Together, Toward a Boundless Future
Follow our fundraising progress throughout the Campaign for Engineering.
Issue 6 | April 2017
From the Dean
Spring greetings from the College of Engineering! Our campaign momentum continues to build, most recently with the exciting announcement of the creation of the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, in recognition of Mr. Allen’s longstanding support for the mission of the University and UW CSE.
A $50 million endowment for the new school—in the form of $40 million from Mr. Allen, enhanced by a gift of $10 million from the Microsoft Corporation in Mr. Allen’s honor—will propel the UW to the forefront of computer science education and innovation for generations to come. We are truly fortunate to have such a generous supporter in Paul Allen and we are honored to name our new School of Computer Science & Engineering for such a forward-thinking, steadfast supporter of our University and our region.
Thanks to many generous gifts, as indicated by the fundraising "thermometer" below, as of April 17, we are at 93% of goal. While we are proud of this achievement, and grateful for the confidence in our work that it reflects, we will not rest on our laurels; we look forward to continuing to partner with all of you for the life of the campaign—and beyond!—to advance the mission of the college.
In other news, our spring Visiting and Campaign Committee meeting featured a guest appearance by UW President Ana Mari Cauce. Finally, the College is taking a significant step to improve and enhance our students' educational experience and we recently announced that we will offer Direct to College admission to freshmen beginning in 2018. At the same time we will continue to expand our student support programs and educational offerings. I’m excited about the future and hope to see you on campus soon, perhaps at our Diamond Awards ceremony!
Mike Bragg, Ph.D.
Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of Engineering
Giving Spotlight: CEE Alumnae
Top to bottom: Amy Haugerud, Anne Symonds, and Kristen Betty
In addition to owning their own engineering companies and being named "Engineer of the Year" by the American Council of Engineering Companies-Washington chapter, three civil and environmental engineering alumnae have one more thing in common: establishing a scholarship fund.
After working for a number of years in industry, each of these three alumnae—Amy Haugerud, '77 B.S., Anne Symonds, '75 B.S., '78 M.S., and Kristen Betty, '83 B.S.—decided to take a risk and found her own engineering company. Haugerud started RoseWater Engineering; Symonds founded Symonds Consulting Engineers, and Betty founded KBA, Inc. The support the women received from one another and peers throughout their careers was instrumental to their success, and they decided to pay it forward by supporting engineering students through the establishment of the Women Business Founders’ Endowed Scholarship Fund in Civil & Environmental Engineering.
The scholarship will support undergraduate students who are passionate about advancing the interests of women in the field, especially the business side of engineering. By establishing the scholarship, the women hope to encourage and inspire the next generation of women engineers to become entrepreneurs and pathfinders.
Department Fast Facts: Electrical Engineering
- Established
1905
UW EE takes an interdisciplinary approach to solving complex problems in energy, health, technology and the environment. Our research is advancing biosystems, robotics, cybersecurity, data science, photonics and nano devices, computing and energy. We foster an innovation ecosystem, promoting entrepreneurship among our faculty and students in partnership with industry, government and regional sponsors.
- Chair
- Radha Poovendran
- Highlights
-
- UW EE is #1 on campus for startups—with 23 patents issued, 83 patent applications, and 45 reported innovations in 2016.
- UW EE has 530 undergrads, 20% of whom are women, 359 graduate students, 23% of whom are women, and we are the #6 producer of EE undergraduate degrees in the nation.
- Our Engineering Entrepreneurial Capstone program has enrolled 69 students to work on 22 projects from 15 companies.
- We recently hired two new neural engineering researchers—Dr. Amy Orsborn and Dr. Azadeh Yazdan-Shahmorad—giving us a total of eight faculty involved in engineering neural interfaces and rehabilitation technologies.
By the Numbers
Fundraising progress as of March 17, 2017.
| Theme | Campaign Goal | Raised as of 4/17/17 | Percent to Goal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Student Support | $50M | $32M | 64% |
| Faculty Support & Research | $145M | $128M | 88% |
| Program Support for Faculty & Students | $55M | $44M | 80% |
| Capital | $80M | $62M | 78% |
| Excellence (Other) | $20M | $58M | 290% |
| TOTAL | $350M | $324M | 93% |
Supporting Faculty Excellence
Mary E. Lidstrom, Ph.D.
Holder of the Frank Jungers Chair of Engineering
Professor of Microbiology, Vice Provost for Research
"The support of my endowed chair has enabled new directions in my group in the area of methane bioconversion. Decreasing methane emissions has been identified as an essential part of our greenhouse emission strategy, and the only viable technology to achieve this goal involves using bacteria. My group has now created a novel platform for methane bioconversion using a new bacterial strain and working with experts in small companies who have created key bioprocess breakthroughs.
"As it is almost impossible at this time to obtain federal funding for such basic research, the endowed chair funding has been absolutely instrumental in moving this work forward. This past year, we have made a set of new breakthroughs that resulted in a number of seminal publications. Each of these has its seeds in funding from my endowed chair, and as always, I am very grateful to have this support for new areas in my laboratory." — Mary Lidstrom