2025 Founders Endowment Awards

STEM Theme:
Dr. Cassandra Donatelli, SET
Swirl, Don’t Sieve: Bioinspired Bilge Filters from Baleen Mechanics

Dr. Donatelli's project focuses on developing clog-resistant filters for boat bilge pumps, inspired by the feeding structures of baleen whales.  Instead of using a traditional screen that blocks debris and clogs easily, her team will design a bio inspired filter that shapes water flow to naturally move debris away from the filter surface. The collected material can then be directed into a container for easy removal, keeping the filter clear and the pump running smoothly.  The team will first create simplified models and run fluid dynamics trials to optimize the bristle size and angle. Next, they will create prototypes from these results and run controlled trials in a water tunnel as well as trials on the research boats at Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL). Data from this step will be used to create a low-cost, efficient filtration system. This work has the potential to reduce maintenance demands, extend pump lifespan, and minimize the release of plastic waste into the water. Marine pollution, debris accumulation, and equipment failure affect people who own boats of all sizes from fishing vessels to cargo ships. Having an effective filtration system would also affect broader health of our coastal ecosystems. By combining biology, engineering, and environmental awareness, this research provides a creative, sustainable solution rooted in the natural world. The team will seek input from local boaters and environmental groups, ensuring that the designs meet the needs of the people who rely on these systems. 

STEM Theme:
Dr. James Gawel, SAM-SIAS and Dr. Emese Hadnagy, SET 
Reducing Human and Ecological Health Risk in an Urban Pond: A Science and Engineering Collaboration

This project works to find a solution for reducing arsenic contamination in local lakes. With rising temperatures in summer and an increase in excessive heat events, public access to urban waters is critical as they provide an affordable climate refuge for those lacking air conditioning at home. In addition, fish and crayfish in these lakes provide an inexpensive source of protein for low-income populations, and a cultural connection for a diverse array of peoples both indigenous and immigrant.  However, historical arsenic contamination may decrease public access by increasing health risks during lake use. The project aims to address this problem by treating arsenic contaminated lakes to decrease human and ecological exposure to arsenic by creating a barrier to arsenic mobilization from the sediments.  Arsenic pollution is widespread in the region as a legacy of emissions from the ASARCO smelter in Ruston, Washington. One possible method for reducing arsenic in surface waters comes from laboratory studies using lanthanum-modified bentonite (LMB) – a lake treatment approved by the WA Department of Ecology to remove phosphorus – to bind arsenic in the sediment. Due to the similar chemical properties of phosphorus and arsenic, LMB has been tested for arsenic removal but only in laboratory studies. To test LMB’s efficacy in real-world field conditions, UWT students and faculty will deploy duplicate mesocosms having two different concentrations of this capping amendment and a control in Lake Killarney, WA, a highly contaminated shallow lake.  A similar experiment was executed last year, with a non-result, due to improper design of the mesocosm structures.  To address the failures last year, the team is entering a new collaboration with UWT faculty member Emese Hadnagy along with one environmental science student and one civil engineering student, to design a working mesocosm structure and the deploy the same experiment in Lake Killarney to test the efficacy of LMB for arsenic removal in an in-situ lake experiment.

Humanities Theme:
Dr. Ellen Bayer, CAC-SIAS 
True North: Life Lessons from the Wild

Dr. Bayer is writing is a collection of wilderness lessons—moments from her solo ventures into wild places that have given her insight into how to navigate life back in the so-called civilized world. Larger, more universal challenges frame each essay in the book: childhood trauma; sexual abuse; mental health concerns and suicidal ideation; sexism; imposter syndrome; learning to adapt, to be vulnerable, to trust; aging; near-death experiences; navigating grief and loss; finding rebirth, healing, and joy. Her intention is to craft essays that speak to humans from a range of experiences and backgrounds; thus, these broader lenses are the foundation of the book. The memoir-in-essays will investigate relatable life challenges and illustrate how—for the author—time alone in wild places provided one particular path toward personal growth and healing. Dr. Bayer is quite aware of the privilege that comes with being able to access wild places to begin with, and is equally sensitive to the problematic nature of the term wilderness itself, with all of its colonialist overtones and assumptions. The book will wrestle with how privilege, positionality, and a settler-colonialist mindset shroud much wilderness literature while also reckoning with its own place in that canon. In an effort to call attention to the wildness all around us, even in the built environment, the collection also seeks to reveal the ways that we can access wildness in our everyday lives. The global climate crisis and threats to our public lands are integral threads in this collection. Wildfires, dying glaciers, heat waves, drought, rockfall in melting snowfields, soil contamination, air pollution, habitat loss—these outcomes of human-caused climate change all appear in my personal narrative. With the recent firing of thousands of Forest Service and National Parks employees, the conservation of, and access to, U.S. public lands is in jeopardy, and the opening of public lands to mining and drilling threatens to devastate areas that are intended for public benefit, not private profit. There is urgency in bringing these issues into the foreground of my storytelling, because the stakes have now exponentially increased.

Social Justice Theme:
Dr. Carolyn West, SIAS
From Margin to Center: Advancing Safety and Justice at the Intersection of Gun Violence and Commercial Sexual Exploitation on Aurora Avenue North

The purpose of this project is to build on the prior community-based project to investigate the intersection of gun violence and the commercial sexual exploitation (CSE) of Black women and girls along Aurora Avenue North in Seattle—a corridor long associated with racialized poverty, public neglect, and gender-based violence. This proposed study will explore how systemic violence manifests and concentrates geographically, and how survivors navigate overlapping conditions of harm. The project aims to document community knowledge, map patterns of violence, and co-create intervention strategies grounded in the lived experiences of those most affected. By situating Black women and girls at the center of analysis, this study offers critical insight into how invisible populations experience and respond to state and interpersonal violence. The intellectual merit of this project lies in its ability to bridge academic inquiry with community praxis—expanding the scope of equity-centered research and informing more culturally responsive public policy, particularly in the fields of violence prevention, social work, and urban health.

Social Justice Theme:
Dr. Kawena Begay, School of Education
Highlighting Indigenous Voices to Inform Culturally Responsive Autism Evaluations

This focus of this project is to increase cultural responsiveness of autism evaluations conducted in clinical and school settings. The primary goal of this study is to better understand the Indigenous experience during the autism evaluation process so positive change may be made. Interviews will be conducted to highlight indigenous voices with the purpose of better understanding their experiences in the autism evaluation process. Interview topics will broadly include things such as perceived barriers to accessing diagnostic services, the extent to which the family’s cultural background was incorporated and/or respected during the evaluation process, materials/tests used during assessment, clarity of the process and intentional support for families, level of satisfaction with the evaluation process and the follow-up (including support in obtaining ongoing services as needed), and recommendations for changes in the process when working specifically with Indigenous families.  The act of diagnosing any disability is a highly colonial process that centers the values and understanding of a predominately white population. Some Indigenous populations have a very different perception of the differences identified as autistic features (Bruno et al., 2025). The information gained through this study will help to decolonize this evaluation process and increase the relevance to Indigenous populations and their values system (recognizing that not all Indigenous peoples share the same values). Socially just evaluation approaches lead to more equitable access to services. The research aims to support children who sit at the intersection of autism and Indigeneity. 

Social Justice Theme:
Dr. Anindita Bhattacharya, School of Social Work and Criminal Justice
New and Evolving Patterns of Intimate Partner Violence among Indian Immigrant Women in Washington State: A Feminist Phenomenological Study

Dr. Bhattacharya's research focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV) experienced by Indian immigrant women in the United States. Restrictive U.S. immigration policies, extreme isolation in a foreign country, and limited social support contribute to South Asian immigrant women’s heightened vulnerability to IPV. A relatively large percentage of Indian women come to the United States on a spousal dependent visa, i.e., their legal status in the United States is tied to their husbands, the ones perpetrating the abuse. Fear of deportation, separation from children, visa-related employment restrictions, and financial dependence on the perpetrator often compel Indian immigrant women to remain in the abusive relationship and not seek help (Bhandari and Sabri 2020;Tripathi and Azhar 2022). Dr. Bhattacharya will leverage her partnerships with community partners serving the Indian immigrant community in Washington State to access participants in this study. The proposed study will use an intersectional feminist approach to explore 1) Types and patterns of IPV as defined and experienced by Indian Immigrant women and 2) Indian immigrant women’s perceived stressors related to marriage, violence, and immigration and expectations from formal services. Increased knowledge of these new forms of violence will help broaden IPV conceptualization, creating culturally and contextually informed screening and safety assessments and enhancing care.

Social Science Theme:
Dr. Ji-Hyun Ahn, SIAS
Selling Aversion: Anti-Korean Sentiment and New Nationalism in Postcolonial East Asia

This book project examines the rise of hate speech and racist discourse towards Korea(ns) across East Asia. It describes how a politics of aversion formulates a new ethnic nationalism under the neoliberal reformation of East Asia. By taking a transnational approach to anti-Korean racism in East Asia, this research answers fundamental questions about the relationship between global cultural flows and regional politics and advances our understanding of how a new affective mode, not fascination but aversion, dismantles and recreates racialized cultural imagination in East Asia.  With the core research and analysis now complete, Dr. Ahn will be facilitating the final stage of writing, professional editing, and publisher submission. The project’s findings will offer critical insights into how digital technologies mediate nationalist and racialized discourse, making it highly relevant to scholars in media studies, cultural studies, sociology, and Asian studies. Ultimately, this research will contribute to scholarly discussions on hate speech and digital nationalism while fostering deeper cross-cultural understanding in an era of rising geopolitical tensions.