UW Speakers Bureau
Welcome to the UW Speakers Bureau!
The University of Washington is home to experts on many topics of broad interest to the public and that affect people’s daily lives, from minimum wage to volcanoes. Below are names of UW researchers who have indicated that they are willing to present their work in public talks to community groups.
The names below are listed in alphabetical order. To find the best match for your group, use the “search” and “filter” tools to sort potential speakers by their name, expertise or UW department. If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, please use the contact information at the bottom to get help finding a match.
If you’re looking to host an event outside the Puget Sound area, please contact us so we can help you find a speaker.
Contact:
speakerbureau@uw.edu
| Photo | Name | Title | Email / Phone | Expertise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scott Allard | Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Poverty and inequality, safety net policy and urban policy |
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| Ernesto Alvarado | Research associate professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences | Forest fire ecology, fire management, prescribed fire, smoke emissions, climate change, tropical forestry, landscape, international forestry, modeling |
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| Cecilia Aragon | Professor, Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering | Human-centered data science; data visualization; visual analytics; human-computer interaction; data-intensive discovery; human-centered natural language processing. |
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| Joel Baker | Science director, Center for Urban Waters | Transport of organic contaminants in the environment, oil spills and water contamination, particularly in urban environments. |
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| Rory Barnes | Research assistant professor, astronomy | Identifying habitable planets, formation and evolution of habitable planets |
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| Erica Mills Barnhart | Director, Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy | Communications, marketing, nonprofits, philanthropy |
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| George Bergantz | Professor, Department of Earth & Space Sciences | Volcanoes in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. Numerical modeling, lab experiments and field studies. |
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| Carl Bergstrom | Professor, Department of Biology | Behavior, evolution and systematics, mathematical and computational biology |
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| Elin Björling | Senior research scientist and lecturer, Human Centered Design & Engineering | Technology design to improve mental health in teens |
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| Ann Bostrom | Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Risk perception, risk communication, and decision making under uncertainty |
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| Sally Brown | Research associate professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences | Contaminated soils, risks, waste (compost municipal wastewater) soil amendments, carbon accounting |
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| Benjamin M. Brunjes | Assistant Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | American political institutions and processes; Public administration – bureaucracy, management, organization theory, ethics; and Public finance and procurement – budgeting, tax policy, government contracting |
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| Karin Bumbaco | Washington's deputy state climatologist, and research scientist, UW Climate Impacts Group | Past, current and future Washington weather trends. Washington snowfall and drought. Publishes the monthly newsletter on statewide trends and forecasts. |
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| Steve Calandrillo | Professor, law | Controversial law and public policy topics including contracts, daylight saving time, drone technology/regulation, organ donation, minimum wage legislation, instant replay, and baseball’s designated hitter rule |
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| Ryan Calo | Associate professor, law | law, technology, robotics, artificial intelligence, misinformation |
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| Shuyi Chen | Professor, Department of Atmospheric Sciences | Tropical meteorology, air-sea interactions, mesoscale dynamics, numerical modeling |
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| Eric Chudler | Research associate professor, Department of Bioengineering | Behavioral neuroscience, brain-computer interfaces |
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| Alison Cullen | Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Risk analysis, environmental policy, wildfire risk and management |
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| Angel Fettig | Associate professor, education | Special education, early childhood special education, developmental disabilities |
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| Karen Fredriksen Goldsen | Professor, School of Social Work | Aging, well-being and longevity, intergenerational solutions to reduce social isolation, health disparities and resilience among LGBTQ+ people and other underserved communities |
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| Anne Goodchild | Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering | Freight transportation, E-commerce and online shopping, Urban Freight Home delivery, UAV or drone delivery, Goods movement, Sustainable freight transportation, Transportation logistics |
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| Mary Kay Gugerty | Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Evaluation and impact measurement in the social sector; advocacy, accountability and voluntary regulation programs among nonprofit and NGOs; and health, agriculture and rural development in sub-Saharan Africa |
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| Crystal C. Hall | Associate professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Judgment and decision making, poverty and social welfare policy, and psychology and behavioral economics |
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| Brian Harvey | Assistant professor, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences | Wildfires, climate, ecology, resource management, forest disturbances |
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| Heather Hill | Associate professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Effects of poverty and low-wage work on families and children |
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| Ines Jurcevic | Assistant professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Intersection of social psychology and public policy; stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination and diversity |
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| Reşat Kasaba | Professor, Jackson School of International Studies | State-society relations in the Middle East from a historical perspective, Turkey |
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| Deborah Kelley | Professor, School of Oceanography | Underwater volcanoes, hydrothermal vents, cabled deep-sea observatories |
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| Sharon Kioko | Associate professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Public finance (US states/local governments), tax policy, voter referendum and tax limitations, education finance (K-12), infrastructure finance/debt management |
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| Marieka Klawitter | Professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Family and employment policy, gender, policy analysis, LGBTQ policy and savings and asset-building for low-income families |
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| Patricia Kramer | Professor, anthropology | Biological anthropology, evolution, human paleontology, nonhuman primates |
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| Jane Lee | Assistant professor, social work | Role of migration shaping health and wellbeing of immigrant populations |
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| Taryn Lindhorst | Professor, School of Social Work | Grief/loss, death and dying, cancer, domestic violence, international child abduction |
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| Joe Lott | Associate professor, education | Equity studies, higher education, policy and educational reform |
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| Don MacKenzie | Associate professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering | Electric vehicles, shared use transportation services, energy use in transportation sector |
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| Charles Marcus | Professor, Department of Materials Science & Engineering and Department of Physics | Experimental condensed matter physics, quantum coherent electronics, quantum matter, qubits, quantum chaos, complexity, topology in condensed matter |
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| Julian Marshall | Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering | Models and measurements of people's exposure to air pollution, investigating ways to reduce exposures, environmental justice and disparities in exposure, exposures in the United States and in low-income countries |
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| Karin Martin | Assistant professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Crime and punishment policy, criminal justice debt, courts and sentencing, criminal justice reform |
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| Scott Montgomery | Lecturer, Jackson School of International Studies | Arctic and oil, oil and gas (reserves, technology, prices, politics), fracking, nuclear power, worked 25 years in the energy industry |
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| Steve Muench | Professor, Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering | Infrastructure construction (bridges, roads, dams, etc.), Transportation infrastructure sustainability, Sustainability rating systems, Roads and pavements |
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| Devin Naar | Professor, international studies | Modern Jewish history, Jewish culture from antiquity until today, Sephardic history and culture, the history and memory of the Holocaust |
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| Jan Newton | Oceanographer, UW Applied Physics Laboratory | Ocean observing, ocean acidification and phytoplankton in Puget Sound and Pacific Northwest waters |
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| Jeffrey Ochsner | Professor, architecture | Architectural design, urban design, historic preservation, and architectural history |
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| Stephen Page | Associate professor, Evans School of Public Policy & Governance | Public leadership, organizational culture, inter-organizational collaboration, transportation policy and projects |
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| Saadia Pekkanen | Professor, Jackson School of International Studies | Space law, space security, space policy, space diplomacy, Small-Satellites-Big Data (SSBD) |
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| Franziska Roesner | Associate professor, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering | Computer security and privacy, online mis/disinformation, online advertising and tracking |
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| Ilene Schwartz | Professor, education | Early childhood special education, applied behavior analysis and interventions for autism |
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| Jeff Shulman | Professor, Foster School of Business | Marketing, pricing strategies, Seattle growth, gig economy |
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| Hugh Spitzer | Professor, School of Law | Constitutional law, federalism, legal ethics and professional responsibility, state and local government law, comparative constitutionalism |
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| Riki Thompson | Associate Professor, Writing Studies & Digital Rhetoric at UW Tacoma | Intersections of language, technology, identity, and interpersonal connectivity with a focus on how people negotiate digital spaces to connect with (and exclude) others |
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| Harold Tobin | Professor, Department of Earth & Space Sciences, and Washington's state seismologist | Earthquakes, Cascadia subduction zone, ShakeAlert earthquake early warning system, global plate tectonics |
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| Kathy Troost | Associate teaching professor, Department of Earth & Space Sciences | Landslides, Seattle geology, Puget Lowland geology, geologic hazard mapping |
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| Denise Walker | Research associate professor, School of Social Work | Development, testing and implementation of interventions that bring about positive changes in patterns of behavior; treatment of marijuana disorders in both adolescents and adults |
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| Kathryn Watts | Professor, law | Administrative law, constitutional law, presidential powers, U.S. Supreme Court |
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| Jevin West | Associate professor, Information School | Misinformation, evolution of science, the models and science used to predict the spread of COVID-19 |