Alumni

Drake Witham ('96) has taken his stand-up act to Seattle's Bumbershoot Festival, Comedy Central's Live at Gotham, and U.S. military bases in Iraq. 

Alumnus Maurice Woods created the Inneract Project, a summer program that introduces inner city youth to graphic design as a career option. The program is offered through the School of Art.

Baghdad, Nicaragua, Thailand, and Russia are just a few of the recent assignments for alumni in the Foreign Service. 

"[The students] make me laugh every day. And they will try anything," says Monte Cristo Elementary School teacher Andrea Peterson ('96), recently named Washington Teacher of the Year. 

Tim Egan ('81) has received the National Book Award for nonfiction for a book about the Great American dust bowl. 

Alumnus Don Logan, who spent years teaching Seattle public schools after earning two history degrees at the UW, has endowed a chair in the Department of History. 

Immediately after graduating from the UW School of Drama, 11 alumni founded Washington Ensemble Theatre, or WET. As they begin their third season, WET's members remain true to their original vision for the theatre. 

Just before graduating last spring, Julia Parker created a community service award for future philosophy students, raising the funds for the award herself. 

Alumni in fields ranging from biotechnology to finance believe their UW English degree has been a valuable asset throughout their career. Related stories: A poetry group created by an English alum and friends is still going strong after 15 years; a donor has funded "Ask Betty," an interactive website on English grammar and usage, in his mother's honor. 

Ed Viesturs’ (’81) first climbs were in the Northwest, during his years as a UW undergraduate. Now he has become the first American to successfully summit all 14 of the world's 8,000+ meter peaks without supplemental oxygen. 

Don Petersen, former chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Company, has been an inspirational chair of the College of Arts and Sciences' board for the past six years. 

Chia-Hui Huang made a promise to herself to donate her first paycheck to the Linguistics Department after earning her PhD--and she kept her promise. 

Three alumni describe how they have reconnected with the College, decades after graduating. 

After Frith Maier retraced adventurer George Kennan's 1870 route through the Caucasus Mountains, the journey became the basis of her UW master's thesis and a new book.

Astronaut Michael Anderson, who perished in the space shuttle Columbia, earned his B.S. from the UW College of Arts and Sciences in physics and astronomy.