When you get into the car of the app-based driver you just tapped up on your phone, you expect and hope the driver and the car are safe and capable of getting you where you need to go. Apps rate drivers, which you can see. But what if the driver is sick? What if the car has a mechanical problem? What if the driver has simply had a bad day?

What you may not have realized is that the driver is wondering the same thing about you: Is the passenger ill? Are they properly masked? Will they pull it down once seated? Will they cough, blowing air around? Are they in a bad mood? Did they just get out of a rough meeting or an alcohol-fueled altercation at a bar?

“It’s a job that is vital to so many people, for moving people to and from medical appointments, to and from the airport, etc. Obviously, app-based drivers are essential for moving people,” said , an assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the 91̽��. “It’s vital work, but it’s largely something the general public seems to forget about.”

Baker is senior author on new published Sept. 14 in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine that is focused on understanding the pressures, risks and dilemmas facing app-based drivers and how they were affected by the pandemic.

Every ride carries potential risks. Each trip includes at least two people — possible disease vectors, unpredictable humans — now in a closed and confined space. The passenger may face this risk a few times a week. For the driver, this is a workplace risk possibly undertaken dozens of times a day.

Throw a viral pandemic into the mix, and you have workers in a largely unprotected job facing a range of very difficult choices: keep driving no matter what or lose income; ignore an improperly masked passenger or tell them to mask up and risk a bad review or altercation; drive a coughing passenger to a COVID-19 testing site or face deactivation for turning them away; pay out-of-pocket for cleaning supplies and PPE or run an even greater risk of infection.

To illuminate these pressures, Baker and other 91̽��researchers trained four app-based drivers, all affiliated with the Teamsters Local 117 in Seattle, to conduct survey interviews of their fellow drivers. The newly trained interviewers surveyed 100 app-based drivers in Seattle between Aug. 11 and Sept. 7, 2020. The drivers were predominantly male (97%), identified as Black or African (84%) and were under the age of 55 (87%).

The majority of drivers reported high levels of stress and concern about being exposed to the novel coronavirus. Roughly 30% thought they had already had COVID-19. Most, 73 drivers, lost income, while spending their own money on PPE. Those who left the business because of the pandemic (42 drivers) reported having a hard time getting unemployment benefits. Only 31% said they received an appropriate mask and hand sanitizer from the company they drove for, and even then the supplies were not enough.

“For workers who are in this kind of employment during the pandemic, they receive very little support from the companies that they drive for, and this is a population that had a lot of awareness of the potential exposures they could be facing,” Baker said. “They had a lot of concerns and worries, not only about how those exposures would be affecting their health and their family’s health, but also the viability and their job.”

The drivers spoke of feeling isolated and lonely, since they rarely have a chance to talk with their peers.

In the study, one driver explained, “[I]n this line of work, you’re very insular. I mean, I’m in my own little universe… so finding a way to bridge that gap has been the biggest challenge.”

Simple issues, like finding restrooms, became bigger problems with libraries, community centers and businesses closed during shutdowns.

“You have other people who are doing the same job as you, but you may never interact with them. So you miss out on some of that strength, not only brainstorming of like, ‘Hey what masks are you using?’ or ‘Where are you stopping?’ but it also keeps workers from organizing,” Baker said. “If you get these workers talking to each other and recognizing that they are all facing the same struggles, that can lead to changes.”

In Seattle, drivers and their union leaders have been able to win a as well as establish a “” where drivers contest being taken off the apps through which they are hired. There have been other improvements as well in Seattle and .

Baker explains that while Seattle has taken steps to try to improve drivers’ working conditions, drivers nationwide do not enjoy the same benefits because they are not classified as employees. So, they don’t have access to state or federal health and safety protections, a living wage or sick leave.

“This is a full-time job for many people, this is not just driving on the weekends to supplement another job. These drivers are raising families, using what they make to pay for their kids to go to college. This is important, vital work, and we should be recognizing that through the benefits that we demand that these drivers receive,” Baker said. “Not only for their well-being, but also for the customers they interact with.”

Co-authors include Kerry Beckman, Lily Monsey and Megan Archer, all graduate students and staff in the 91̽��School of Public Health; Nicole Errett, an assistant professor in the 91̽��Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences; and Ann Bostrom,  a 91̽��professor of public policy and governance. This research was funded by a 91̽��Population Health Initiative Economic Recovery Grant.

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For more information, contact Baker at bakermg@uw.edu

The National Science Foundation has funded a multi-institutional team led by Oregon State University and the 91̽�� to work on increasing resiliency among Pacific Northwest coastal communities.

The new Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub will serve coastal communities in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. The hub’s multidisciplinary approach will span geoscience, social science, public policy and community partnerships.

The Pacific Northwest coastline is at significant risk of earthquakes from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, an offshore fault that stretches more than 600 miles from Cape Mendocino in California to southern British Columbia. The region also faces ongoing risks from coastal erosion, regional flooding and rising seas due to climate change.

The newly established Cascadia CoPes Hub, based at OSU, will increase the capacity of coastal communities to adapt through community engagement and co-production of research, and by training a new generation of coastal hazards scientists and leaders from currently underrepresented communities.

The initial award is for $7.2 million over the first two years, with the bulk split between OSU and the UW. The total award, subject to renewals, is $18.9 million over five years.

“This issue requires a regional approach,” said co-principal investigator Ann Bostrom, a 91̽��professor of public policy and governance. “This new research hub has the potential to achieve significant advances across the hazard sciences — from the understanding of governance systems, to having a four-dimensional understanding of Cascadia faults and how they work, and better understanding the changing risks of compound fluvial-coastal flooding, to new ways of engaging with communities to co-produce research that will be useful for coastal planning and decisions in our region. There are a lot of aspects built into this project that have us all excited.”

The community collaborations, engagement and outreach will focus on five areas: Humboldt County, California; greater Coos Bay, Oregon; Newport to Astoria, Oregon; Tokeland to Taholah, Washington; and from Everett to Bellingham, Washington.

“We have a lot to learn from the communities in our region, and part of the proposal is to help communities learn from each other, as well,” Bostrom said.

The Cascadia hub is part of the NSF’s newly announced , an effort to help coastal communities become more resilient in the face of mounting environmental pressures. Nearly 40% of the U.S. population lives in a coastal county. The NSF established one other large-scale hub for research and broadening participation, in New Jersey, and focused hubs in Texas, North Carolina and Virginia.

The Cascadia hub will focus on two broad areas: advancing understanding of the risks of Cascadia earthquakes and other geological hazards to coastal regions; and reducing disaster risk through assessment, planning and policymaking.

“We’re not thinking only about the possibility of one magnitude-9 earthquake; this effort is about the fabric of hazards over time,” said co-principal investigator , a 91̽��professor of Earth and space sciences and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. “The heart of this project is merging physical science and social science with a community focus in an integrated way — translating scientific discovery with actions that coastal communities can use.”

The project intentionally emphasizes incorporating traditional ecological knowledge from the region’s Native American tribes as well as local ecological knowledge from fishers, farmers and others who have personal history and experience with coastal challenges.

“We are committed to co-producing research together with coastal communities and integrating multiple perspectives about disaster risk and its management,” said , an assistant professor in UW’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, who is co-leading the hub’s Community Adaptive Capacity and Community Engagement and Outreach teams.

“There are many dimensions to resilience, including economics, health, engineering and more,” said principal investigator , a professor at OSU. “This research hub is a way to bring together a lot of groups with interest in coastal resilience who have not had the resources to work together on these issues.”

The research hub’s other principal investigators are , a 91̽��associate professor of Earth and space sciences who will lead efforts to quantify the timing, triggers and effects of landslide hazards on communities and on landscape evolution, and , a professor of sociology at OSU. The other institutional partners are Washington Sea Grant, Oregon Sea Grant, University of Oregon, Washington State University, Humboldt State University, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community, Georgia Tech University and Arizona State University.

For more information, contact Bostrom at abostrom@uw.edu, Ruggiero at 541-737-1239 or peter.ruggiero@oregonstate.edu and Tobin at htobin@uw.edu. See related press releases from and .

Historian Glennys Young featured in Spanish TV documentary about Cold War-era interrogation program

, professor of history and of international studies and chair of the Department of History, was featured in a Spanish television documentary, “,” which aired in October. The film is about years-long CIA interrogations of Spanish citizens during the Cold War who were sent as children to the Soviet Union in 1937 to escape the Spanish Civil War, then later returned to their homeland in the 1950s. Young, a specialist in Russian and Soviet history, was interviewed in June of 2019 while in Spain for book research. Watch a for the film. Read more on the department .

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Distinguished educator award, national committee posts for Evans School’s Ann Bostrom

, professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, has received the from the Society for Risk Analysis. The award is given each year to “that teacher, author or mentor who has contributed substantially to the training of new experts in risk analysis.” The Evans School’s Allison Cullen received the award in 2014.

Bostrom, the Weyerhaeuser Endowed Professor in Environmental Policy, also has recently been named to two national committees. She will serve a three-year term on an advisory committee with the federal . And she has been named to the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s .

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State historic preservation award for Nicole Klein and colleagues with AS 91̽��Shell House’s ‘The Next 100 Years’ campaign

The Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation has named Nicole Klein and fellow members of the AS 91̽��Shell House’s “The Next 100 Years” campaign the recipients of its 2020 . Klein is capital campaign manager for the AS 91̽��Shell House.

“Driven by the building’s centennial in 2018 along with the inspiring story chronicled in ,’ a group of 91̽��alums, former rowing team members, the student union, plus friends and family, came together

with a vision to restore and open up the building for public education and enjoyment,” the award states. “Nicole was the perfect person to lead this ambitious fundraising effort. Her passion for the preservation of this building and its rich history is boundless.”

Klein also credits Matt Newman, director of 91̽��Recreation, for gathering the team, which also included veterans and area tribal members as well as historians and architects, aviators, sailors and 91̽��staff and faculty.

The 2020 awards also included a special achievement honor for the new on the 91̽��campus, saying, “The new facility offers superior protection and curation of our region’s shared heritage that will continue to be preserved.”

, a professor in the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, will be part of the AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography, led by the University of Oklahoma. , , and , faculty in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, and , associate professor of statistics, will be part of the AI Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning, led by the University of Texas at Austin.

The NSF on Wednesday announced five institutes in all, based at research universities around the country and part of a collaboration among the U.S. departments of Agriculture, Homeland Security and Transportation. The institutes aim to accelerate research, expand America’s workforce and transform society in the coming decades. Each institute receives $20 million in NSF funding over five years.

The NSF AI Institute for Research on Trustworthy AI in Weather, Climate, and Coastal Oceanography assembles researchers in machine learning, atmospheric and ocean science and risk communication to develop user-driven, trustworthy AI that addresses pressing concerns in weather, climate and coastal hazards prediction.

“In collaboration with our colleagues in this new institute, the risk communication research team will examine how AI information influences trust and use of AI over time by decision makers in ecological and water resource management, weather forecasting and emergency management,” Bostrom said. “It’s an exciting opportunity to advance fundamental research on mental models and perceptions of AI in environmental science contexts that have critical consequences for all of us.”

In addition to the 91̽��and the University of Oklahoma, other participating institutions are Colorado State University, the University of New York at Albany, North Carolina State University, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Del Mar College; the National Center for Atmospheric Research; and private industry partners including Google, IBM, NVIDIA and Disaster Tech.

Amy McGovern, a professor of computer science and meteorology at the University of Oklahoma and lead researcher for this NSF institute, said the long-term goal is to apply AI to a broad array of environmental challenges.

“This institute is a convergent center that will create trustworthy AI for environmental science, revolutionize prediction and understanding of high-impact weather and ocean hazards, and benefit society by protecting lives and property,” McGovern said. “Leading experts from AI, atmospheric and ocean science, risk communication, and education, will work synergistically to develop and test trustworthy AI methods that will transform our understanding and prediction of the environment.”

The NSF Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning will focus on major theoretical challenges in AI, including next-generation algorithms for deep learning, neural architecture optimization, and efficient robust statistics.

At their core, tools from machine learning still rely on models and algorithms that are often ill-equipped to process dynamic, complex datasets. For example, algorithms designed to help machines recognize, categorize and label images can’t keep up with the massive amount of video data people upload to the internet every day.

“This institute tackles the foundational challenges that need to be solved to keep AI on its current trajectory and maximize its impact on science and technology,” said Oh, an associate professor in the Allen School. “We plan to develop a toolkit of advanced algorithms for deep learning, create new methods for coping with the dynamic and noisy nature of training datasets, learn how to exploit structure in real-world data, and target more complex and real-world objectives. These four goals will help solve research challenges in multiple areas, including medical imaging and robot navigation.”

Wichita State University and Microsoft Research are also participating in this institute.

NSF’s history of investment in AI research and workforce development “paved the way for many of the breakthrough commercial technologies permeating and driving society today,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “NSF invests more than $500 million in AI research annually. We are supporting five NSF AI Institutes this year, with more to follow, creating hubs for academia, industry, and government to collaborate on profound discoveries and develop new capabilities to advance American competitiveness for decades to come.”

The other NSF institutes announced Tuesday are the AI Institute for Student-AI Teaming, led by the University of Colorado Boulder; the AI Institute for Molecular Discovery, Synthetic Strategy and Manufacturing, led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; and the AI Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions, led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

For more information on the NSF AI institutes, visit www.nsf.gov.

Adapted from press releases from the National Science Foundation, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at Austin.