The study of literature can be wet work. Richard Watts teaches the course that proves it. In Water Crisis in Literature & Cinema, Watts, who serves as associate professor and chair of French and Italian Studies, addresses the cultural significance of water and its changing meaning as societies grow more conscious of risks posed by [...]

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At the University of Washington, a world-renown hub of medical innovation, researchers team up across departments to find answers to some of health care’s most pressing problems. Programmers solve. Engineers build. Physicians treat. Patients win. But buried inside this collaborative approach to medicine are questions that science can’t answer: When does a physical impairment become a “problem”? Do all problems need to be fixed? How much input should patients have?

It's a quiet afternoon in summer quarter, and Gary Hsieh is wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He rode his bike to work this morning — for the first time — and now he's sitting across from a 3-foot-tall package from Amazon. "This is an under-desk elliptical," he says, slapping the top of the bulky box. He’ll pedal it beneath his feet as he types, burning calories with each keystroke. Hsieh, an assistant professor in Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE), is trying to solve a problem. "I’ve gained too much weight,” he says.

It’s the kind of trip you find on bucket lists. In two weeks, Taso Lagos and 29 students will fly to Athens, Greece, where they’ll stroll through ancient streets and watch the sun set over the Mediterranean Sea. "Walking in the same place as Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates is a great thrill," said Lagos, the director of the Greece study abroad program. “Saint Paul and some of the early Christians were there, as well.”

It took almost 15 years, but Charlotte Coté finally got her answer. Where do all of us hang out? She first asked the question when she arrived at the UW in 2001. "Nobody really knew what to say," recalled Coté, a member of the Nuu-chah-nulth Nations in British Columbia. "We're on Native land — Duwamish had villages here — and yet, you could walk down this campus and that wasn't visible."

Those 20-minute showers are lavish, but how much water did it take to make your favorite pair of shoes? How about the beans in your morning coffee? The fuel in your gas tank? Water that goes into producing consumer goods is called virtual water, and it flows through your closet, your kitchen, and your daily commute. Virtual water accounts for over 95% of our water footprint, but we don't talk about it much. Rob Turner wants to change that.

Forget "tough love" — the Harm Reduction Research and Treatment (HaRRT) Center explores alternative pathways to treating addiction. The center researches drug, alcohol and tobacco dependency, often in chronically homeless populations.

Tucked in a sleepy corner of the UW Quad, Smith Hall is as peaceful as it gets on the Seattle campus. But walk inside and you’ll find torture, incarceration, and assassinations. “We work with organizations and individuals on the front lines of human rights challenges,” said Angelina Godoy, the director of the UW Center for Human Rights, which is based on the mezzanine level of Smith. “Those challenges could be here in Seattle or anywhere in the world, and they can be anything from the right to health to the right to free speech to tackling genocide.”

When Joe Lott taught a course about black and brown men in higher education, students from departments all over campus signed up — sociology, political science, engineering. "For many of them, it was one of the first classes where they talked about race," said Lott, an associate professor in the College of Education. “I found that shocking."

Earlier this spring, UW professor Ken Tadashi Oshima became the president of the Society of Architectural Historians, an international organization based in Chicago. He's the first president from the University of Washington, and the first who specializes in non-Western architecture.

Don't let the smile fool you: He's one of the most dangerous men on campus. At least that's what some people say. In his four decades at the UW, psychology professor David Barash has been blacklisted by an academic watchdog group, the American Counsel of Trustees and Alumni, and featured in a book called The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.

Anyone can start a nonprofit. It’s easy: Just pick a cause, file with the IRS, and register with your state government. "Next thing you know, you're a 501(c)(3) and you have no idea how to sustain yourself," said Ruth Bernstein, who runs the Nonprofit Studies program at UW Tacoma. "You may not even know how to effectively deliver your service."