Three new faculty books from the 91探花 cover the recipes and culture of the world鈥檚 largest Syrian refugee camp, traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous peoples and data science for neuroimaging researchers.

91探花News spoke with the authors to learn more.

Documenting history and rituals of Syrian cuisine

When was invited to Zaatari, the world鈥檚 largest Syrian refugee camp, she noticed that stories of the camp rarely included women鈥檚 voices. As she learned more about their lives, she had the idea to create a cookbook to counter the effects of domicide 鈥� the deliberate destruction of housing and basic infrastructure 鈥� and carve a space for the women to share their cultural knowledge with the world.

Published by Goose Lane Editions, 鈥�,鈥� brings to life stories and traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation. Fisher wrote the book in collaboration with over 2,000 refugees. All royalties return to the people of Zaatari, which is located near Jordan鈥檚 border with Syria.

鈥淭he book was a way to increase global awareness about war and refugees, and to show how important food and other aspects of the culture are in human survival and in telling the human story,鈥� said Fisher, a 91探花professor in the Information School and an adjunct professor of communication.

The women in the camp were excited when Fisher approached them with the idea 鈥� even though many of them had never seen a cookbook.

鈥淧art of why our book is so fascinating is that it focuses on tacit knowledge and the social nature of cooking,鈥� Fisher said. 鈥淵ou learn to cook by cooking alongside somebody else.鈥�

With over 130 recipes, some of which have never been written down before, the book documents the history and rituals of Syrian cuisine and how they have been adapted to life in a refugee camp. It also chronicles camp culture.

鈥淲e cannot lose our connections with humanity,鈥� Fisher said. 鈥淛ust because someone is a refugee living in a camp halfway around the world, doesn’t mean that their lives don’t have value. They are important within the global world that we live in and are all part of the history of humanity. All of these things need to be preserved and supported.鈥�

Because they are war refugees, the people involved in the project were all credited with aliases. The photographs of the women were also taken from behind to protect their identities and as part of Islamic practice.

鈥淭he Zaatari book is just a powerful example of the 91探花community-engaged research, of working with a refugee community and agencies inside a high security closed refugee camp,鈥� Fisher said. 鈥淚t was just incredible what we were able to do.鈥�

For more information, contact Fisher at fisher@uw.edu.听

Collection highlights Indigenous environmental knowledge

In 鈥�,鈥� presenters from the discuss best practices for traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK, which refers to evolving knowledge acquired by Indigenous peoples through direct contact with the environment.

(enrolled Haliwa Saponi/descendant Eastern Band Cherokee), who is an associate professor and chair of Social and Historical studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the 91探花 Tacoma, edited the book. She brought together speakers from the Indigenous Speakers Series and multigenerational Indigenous peoples to share how TEK aids in environmental justice efforts and why it should be adapted into Western sciences.

Launched by Montgomery in 2015, the Indigenous Speaker Series is a multi-purpose platform that promotes community partnerships, amplifies the voices of Indigenous people and dialogues about Indigenous people鈥檚 cultural and traditional lived experiences.

鈥淧art of the Indigenous Speaker Series is about bringing in multigenerational voices to talk about all sorts of topics that relate to sustainability, because sustainability isn鈥檛 just about ecosystems or STEM initiatives,鈥� Montgomery said. 鈥淚t’s also about culture, identity, all those sorts of things. This project is about me really being passionate about decolonizing and indigenizing the narrative.鈥�

As the founder and director of the Indigenous Speaker Series and 鈥渁 humble, forever student,鈥� Montgomery wanted to give back to the community by helping people share their stories.

鈥淐ulturally, I’m taught that my wealth is determined by how many people can say I contributed when asked,鈥� Montgomery said. 鈥淒id I give back? How many people did I uplift as I made it on the journey? Being an editor, it sounds like a position of unique power. But to me, it was a humbling opportunity to reach out to people and to say, 鈥業 believe in your voice. Let me create a platform so you can share it.鈥欌��

Storytelling is about empowerment and justice, Montgomery said. Published by University Press of Colorado, the book is a multi-tribal collection and a space for people from all walks of life to share interdisciplinary knowledge through their stories.

鈥淭he reason why it’s important for me to always uplift the voices and the storytelling of people is that I want people to feel comfortable in their identity and the walk that they walk,鈥� Montgomery said. 鈥淚f you save spaces to tell their story, erasure doesn’t happen.鈥�

For more information, contact Montgomery at montgm2@uw.edu.听

A new guide on data science for researchers

鈥�,鈥� recently published by Princeton University Press, serves as a guide to broadly relevant data science skills with specific application to neuroimaging research.

Written by , research associate professor of psychology at the 91探花and data science fellow at the 91探花eScience Institute, and , the book fills the need for an authoritative resource on data science for neuroimaging researchers.

鈥淲e鈥檙e both neuroimaging researchers and both of us painstakingly acquired data science skills by learning from mentors and peers and teaching ourselves,鈥� Rokem said. 鈥淲hat we wanted to do was make that process a lot easier, especially for early-career researchers in our field.鈥�

In 2016, Rokem and Yarkoni established a summer school focused on data science and neuroimaging. They鈥檝e received funding from the National Institutes of Mental Health since 2017 to run the course, which is now called . Over the years, they identified gaps in existing training and worked to fill them.

In June, The Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) awarded Rokem the , which is given to an OHBM member who has made significant contribution to education and training in the field of neuroimaging. Rokem was recognized for the work that led to the book, among other accomplishments.

Formal training programs don鈥檛 typically cover topics like data management and programming topics in machine learning, Rokem said. The book provides a source that students, teachers and instructors can use to learn and teach about these skills.

鈥淣euroimaging and neuroscience research, much like many other fields, is inundated in data,鈥� Rokem said. 鈥淭he instruments that we use to make neuroimaging measurements and the datasets that we have available to us are all becoming larger, more complicated.鈥�

Researchers who are mentoring students don鈥檛 always have experience with the current magnitude of available datasets. 鈥淒ata Science for Neuroimaging: An Introduction鈥� helps bridge the gap.

There is also a growing concern about reproducibility in the neuroimaging field, Rokem said.

鈥淥ne of the ways to mitigate concerns about reproducibility is to automate everything, track the progress of the research and then make the research openly available in a way that others can inspect what we’re doing,鈥� Rokem said. 鈥淭his is part of a larger movement around open science and reproducible research that the eScience Institute has been advancing here at the UW. Part of what we write about in the book is, what are the tools and techniques for making research accessible to and reproducible by others?鈥�

The book, which allows users to run code examples and experiment with them hands-on, is also openly.

For more information, contact Rokem at arokem@uw.edu.

Three new faculty books from the 91探花 cover a variety of topics: nightlife among Black queer women, hybrid warfare and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and decolonizing climate justice. 91探花News talked with the authors to learn more about their recent publications.

Exploring nightlife as community among Black queer women in Chicago

When people learn of Kemi Adeyemi鈥檚 primary research topic 鈥� nightlife 鈥� they assume it means endless socializing and dancing. Fun in the name of study.

And it can be, says Adeyemi. But it also can be frustrating and very often exhausting. Researching nightlife, after all, is still work: Commuting and interviewing, into the wee hours, night after night.

It鈥檚 a challenge she points out early in her new book, 鈥� in Chicago,鈥� published in September by Duke University Press. But it was a challenge she believes was worth undertaking to explore the concepts of community and identity, and how those can be cultivated and celebrated on the dance floor.

, an associate professor of gender, women and sexuality studies at the 91探花, spent a decade visiting the clubs and party spaces of Black queer women in Chicago, where she received her doctorate at Northwestern University.

鈥淧artying is a very integral part of how people organize their relationships to themselves as queer people, to the people around them as queer people, and to how the city folds them in or not,鈥� Adeyemi said. 鈥淲hat happens in the club cannot be separated from what happens in the world beyond the club. How people move in the club, how they feel, how they talk about being out at night — they’re not just talking about a great nightlife space. They’re talking about how they situate themselves in community and in the city.鈥�

That city, Chicago, is both a backdrop and a theme of the book. While Adeyemi structures the book in sections according to three distinct nightlife parties, she also elaborates on Chicago politics, geography and gentrification, and how those factors influence how and where Black queer women feel safe and comfortable.

But those factors aren鈥檛 confined to Chicago; they affect people everywhere. Urban development, Adeyemi explains, 鈥渟hapes, surfaces and diminishes queer nightlife, and Black queer night life, in particular.鈥�

鈥淲e鈥檙e talking about racialized, sexualized communities within urban development contexts. But it could also be a small-town gay bar in the middle of nowhere,鈥� Adeyemi said. 鈥淭he minute that we start paying attention to how that bar emerges, we recognize that it’s not out of nowhere. It’s been produced. It has a geographic, political and economic history. I hope that a reader could understand the building blocks of that argument and apply it wherever they are.鈥�

Adeyemi draws upon scores of interviews for the book, allowing many of the voices of her subjects to comprise the book鈥檚 final chapter. There, party organizers, DJs and attendees discuss the challenges they face and some possible solutions, all with the aim of creating safe spaces and community, such as limiting alcohol and having better-trained staff who are sensitive to the needs and concerns of their clientele.

鈥淚 talked with many kinds of people who wanted many different kinds of things for their queer nightlife, and it was never,聽鈥極h, let’s just go to a bar and get drunk聽and dance,鈥櫬爓hich I thought was really interesting. People want to develop more lasting and sustainable ways of relating within that space, and聽we keep going back and trying again,鈥� Adeyemi said. 鈥淭here’s a beautiful kind of optimism to that.鈥�

For more information, contact Adeyemi at kadeyemi@uw.edu.

NATO, hybrid warfare and Russia鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine

鈥溾�� examines how hybrid warfare is being used against NATO countries, identifies vulnerabilities and offers potential solutions to help member states diminish cyberattacks and increase energy independence.

, acting assistant professor in the 91探花 Jackson School of International Studies and a visiting professor at the United States Army War College, served as the editor and lead author.

The handbook, published in November by U.S. Army War College Press, includes case studies written by JSIS graduate students and Army War College fellows from Lohmann鈥檚 2021 鈥淣ATO, Energy and Cybersecurity鈥� class. The students wrote specific case studies for different NATO countries, which provided the platform for the book.

鈥淭his is a great opportunity for 91探花faculty to let our students shine,鈥� Lohmann said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 so important to have our students have their names in the lights. It鈥檚 important to have them be a part of the process and see that their work can have an impact on policy.鈥�

When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the research became even more relevant to policymakers reckoning with the impact of hybrid warfare, which can affect gas prices, disrupt supply chains and test military mobility.

Lohmann said the research group was seeing signs that Russia appeared to be preparing for invasion through low-level hybrid warfare, like the increased planting of disinformation to divide NATO member states and intelligence-gathering on countries supporting Ukraine. Many countries were also completely energy dependent on Russia, which was a concern even before the invasion.

鈥淲e plotted out areas across Europe that we thought Russia would target and, unfortunately, those maps were quite accurate,鈥� Lohmann said. 鈥淭hat was really sad. At the same time, it showed the relevancy of our work. There were three different targeted attacks against wind farms in Germany, for example, as well as ports and nuclear plants. The students mapped out the targets they assumed Russia would hit. Unfortunately, that was exactly the kind of infrastructure Russia has been targeting.鈥�

Energy dependence on Russia is one of the major vulnerabilities highlighted in the book. In one of her chapters, Lohmann wrote about how to make microgrids more efficient and sustainable. In the case of a blackout caused by Russia, having a microgrid allows a town or military base to separate from the main grid and use its own energy source.

The studies also suggest an early response force that would allow NATO countries to work together and quickly share disinformation coming from Russia. Further, a new generation of early warning systems for cyberattacks would help protect critical energy infrastructure.

鈥淵ou have everything connected to cyber and you have these major utilities that are not protected,鈥� Lohmann said. 鈥淥ur proposal for a prototype would use artificial intelligence and machine learning to get ahead of the curve. It鈥檚 not just looking back at patterns. It鈥檚 looking ahead and learning from itself.鈥�

For more information, contact Lohmann at slohmann@uw.edu.

Decolonizing climate justice

In 鈥�,鈥� editor brings together contributors from various tribal affiliations and backgrounds to share the complexities of Indigenous worldviews and examine the relationship between humans and the environment.

Montgomery, associate professor of American Indian studies and ethnic, gender and labor studies at the 91探花 Tacoma, said the purpose of the book is to help decolonize the narratives in academia and other institutions.

Montgomery鈥檚 research focuses on Indigenizing the climate justice narrative, environmental ethics as connected to Indigenous peoples鈥� identities, and eco-critical race theory. In 2015, she launched the , which works to amplify the voices of Indigenous people. Several of those speakers wrote chapters for the book.

鈥淭here鈥檚 this very rigid boundary of whose voices are part of the narrative and publications,鈥� said Montgomery, enrolled member of the Haliwa Saponi Tribe and Eastern Band Cherokee descendant. 鈥淚鈥檓 very passionate about the voices of the people in this project. You should always pay it forward. That鈥檚 the whole purpose, to bring the voices of my relatives with me and allow every person to tell their story. There is not a one-size-fits-all narrative. It鈥檚 interdisciplinary through place-based knowledges and identities.鈥�

The collection covers a range of subjects centered around identity, lived experience and placed-based topics. In her chapter, Montgomery writes on eco-critical race theory. Other chapter titles include 鈥淏uilding Sustainability by Creating Belonging鈥� and 鈥淚ndigenous Feminisms and Environmentalism in Care of Place.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 something I call heart work,鈥� Montgomery said. 鈥淵ou should always bring your people with you. That鈥檚 the whole purpose, to bring people with me and let every person tell their story.鈥�

Montgomery didn鈥檛 provide the co-authors with any boundaries or specific themes. Each person has their own truths and experiences, she said. She wanted to provide a platform for people to write what was 鈥渃lose to their hearts.鈥�

鈥淓veryone has a different narrative,鈥� Montgomery said. 鈥淓veryone has a personal lived experience. This project is decolonizing and Indigenizing the narrative. This is justice in action. This entire book is about what justice demands. Justice is a big word to unpack, but justice demands that Indigenous peoples have a voice. We should always be in a position where we can tell our own stories.鈥�

For more information, contact Montgomery at montgm2@uw.edu.

Through imaginative storytelling and art, “The Return” conveys environmental health from a Native American perspective.听 A center within the 91探花School of Public Health worked with Native American tribes to create and publish the illustrated story as a 32-page comic book.

One of the goals of this Native Tradition, Environment and Community Health Project was to find out how Native American ways of understanding the world and our place in it differ from the Western concept of environmental health. Surveys, interviews, and talking circles identified three core themes of Native environmental health: community, wellness, and inter-relationship.

“The Return”聽was created from the findings. It is a dreamlike account of a Native woman and her baby, and tells how these three concepts are passed to the next generation.

Michelle Montgomery, senior fellow in the 91探花Department of Bioethics and Humanities at the 91探花Center for Genomics & Healthcare Equality, and Nicholas Salazar, a student at the Institute for American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M., developed the book. Montgomery is a tribal member affiliated with the Haliwa Saponi and Eastern Band Cherokee.

The 91探花Center for Ecogenetics & Environmental Health and the Northwest Indian College co-managed the project. The effort began in 2008 with a collaborative grant from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences.

The book was distributed at the 2013 American Indian Higher Education Consortium Student Conference in Green Bay, Wisc. More dissemination opportunities are planned. The end of the book contains a discussion guide and suggestions for related art projects.

“The Return”聽comic book is .