UW News

UW News blog


January 14, 2020

UW No. 5 best college for veterans, according to new ranking

ceremony photo

The University of Washington is among the 10 best colleges for veterans, according to Zippia.com, an online career resource. The UW ranked No. 5 on the list.


January 9, 2020

By the numbers: UW in the media in 2019

collage of portraits

In 2019, the University of Washington was mentioned in 4,143 news articles around the world. Among those, UW experts were quoted 2,290 times: 1,185 in national or international outlets and 1,105 in regional and local outlets.


December 16, 2019

New study seeks to improve the way dentists measure children’s pain during appointments

Child in dentist chair during procedure

If you fear a trip to the dentist, you are among a majority of adults that report moderate to high levels of anxiety related to dental care, according to a review of research. And, if you’re afraid of getting into a dental chair, you are more likely to avoid going and are at risk of…


December 6, 2019

Astronomy fellowship demonstrates effective measures to dismantle bias, increase diversity in STEM

a person smiling and looking at the camera

Joyce Yen — director of the University of Washington’s ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change, an NSF-funded body to promote female STEM faculty on campus — recently worked with the Heising-Simons Foundation to dismantle bias and promote diversity in a prominent grant that the Foundation awards to postdoctoral researchers in planetary science. In this Q&A, Yen shares the many, sometimes counterintuitive ways bias can work against goals toward greater diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM fields.


November 26, 2019

Six UW faculty members named AAAS fellows

The American Association for the Advancement of Science has named six faculty members from the University of Washington as AAAS Fellows, according to a Nov. 26 announcement. They are part of a cohort of 443 new fellows for 2019, all chosen by their peers for “scientifically or socially distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications.”


Dads in prison can bring poverty, instability for families on the outside

A new University of Washington study finds that families with a father in prison tend to live in neighborhoods with higher poverty.


November 15, 2019

UW aerospace engineer part of $1.7M grant to study corals

A healthy reef in Indonesia teems with life.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from multiple institutions — including the University of Washington — has received a two-year $1.7 million National Science Foundation grant to study coral growth.


November 7, 2019

Team uses golden ‘lollipop’ to observe elusive interference effect at the nanoscale

An image of small golden discs and rods used in an experiment

A team led by scientists from the University of Washington and the University of Notre Dame used recent advances in electron microscopy to observe Fano interferences — a form of quantum-mechanical interference by electrons — directly in a pair of metallic nanoparticles.


November 5, 2019

Fall storms, coastal erosion focus of northern Alaska research cruise

freight shipping container in foreground and research ship in background

A University of Washington team is leaving to study how fall storms, dwindling sea ice and vulnerable coastlines might combine in a changing Arctic.


November 4, 2019

Swordfish as oceanographers? Satellite tags allow research of ocean’s ‘twilight zone’ off Florida

closeup of swordfish

UW marine scientists are using high-tech tags to record the movements of swordfish — big, deep-water, migratory, open-ocean fish that are poorly studied — and get a window into the ocean depths they inhabit.


October 29, 2019

UW book notes: Political scientist Megan Ming Francis to edit new series on race, ethnicity, politics

Megan Ming Francis, UW political science professor, who will edit a new book series on race, ethnicity and politics

University of Washington political scientist Megan Ming Francis says there is a dearth of academic book series being published on topics of race, ethnicity and politics. Now, she will start to change that. An associate professor of political science, Francis will be the editor of a new series of books from Cambridge University Press called…


October 28, 2019

Hubble captures galaxies’ ghostly gaze

An image of a galaxy in outer space

An image captured earlier this year by the Hubble Space Telescope may look like a ghostly apparition, but it is not. Hubble is looking at a titanic head-on collision between two galaxies.


October 24, 2019

NSF invests in cyberinfrastructure institute to harness cosmic data

the stars at night

The National Science Foundation awarded the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and nine collaborating organizations, including the University of Washington, $2.8 million for a two-year “conceptualization phase” of the Scalable Cyberinfrastructure Institute for Multi-Messenger Astrophysics.


New fossil trove documents recovery of life on Earth after dinosaur-killing asteroid impact

An image of an ancient mammal that is now extinct.

Scientists have discovered an extraordinary collection of fossils that reveal in detail how life recovered after a catastrophic event: the asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago at the end of the Cretaceous Period.


October 23, 2019

UW team sending autonomous surfboard to explore Antarctic waters

researchers on ship lowering large surfboard into water

This week a UW team is releasing a robotic surfboard to explore the surface ocean around Antarctica.


October 15, 2019

New pronoun option coming for students; celebrate International Pronouns Day Oct. 16

On International Pronouns Day (Oct. 16) the University of Washington community is invited to celebrate the ways in which using someone’s pronouns have a positive impact on the community as a whole.


UW’s Ashleigh Theberge receives Packard Fellowship for research on cell communication signals

Person looking at camera

Ashleigh Theberge, a University of Washington assistant professor of chemistry, has been named a 2019 Packard Fellow for her research on cell signaling. Every year since 1988, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has awarded Packard Fellowships in Science and Engineering to early-career scientists to pursue the types of innovative projects that often fall outside…


October 14, 2019

To reduce gun violence, lift roadblocks to firearm data

Gun in field grass

While gun violence in America kills more than 35,000 people a year and as calls for policies to stem the crisis grow, University of Washington researchers point out in a new analysis that barriers to data stand in the way of advancing solutions. “Firearm data availability, accessibility and infrastructure need to be substantially improved to…


October 10, 2019

Personal comments from Hans Rosling’s family about UW’s new Hans Rosling Center for Population Health

Hans Rosling with props

The new building on the University of Washington’s Seattle campus that will be home to some of the key departments at the center of the university’s Population Health Initiative was named in honor of Dr. Hans Rosling on Oct. 10, 2019, by the UW Board of Regents. The $230 million building under construction on the…


October 8, 2019

Genes contribute to dog breeds’ iconic traits

A new study by a research team that included the University of Washington offers new evidence to support what scientists have long suspected about dogs: that some dog behaviors that help characterize breeds — a drive to chase, for example, or aggression toward strangers — are associated with distinct genetic differences among them.


October 7, 2019

How bike sharing in Seattle rose from the ashes of Pronto’s failure

Docked Pronto bikes along Seattle's waterfront

University of Washington transportation researchers looked into why the docked bike-share program Pronto failed while dockless bike sharing has been so successful.


October 2, 2019

Abigail Swann on Science News’ list of 10 young scientists to watch

woman in blue dress by tree

The University of Washington’s Abigail Swann is honored by Science News on its list of 10 promising early- and mid-career scientists.


October 1, 2019

Engineering lecture series focuses on future of food

Future of food banner. Purple text over a picture of people harvesting rice

This fall the University of Washington’s annual engineering lecture series will feature three UW engineers and scientists who are working across disciplines to manage the quality and quantity of the food we eat and grow.


September 25, 2019

Joel Migdal, founder of International Studies Program, to mark UW retirement with public lecture, workshop, Oct. 3

Joel Migdal retiring Jackson School professor founded the UW international studies program

Joel S. Migdal, professor in the UW Jackson School of International Studies, will celebrate retirement after 39 years at the UW on Oct. 3 with a daylong workshop featuring current and former students, followed by a lecture on “State and Society: Then and Now.”


September 20, 2019

Two UW ice researchers to participate in year-long drift across Arctic Ocean

ship surrounded by sea ice and dark skies

Two UW researchers — Bonnie Light, a principal physicist at the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory and an affiliate associate professor of atmospheric sciences, and Madison Smith, a recent UW graduate who is now doing her postdoctoral research at the UW — will join for the fifth of the six two-month legs, in summer 2020.


September 19, 2019

Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies receives $1.8M grant

The UW Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies has received a $1.8 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which will fund four years of work at the UW around Native student support, academics, research and cultural programs.


September 10, 2019

Hugo House documentary ‘Where the House Was’ to debut Sept. 21 at Northwest Film Forum

“Where the House Was,” a new, 58-minute documentary produced by France McCue, UW senior lecturer in English, tells of the old location for Hugo House, the place for writer, and its subsequent demolition.


September 9, 2019

Breakthrough Foundation honors UW researcher studying ‘exotic’ states of matter

Picture of Lukasz Fidkowski, assistant professor of physics at the University of Washington.

Lukasz Fidkowski, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Washington, is one of the winners of a 2020 New Horizons in Physics Prize from the Breakthrough Foundation. The prize to early-career scientists, announced Sept. 5, recognizes Fidkowski and his three co-recipients “for incisive contributions to the understanding of topological states of matter and the relationships between them.”


September 5, 2019

Study shows exposure to multiple languages may make it easier to learn one

Man writes on whiteboard.

A new study from the University of Washington finds that, based on brain activity, people who live in communities where multiple languages are spoken can identify words in yet another language better than those who live in a monolingual environment.


September 4, 2019

New study tracks sulfur-based metabolism in the open ocean

researchers on ship

UW oceanographers used lab experiments and seawater samples to learn how photosynthetic microbes and ocean bacteria use sulfur, a plentiful marine nutrient.


August 27, 2019

Rankings: UW is No. 14 in the world, third among U.S. public universities; makes Money and Washington Monthly lists

Suzzallo Library at night

The University of Washington held its position at No. 14 in the world — No. 3 among U.S. public universities — on the 2019 Academic Ranking of World Universities, released this month.


August 21, 2019

3 UW graduate students earn NASA fellowships, continue legacy of success

rainier vista

Three University of Washington graduate students are among this year’s recipients of a prestigious NASA fellowship that funds student research projects in the fields of Earth and planetary sciences and astrophysics.


August 19, 2019

Starbucks, United Way, Mary’s Place and Wellspring welcome UW to coalition supporting local unsheltered families

Today local community leaders welcomed University of Washington to a coalition dedicated to supporting unsheltered families across Puget Sound. The University will host three Family Resource Exchanges that will take place on its campuses in Bothell, Seattle and Tacoma, expanding the coalition’s ability to help unsheltered families in the region. This commitment comes shortly after the one-year anniversary of the first exchange in King County last summer.


August 13, 2019

HUB closed starting at 2 p.m. on Aug. 14 and Sept. 4 for police training activities

Husky Union Building

The Husky Union Building (HUB) will be closed from 2 to 9 p.m. on Aug. 14 and Sept. 4 for the UW Police Department to conduct training exercises inside the building.


August 12, 2019

First evidence of human-caused climate change melting the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

white snow and ocean

A new study by U.S. and U.K. scientists finds that in addition to natural variations in winds that drive warmer water to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which last about a decade, there has been a longer-term change in the winds that can be linked with human activities.


August 9, 2019

Artificial intelligence could yield more accurate breast cancer diagnoses

Researchers at UW and UCLA have developed an artificial intelligence system that could help pathologists read biopsies more accurately, and lead to better detection and diagnosis of breast cancer.


August 8, 2019

UW, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley receive $5M NSF award to simplify researcher access to public clouds

The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $5 million grant to the University of California, San Diego, the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley to develop CloudBank, a suite of managed services to simplify public cloud access for computer science research and education.


August 1, 2019

UW Division of Design faculty, Seattle Children’s physicians collaborate on more effective anesthesia cart organization

Dr. Eliot Grigg of Seattle Children's Hospital shown with the Anesthesia Medication Template, created with fellow physicians and Axel Roesler of the UW School of Art + Art History + Design.

In recent years, physicians at Seattle Children’s Hospital have worked with UW faculty members in design to come up with a better, safer, more reliable way to order and use drugs on an operating room’s anesthesia cart.


July 26, 2019

UW moves up to No. 5 on Kiplinger’s list of ‘best value’ public universities

The University of Washington is now fifth on Kiplinger’s list of best values among U.S. public universities, according to a new ranking published this week. Last year, the UW placed No. 7.


July 23, 2019

What motivates people to join — and stick with — citizen science projects?

bird and measuring tape on sand

After more than 20 years, the UW’s Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team, or COASST, is itself the subject of scientific study. Social scientists are studying the program’s success to extract lessons for all citizen science efforts.



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