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Distinguished Teaching Awards
David Domke
Erika Goldstein
James Green
John Peterson
Priti Ramamurthy
Barry Witham
Carol Zander

Excellence in Teaching Awards
Chia-Hui Huang
Steve Wolfman

Distinguished Staff Awards
Brian Davis & James Boeckstiegel
Gary Ausman
Felicia Hecker
Sandra Kroupa
Keith Ward

Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award
Thomas Daniel

S. Sterling Munro Public Service Teaching Award
Sergio Palleroni

Outstanding Public Service Award
Anita Ramasastry

Brotman Diversity Award
Business Educational Opportunity Program
Student Outreach Ambassador Program

Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence
Dance Program
Research Apprenticeship Program

Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award
Geoff & Judy Vernon

Alumna Summa Laude Dignatus
Donald Baker

UW Recognition Award
ARCS Foundation, Seattle Chapter

President's Medalist
Roy Chan

Donald Baker

Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus


When your doctor sends you for an ultrasound, you have this year’s Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus to thank that he can use that technology to help him diagnose and treat illnesses. Donald Baker, a 1960 UW electrical engineering graduate, is the man responsible for turning ultrasound images from fuzzy and unreadable to the kind that clinicians can use.

Baker made his discovery while working in the laboratory of the late Robert Rushmer, founder of the UW Bioengineering department. The team there had a continuous wave Doppler ultrasound machine that didn’t provide the clear images needed. It was Baker who figured out that pulsed, not continuous sound waves were the answer. The research was published in 1967, and the rest is history.

But Baker wasn’t only involved in the creation of ultrasound machines. He also was very involved in getting the word out, developing a worldwide network of researchers and clinicians who could go out to teach physicians about the new diagnostic tool. And he was instrumental in establishing training programs for technicians here in the Puget Sound area.

No wonder, then, that Baker is being honored with an award given not for recent work but for a lifetime record. This is the highest honor the UW can bestow on a graduate.

Baker left the University in 1980 to join ATL, a manufacturer of ultrasound technology, as a consultant. He retired in 1985. Honored with the Joseph Homes Pioneer Award of the American Institute of Ultrasound, Baker is now looking forward to having his early inventions in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, where they will go on permanent display sometime this fall for the 40th anniversary of medical ultrasound.