Recent accolades for the University of Washington encompass an EarthLab Innovation Grant, the Best Paper Award from the American Political Science Association, and honorable mention from the American Society for Theatre Research.

UW professor Richard Watts and team receive EarthLab Innovation Grant

Richard Watts, UW associate professor of French, participates in an interdisciplinary team from the UW that was awarded an EarthLab Innovation Grant to advance their joint effort, “Life in Spite of It All: Water, Wetlands, and Reclamation in a Changing Climate.” 

The $80,000 grant, distributed through EarthLab’s 2024–25 funding cycle, supports a team that also comprises additional members from the UW faculty: Meghan Halabisky, remote-sensing scientist within the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, and Danny Hoffman, professor of international studies and director of the Jackson School of International Studies. Independent wetlands researcher and visual artist Maureen Ryan completes the group. The initiative emphasizes documenting climate change and cultural resilience in a vulnerable wetlands area of the Senegal River Valley in southwestern Mauritania. 

“This grant facilitated our Seattle-based research and filmmaking team to undertake a second site visit to the area,” Watts stated. “The film footage collected is currently being edited into a documentary that delves into the environmental and human implications of a vanishing landscape.” 

Political science faculty recognized for research on faith, policy, and economic bias

Asli Cansunar, UW associate professor of political science, was honored with the Weber Best Paper in Religion and Politics Award from the American Political Science Association’s (APSA) Religion & Politics Section. 

The award acknowledges the best paper presented at the preceding year’s APSA Annual Meeting that embodies the section’s objective: promoting the examination of the connections between religion and politics. Recipients are recognized for addressing pertinent and timely subjects in a theoretically innovative and methodologically sound manner. 

Cansunar received recognition for her co-authored research, “Homogenizing the High Street: The Economic Cleansing of Minority Elites through Fiscal Discrimination,” which investigates the intricate relationship between faith and policy. She views the award as an important endorsement of her scholarly contributions in a progressively evolving field. 

“Receiving this accolade acknowledges my efforts on the relationship between faith and policy,” she expressed. “This recognition motivates further thoughtful exploration of the intersection between religion and politics, within academia and in broader contexts.” 

Theatre professor Stefka Mihaylova gains recognition for inaugural monograph

Stefka Mihaylova, UW associate professor of theatre theory and criticism, received honorable mention for the Barnard Hewitt Award for Outstanding Research in Theatre History from the American Society for Theatre Research. 

The Barnard Hewitt Award recognizes extraordinary research and scholarship in theatre history and is one of the most esteemed honors in the discipline. The honorable mention underscores Mihaylova’s debut monograph, “Viewers in Distress: Race, Gender, Religion, and Avant-Garde Performance at the Turn of the 21st Century.” 

In her book, Mihaylova investigates how avant-garde performance art interacts with identity, faith, and societal distress, providing new perspectives on the political significance of live performance. 

“This is an accolade for my first monograph, Viewers in Distress: Race, Gender, Religion, and Avant-Garde Performance at the Turn of the 21st Century,” Mihaylova stated.