From left, UW SPH faculty Wendy Barrington, Jeremy Hess and Ali Rowhani-Rahbar
Three professors from the University of Washington School of Public Health (UW SPH) were among the new class of members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences (WSAS): Wendy Barrington, Jeremy Hess and Ali Rowhani-Rahbar. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state announced Aug. 1 as new members, and among 15 University of Washington faculty. Selection recognizes the new members’ “outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.”
Two UW SPH faculty were selected by current WSAS members. They are:
Wendy Barrington, associate professor of epidemiology, of health systems and population health, and of child, family and population health nursing, as well as director of the Center for Anti-Racism and Community Health, “possesses the rare combination of scientific rigor and courageous commitment to local community health. Identifying original ways to examine questions, and seeking out appropriate scientific methods to study those questions, allow her to translate research to collaborative community interventions with a direct impact on the health of communities.”
Jeremy Hess, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences, of global health, and of emergency medicine, as well as the director of the UW Center for Health and the Global Environment, is “a global and national leader at the intersection of climate change and health whose work has advanced our understanding of climate change health effects and has informed the design of preparedness and disaster response planning in Washington state, nationally and globally.”
One UW SPH faculty was selected by virtue of their previous election to one of the National Academies:
Ali Rowhani-Rahbar, the Bartley Dobb professor for the study and prevention of violence in the Department of Epidemiology and a UW professor of pediatrics, as well as the director of the Firearm Injury & Policy Research Program at UW Medicine, had been elected to the National Academy of Medicine “for being a national public health leader whose innovative and multidisciplinary research to integrate data across the health care system and criminal legal system has deepened our understanding of the risk and consequences of firearm-related harm and informed policies and programs to reduce its burden, especially among underserved communities and populations.”