2021 | UW News

May 5, 2021

FASER is born: new experiment will study particles that interact with dark matter

The newest experiment at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is now in place at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. FASER, or Forward Search Experiment, was approved by CERN’s research board in March 2019. Now installed in the LHC tunnel, this experiment, which seeks to understand particles that scientists believe may interact with dark matter, is now undergoing tests before data collection commences next year.

May 4, 2021

Urbanist Charles Wolfe publishes new book, ‘Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character’

In his latest book, “Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character: Principles and Best Practices,” Charles Wolfe asks: How can we create urban environments that are truly livable?

May 3, 2021

Dean Azita Emami’s ‘insider–outsider’ perspective shapes her UW School of Nursing leadership

Dean Azita Emami on the UW campus with Gerberding and Mary Gates Halls in the background.

UW School of Nursing Dean Azita Emami’s commitment to fighting for those underserved by the health care system has deep roots in her identity. Born in Iran, she has been shaped by the experience of being an “insider–outsider.”

During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunities to connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the UW, and the greater community, together online. Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT. Sports…

The U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Washington-based Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, and state emergency managers on Tuesday, May 4, will activate the system that sends earthquake early warnings throughout Washington state. This completes the rollout of ShakeAlert, an automated system that gives people living in Washington, Oregon and California advance warning of incoming earthquakes.

The University of Washington on Monday announced it will require all students on all three of its campuses to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before the start of the autumn quarter. The announcement comes with six weeks remaining in the spring quarter to provide time for students who are in the area to get vaccinated before summer.

Grasses growing in tubes in the foreground. Two people stand behind them. Another person standing to the right.

A team, which includes researchers from the University of Washington, demonstrated that over the course of three years, a genetically engineered switchgrass could break down an explosive chemical in plots of soil at a military range.

April 30, 2021

UW’s new Mobile Health & Outreach Van will serve community and student experience

Getting basic health care to medically underserved populations in Seattle, while providing real-world experience for students hoping to practice in a health care field, takes wheels. Now, through a student-led, interdisciplinary effort by health science departments at the University of Washington, those “wheels” — on the new UW Mobile Health & Outreach Van — are ready.

April 29, 2021

Faculty/staff honors: Golden Apple, Leading the Narrative awards

Patricia Shehan Campbell, professor and chair of music education in the UW School of Music, has been given a 2021 Golden Apple Award by Seattle public television station KCTS for her work on the musical education of children. The annual awards honor successful teaching models and programs in Washington state.

Recent honors to UW faculty include a Golden Apple Award for teaching innovation from Seattle television station KCTS and a Leading the Narrative award for community engagement from the Society of Behavioral Medicine.

The view of Mount Rainier from the UW campus in Seattle

Five faculty members and one affiliate professor at the University of Washington are among 120 new members and 30 international members elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Anna Karlin, professor of computer science and engineering; Rachel Klevit, professor of biochemistry; Randall LeVeque, professor emeritus of applied mathematics; Julie Theriot, professor of biology; Rachel Wong, professor of biological structure; and Julie Overbaugh, professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and a UW affiliate professor of microbiology.

April 28, 2021

Report: UW No. 4 in country for economic impact as a result of federal research investments

The University of Washington is the No. 4 higher education institution in the country in terms of total economic impact as a result of federal research expenditures. The UW alone contributed $306.8 million to the U.S. gross domestic product and helped to produce more than 3,908 jobs, according to The Science Coalition’s fourth Sparking Economic Growth report, released earlier this month.

The University of Washington’s Spokane Center will soon serve the community and its constituents from new offices in Spokane’s historic Spokane Inland Empire Railroad (SIERR) Building, located in the heart of Spokane’s growing University District. The UW Spokane Center will relocate May 1, 2021, to new offices at 850 E. Spokane Falls Blvd. from its office at 201 West Main, where it has been housed since 2015.

Leveraging the tectonic laboratory of the Cascadia subduction zone, the University of Washington today announced a new effort to best understand how to study and live with the threats of earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanos, landslides and other seismic hazards. Dubbed the GeoHazards Initiative, the interdisciplinary work aims to develop and promote the adoption of early detection systems both on land and at sea to help prevent the loss of human life and property.

A picture of power lines at sunset. Everything is hazy.

A new study from researchers at multiple universities, including the UW, shows that exposure disparities among people of color and white people are driven by nearly all, rather than only a few, emission source types.

April 27, 2021

Thousands of baby sea stars born at UW lab are sign of hope for endangered species

Scientists at the University of Washington, in collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, are raising sunflower sea stars in captivity, with the goal of learning more about this species and exploring eventual reintroduction to the wild, if determined to be advisable.

April 26, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Rosmersholm, The Jews of Ottoman Izmir: Dina Danon in Conversation with Devin E. Naar, and More

Four University of Washington faculty members have been inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

April 22, 2021

UW biology professors Jeffrey Riffell, David Perkel awarded research grants from Human Frontier Science Program

UW biology professors Jeffrey Riffell and David Perkel have received grants from the Human Frontier Science Program.

April 21, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Exhibitions at The Henry Art Gallery, From ‘Permit Patty’ to ‘Karen’: Black Rearticulations of Racial Humor, and More

When people think of misinformation, they often focus on popular and social media. But in a paper published April 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, University of Washington faculty members Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom write that scientific communication — both scientific papers and news articles written about papers — also has the potential to spread misinformation.

satellite photo of Tacoma using geospatial data from Beijing, with shadows cast from most buildings

Using satellite photos of three cities and drawing upon methods used to manipulate video and audio files, a team of researchers led by the University of Washington set out to identify new ways of detecting fake satellite photos and warn of the dangers of falsified geospatial data.

April 20, 2021

Oral history project captures Washingtonians’ pandemic experiences

Manuel S. Martinez, a lifelong campesino, trabajador and community organizer, recalls the beginning of the pandemic. Interviewed by UW student Adriana Martinez. Zoom, masks, family and politics — these are some of the lasting memories shared by participants in a University of Washington student oral history project. Undergraduate seniors in the Public Health Global Health major at…

bottle of hand sanitizer, gloves and a mask on a table

The federal government, in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, could learn from how the nation responded to Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and the H1N1 swine flu, a new University of Washington study found.

A coral reef with orange fish swimming around

A new study led by UW researchers borrowed image-analysis methods from engineering to spot the minute movements of a stony coral.

April 19, 2021

Arguing on the internet: UW researchers studying how to make online arguments productive

A person looking shocked at what they are seeing on their phone

UW researchers worked with almost 260 people to understand online disagreements and to develop potential design interventions that could make these discussions more productive and centered around relationship-building.

April 16, 2021

Official notice: Rule-making hearing for Chapters 478-116 and 478-161 WACs

Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 27, 2021 via a zoom conference meeting. The details of the hearing are available on the University Policy and Rules Office website.

April 14, 2021

Faculty/staff honors: Guggenheim fellowship, Fulbright award, cybersecurity policy advocate

Recent honors and achievements for UW faculty and staff include a Guggenheim fellowship in film history, a Fulbright fellowship for bioethics research in South Africa and membership in a new state cybersecurity team formed by the National Governors Association.

Three University of Washington juniors have been selected for the prestigious Truman Scholarship, the first time since the program began in 1977 that three UW students were chosen in a single year. Two recipients, Andre Jimenez and Chanise Jackson attend UW Tacoma, and Naomi See attends the UW campus in Seattle.

April 13, 2021

Deep earthquakes within the Juan de Fuca plate produce few aftershocks

In the Cascadia subduction zone, medium- and large-sized “intraslab” earthquakes, in which the slip happens within the oceanic plate and below the continental plate, will likely produce only a few detectable aftershocks, according to a new study from the University of Washington and the U.S. Geological Survey.

With COVID-19 cases on the rise again in many parts of the country — including Washington state where three counties were pushed back to Phase 2 effective Friday — there’s a growing debate between continuing to give both doses of Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines close together, or giving them months apart in order to get…

April 9, 2021

Divided America needs ‘new, more viable history’: A talk with Dan Chirot

A root cause of America’s sharp division, UW international studies professor Dan Chirot says, is that the visions of the left and right are based on “drastically different histories.”

April 8, 2021

UW receives $30 million gift to renovate Haring Center for Inclusive Education, underscoring the importance of early childhood education

rendering of the inside of a active play center

Since 1964, the University of Washington Haring Center for Inclusive Education has provided innovative special education and early learning, improving the lives of children and youth with neurodevelopmental disorders and other disabilities.

Next week the UW will undergo a comprehensive evaluation visit by its accrediting body, the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. This review will involve an assessment of the UW’s initiatives and efforts related to student success, its institutional effectiveness and mission, as well as governance, resources and capacity.

April 7, 2021

Perinatal patients, nurses explain how hospital pandemic policies failed them

With a lethal, airborne virus spreading fast, hospitals had to change how they treated patients and policies for how caregivers provided that treatment. But for maternity patients and nurses some of those changes had negative outcomes, according to a new University of Washington study. “We found that visitor restrictions and separation policies were harming families…

A picture of the giant magnetic ring at the heart of a particle physics experiment

The first results from the Muon g-2 experiment hosted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory show fundamental particles called muons behaving in a way not predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics. These results confirm an earlier experiment of the same name performed at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Combined, the two results show strong evidence that our best theoretical model of the subatomic world is incomplete. One potential explanation would be the existence of undiscovered particles or forces.

April 6, 2021

Back to school in springtime: UW experts offer tips for adjusting pandemic-era routines

University of Washington experts in education and psychology offer tips for families on the return to in-person school after a year of remote learning.

April 5, 2021

Retiring Alaska Airlines CEO, proud Husky Brad Tilden, honored with updated UW aircraft livery

Brad Tilden, a UW alum who retired as CEO of Alaska Airlines on March 31, looks at a Horizon Air Q400 aircraft with a special UW-themed livery.

The retirement of Alaska Airlines CEO Brad Tilden after a 30-year career with the company – at least in one way – had the University of Washington written all over it. Horizon Air recently unveiled a special Huskies-themed livery on a Q400 (tail number #N435QX) in honor of Tilden, who earned his MBA at the UW and has maintained a strong partnership with the University for several years. Tilden retired March 31.

April 1, 2021

John Schaufelberger to receive 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from national Associated Schools of Construction

John Schaufelberger, UW professor of construction management, is a respected teacher, engineer, administrator and former officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He is dean emeritus of the College of Built Environments. Now he is also recipient of the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Associated Schools of Construction.

John Schaufelberger, UW professor of construction management and dean emeritus of the College of Built Environments, has received the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Associated Schools of Construction.

Previous page Next page