Program: Sheila Hosner, Building a Community Health Center in Uganda, August 25, 2022

Sheila Hosner

Sheila has been working with the Bukobero community in Uganda since 2018 to build a health center and they are now ready to break ground. Sheila is submitting a District Grant this year which will be for the sanitation system for the health center and has asked for support from the University Sunrise Foundation.

Find Sheila’s slides here.

“When our resources become scarce, we fight over them. In managing our resources and in sustainable development, we plant the seeds of peace.”

– Wangari Maathai, of Kenya, winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize

Program: Lee Otis, E8 Angels, “Angel Investing in CleanTech,” November 17, 2022

Lee Otis - portrait (full).jpg

For over 25 yrs, Lee has been committed to the conservation of our planet and invested in solutions that help protect it and advocate for its care. Lee is an environmental scientist, sustainable and clean-energy consultant. As a former US EPA scientist, and geographic information systems (GIS) consultant, she has combined her scientific and digital technology experiences to make investments in clean technology startups.

Since being elected as Co-Chair of E8, she has helped create more diversity on the E8 board and increased E8’s membership.

She has five children ranging in ages 19-27; three are currently in college (UW, WSU, and Purdue). Two have graduated.  Both are professionals working as consultants (in energy and sustainability in the PNW and helping build sustainable housing for the homeless in the Bay Area).

Lee has degrees in Geology/Anthropology and a Masters in Science in Environmental Management from the University of San Francisco.

Program: Cliff Mass, UW, “Weather & Climate: Explaining Last Year’s Heat Wave,” August 18, 2022

The University Sunrise Rotary Club program this week will feature the University of Washington’s Cliff Mass discussing weather and climate.  Join us!

The Zoom connection opens at 7 a.m. and the meeting will run from 730 a.m. until 830 a.m.

No reservation is required: just click here Thursday morning!

Cliff Mass is a University of Washington Professor of Atmospheric Sciences.

He is a meteorologist who specializes in weather prediction and modeling. A particular emphasis of his research has been the weather features of the western United States. The Seattle Times has called him the “closest thing to a celebrity scientist in Seattle,” and he is the author of The Weather of the Pacific Northwest—one of the best-selling books from the University of Washington Press. He also writes a popular blog about meteorological phenomena, among other weather-related musings, and he has a regular weather segment on one of the local NPR affiliates. Model simulations have been key tools for him and his group, which now runs the most extensive local high-resolution prediction system in the United States. He has received the Max Eaton Award from the American Meteorological Society, of which he is also a Fellow.

Program: Emily Bender, University of Washington, “What Citizens Need to Know About Artificial Intelligence,” August 11, 2022

Here are Dr. Bender’s slides:

In this talk, Dr. Emily Bender will describe the ways in which so-called “AI” technology is over-sold and over-hyped, both by the companies (and sometimes academic researchers) creating it and journalists reporting on it.  She will illustrate how to tell when journalists aren’t asking the right questions and talk about the questions that she thinks we all should be asking instead.

Emily M. Bender is a Professor of Linguistics and Adjunct Professor in Computer Science and Engineering and the Information School at the University of Washington, where she has been on the faculty since 2003.  Her research includes multilingual grammar engineering, the interaction of linguistics and language technology, and how to incorporate considerations of societal impacts into the design of language technology.

Program: Jon Fehrenbach, “Aviation from the Wright Brothers to WWI, Part II,” August 4, 2022

Jon Fehrenbach is a retired engineer, having been a structural engineer and engineering manager at Boeing until his retirement in June 2014. Jon received his Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering, and his Master’s Degree in Engineering, both from Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. In a 35-year career at Boeing, Jon worked in airframe structures engineering on numerous programs on both the commercial side (727, 737, 777, 787 Programs) and the military side (B-2 Stealth Bomber, Joint Strike Fighter Proposal, F-22 Fighter Program). He specialized in the design of advanced carbon-fiber reinforced composites for airframe primary structure.

After retiring, Jon completed Docent training at the Museum of Flight and now works as a volunteer Docent at the Museum, chairs the Museum’s Docent Training Committee, and does presentations in the Puget Sound community for the Museum’s Speakers Bureau. He is also interested in supporting and promoting STEM-related education programs and initiatives. In his leisure time, Jon is a bicyclist (road bike/touring), pickleball player, and long-suffering Seattle sports fan. He enjoys reading, with aviation history, biographies, and other historical non-fiction currently taking up most of his reading list.

Program: Lawrence White, “Growing Up in a Mixed-Race Family in Seattle,” July 28, 2022

Lawrence White was born in Seattle, WA 1970 to mother Sylvia (White) and father Lawrence Sr. (Black) and raised in south Seattle Rainier Beach area.  He will be sharing his story about what it was like growing up in a mixed race household in Seattle. He lived there from 1970-1988 and then again from 1992-today.

He graduated from Rainier Beach High School in 1988 and from Seattle Central College 2000. Mr. White went into the Army right out of high school and returned to the Seattle area afterwards. He married his high school sweetheart in 1989 and will celebrate 33 years this year! 

Lawrence and his wife had two beautiful daughters Marianna and Shaelanna.  They have a 3rd daughter Ausha who is actually his cousin–Lawrence stepped in as dad and granddad when she was in high school.  He also has three granddaughters: Audrey (8) and Maddy (4) from Marianna and Zoe (10) from Ausha.

Lawrence worked several different jobs through the 1990’s and began his IT career in 2000.  He owned an Information Security business 2000-2012 that started as security testing and ended in security training. Lawrence started in IT in the retirement community industry in 2001 and has been doing it ever since, working at Covenant Living at the Shores since February 2019.

Thanks to Victoria Wenick for arranging this program!

Program: Club Networking, July 7, 2022

Our program this week will be a networking session. Everyone joining us on Zoom will get a chance to introduce themselves and find out what all of us have been up to. Join us!

University Sunrise Rotary Club builds more tiny homes
The University Sunrise Rotary Club builds more tiny homes for the homeless