities, including creating the “Humanities Without Walls” consortium, which includes support for cross-institutional research collaboration, and an innovative program of summer workshops for pre-doctoral students in the humanities who wish to seek careers outside the academy.

Just prior to the 2016 presidential election, Harris was nominated by President Barack Obama to serve on the National Council on the Humanities, although her nomination was suspended due to the results of that election.

Harris earned her Ph.D. in architecture/history of architecture, master’s degree in architecture, and bachelor’s degree with a major in landscape architecture, all at the University of California, Berkeley. Her scholarship, which has a broad temporal and geographic reach spanning from 18^th-century Lombardy to the postwar United States, is united by a sustained focus on the relationship between the built environment and the construction of racial and class identities. An interdisciplinary scholar whose work focuses on visual and material culture as well as histories of the built environment, Harris is particularly well-known for her scholarly contributions to the study of race and space. In addition to her many essays and scholarly articles, she is the sole author of three monographs, editor of an additional three volumes, and a series editor for the University of Pittsburgh Press.

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Fueled by coffee and enthusiasm, Marina Blatt and other communication majors met with multiple alumni during a Career Exploration trip to Washington, DC. 

Presenting a School of Drama production live online required creativity — and dependable wifi — for the students, faculty, and staff involved. 

UW professors Xiaodong Xu, Cynthia Vinzant, and Shayan Oveis Gharan have been honored by the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their research accomplishments.

While studying the impact of the digital revolution on texts, students created digital editions using print publications in UW Special Collections.

Celeste Marion (BA, 2003) co-founded an innovative school for special education students in Cusco, Peru.

In her book Beyond Guilt Trips, principal lecturer Anu Taranath discusses how travelers can respectfully explore other cultures.

Philosophy graduate student Amy Reed-Sandoval has spent the past three summers leading a philosophy program for children in Oaxaca, Mexico, guiding conversations on everything from individual rights to the nature of happiness.

High school teachers spent four weeks at the UW Summer Institute in Physics and Physical Science to improve their understanding and teaching of physics. 

Through her love of languages and plants — and some serendipity — UW junior Katie Ruesink connected with a Korean family while studying in Seoul.

Playwrights and scientists pair up to explore what it means to be human in light of current developments in science and technology.

To see independent films not destined for the multiplex, check out two UWTV programs hosted by A&S faculty. Backstory airs films with a Northwest connection; Voices of the First Peoples features Native American filmmakers.