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The University of Washington Population Health Initiative announced the award of approximately $350,000 in COVID-19 rapid response grants to 21 different faculty-led teams. These teams are composed of individuals representing 10 different schools and colleges. Funding was partially matched by additional school, college and departmental funds, bringing the total value of these awards to roughly $820,000. “A…

Virginia will no longer suspend driver’s licenses because people owe court debt, thanks to legislation that was signed into law last week. The state has been suspending hundreds of thousands of licenses each year, disproportionately those of African Americans and lower-income Virginians. “Payment systems are not sustainable because people are robbing from rent and from putting food…

Buildings of the future will be grown on-site, says Wil Srubar, an assistant professor of architectural engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder who also runs the Living Materials Laboratory. They’ll be made from hemp, or algae or specially engineered wood — or bacteria that can photosynthesize, like the cyanobacteria mortar he and his research…

A recent award-winning study by University of Washington College of Education Assistant Professor Shaneé Washington explores the challenges and possibilities for Indigenous families, community members and district educators to engage with one another in culturally sustaining and revitalizing ways. In a new podcast, Washington discusses her study, “Family-School-Community (Dis)Engagement: An Indigenous Community’s Fight for Educational Equity and Cultural…

Dana Ralph, the mayor of Kent, is warning residents that state coronavirus restrictions and closures will soon result in massive layoffs and budget cuts far beyond anything the city experienced during the Great Recession. “This is significantly larger than what we’ve seen during the recession,” she said. “This is unprecedented in what we’re talking about…

To understand just how hard it could be to recover from a COVID-19 recession, consider the case of Jim Harrer. Last week, the owner of kickboxing gyms in Kent and Federal Way learned he’d qualified for a $107,000 loan under the Payroll Protection Program — one of the last to do so before the U.S. Small…

Many Washingtonians are spending more time in their homes or apartments due to the stay-at-home order to help slow the spread of coronavirus, which means they may be missing out on their usual weekend hikes and other nature escapes. But University of Washington researchers say you don’t have to go to a remote location to…

The pandemic is redefining our relationship with space. Not outer space, but physical space. Hot spots, distance, spread, scale, proximity. In a word: geography. Suddenly, we can’t stop thinking about where. Over the past few centuries, new technologies in transportation and communication made geography feel less critical. The advent of railway and refrigerated train cars in the…

The predictable, daily routines of humanity have all but stopped with the arrival of COVID-19. For most of us, we no longer head to the office each morning or have friends and family over for dinner in our homes. Our day-to-day activities now look entirely different than they did six weeks ago. But does this…

When the last recession hit school budgets about a decade ago, it didn’t hit them equally. Affluent school districts saw their state funding drop by more than $500 per student after the downturn. High-poverty districts in the same state lost much more: over $1,500 per student in state funds. Now, the coronavirus has brought much of…