UW News blog
September 18, 2015
Former U.S. Senators Lott, Daschle to discuss plan for ‘civility and democracy’ at Sept. 24 Ruckelshaus Center event
In a sense, early returns from the 2016 election are already in: Civility is losing to vitriol in a landslide. But two former U.S. senators who each served as Senate majority leaders — Republican Trent Lott of Mississippi and Democrat Tom Daschle of South Dakota — have been promoting a plan to restore civility to…
‘Access to Information as a Human Right’ public conference Oct. 5
The University of Washington Center for Human Rights will hold a daylong conference Oct. 5 at the UW School of Law, underscoring a crucial international theme even with its title: “Access to Information as a Human Right.” The conference springs from the center’s partnerships with communities and organizations struggling for truth and accountability in postwar…
September 17, 2015
Poverty decreases in Washington state
The share of Washingtonians living in poverty dropped from 14.1 percent to 13.2 percent between 2013 and 2014, according to new U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday. Washington was one of 12 states with significant declines in their poverty rates during that period. Among the remaining states, the vast majority saw no change in their…
September 16, 2015
UW labs win $4.5 million NSF nanotechnology infrastructure grant
The University of Washington and Oregon State University have won a $4.5 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation to advance nanoscale science, engineering and technology research in the Pacific Northwest and support a new network of user sites across the country. The regional partnership was selected as one of 16 sites for a…
September 14, 2015
Take a virtual voyage to the Arctic Ocean
If you’ve ever wanted to travel north of the Arctic Circle in early fall, when the expanse of water dotted with ice floes reaches its greatest extent, this is your chance. Follow the ArcticMix website or on Twitter at @_following_seas through Sept. 26 A University of Washington oceanographer is one of three principal investigators on…
UW, city of Seattle join ‘Smart Cities’ network
The University of Washington and city of Seattle have joined a new national network of university-city partnerships that will work on “smart city” solutions as part of a new White House Smart Cities Initiative. The MetroLab Network, announced by the White House on Monday, consists of partnerships between research universities with expertise in engineering, robotics…
September 10, 2015
UW scientists will continue studies of evolution ‘in real time’ with five-year grant renewal
Faculty members from several departments at the University of Washington will share $2.25 million in research funds from the National Science Foundation to study and apply the principles of evolution “in real time.” Their studies are a part of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action. Founded in 2010, this NSF science…
September 8, 2015
UW seventh-largest driver of Teach for America corps
The University of Washington is the 7th-largest contributor of college graduates to the 2015 Teach For America corps, according to the annual list of top contributors released today by the national nonprofit organization. Graduates who join Teach For America commit to teach for at least two years in under-resourced schools. Among large schools, the University of California–Los Angeles…
UW hosts Pacific Northwest energy storage symposium on Sept. 11
Gone are the days when electricity flowed only in one direction — from huge power plants to homes and businesses — and entirely on demand. Today, homeowners who install solar panels can sell extra electricity back to the grid. Savvy industries save money by timing and controlling energy use. Renewable energy sources are multiplying. Yet…
September 4, 2015
UW indoor alert test Sept. 9 on Seattle campus
The UW’s indoor alert system will be tested Wednesday at 7:30 a.m. in buildings across the Seattle campus. The indoor alerts are part of the campus emergency notification system. The test will last about 15 minutes and could include voice announcements, tones and horns, depending on the building. The purpose of this system-wide test is…
Grant will help Native American undergraduates attend first scientific meeting
Two professors from the University of Washington and Oklahoma State University have been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation to bring six Native American undergraduate students to their first scientific meeting. The students will attend the Jan. 2016 annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in Portland, Oregon. Known commonly…
September 1, 2015
UW professor Marsha Linehan to receive National Alliance on Mental Health award
University of Washington psychology professor Marsha Linehan has been chosen to receive the 2015 Scientific Research Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). The award, given annually since 2005, honors excellence in research for mental illnesses. Linehan, who is also an adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UW, is the…
August 27, 2015
Evans School’s Justin Marlowe pens second installment of guide to public finance
Government finance is a bit like Italian opera, writes Justin Marlowe, professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance: It’s beautiful and elaborate, sure — but it’s also in a foreign language full of “traditions, customs and unspoken rules most casual fans don’t understand.” And though local, county and state government officials don’t…
August 26, 2015
New Bering Sea climate change project focuses on fish, management strategies
As a subarctic, seasonally ice-filled ocean that produces about 40 percent of the nation’s annual fish catch, the Bering Sea is of particular interest to researchers as the climate changes and forces wildlife and fishing practices to adapt. The UW is a partner in a new effort to understand how changes to the Bering Sea’s…
August 25, 2015
UW among Campus Pride’s Top 25 LGBTQ-friendly colleges and universities
The University of Washington is among the 2015 Campus Pride Top 25 LGBTQ-Friendly Colleges & Universities list released Monday. For seven years, the list has highlighted the most LGBTQ-inclusive colleges and universities around the country. But this is the first year Campus Pride has released a Top 25 list based on new higher LGBTQ benchmarks…
Study: Mixed-race couples with black partners more likely to live in poor neighborhoods
Though the number of mixed-race couples in the United States has nearly quadrupled since 1980, relatively little research has been done about where those couples live — and specifically, the level of poverty within their neighborhoods. That dearth of data prompted Ryan Gabriel, a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Washington, to look…
August 20, 2015
Crime writer Ann Rule to be remembered in public Kane Hall gathering Aug. 23
A public celebration of the life of writer Ann Rule will be held at 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23, in Room 130 of Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. The gathering, under the title “Ann Rule, Our Tribute to a Life Well Lived,” will feature friends and colleagues remembering the writer’s life and…
August 19, 2015
UW political scientist Megan Francis looks at philanthropy and racial inequality
Protecting African-Americans from state-sanctioned violence remains “an unmet challenge for civil rights groups committed to racial equality,” writes Megan Ming Francis, UW assistant professor of political science, in a much-read post at HistPhil, a blog launched in June to cover the history of philanthropy. Why is preventing racial violence not a higher priority? In part…
August 13, 2015
Lessons from Australia: Understanding public support for carbon pricing
A new study finds that acceptance of a policy is an important process through which people’s beliefs and economic ideologies influence their support for putting a price on carbon emissions, but general acceptance doesn’t always lead to support. A University of Washington researcher led a study looking at views towards a carbon pricing policy before…
August 7, 2015
UW scientists explore recently erupted deep-sea volcano (with video)
When University of Washington oceanographers visited the deep-ocean Axial Volcano in late July, parts of the seafloor were still warm. The team knew to expect changes in the mile-deep volcano 300 miles off the Oregon coast. This spring, seafloor seismometers connected to shore by a new Internet cable showed that Axial Volcano, a 3,600-foot-tall underwater…
Washington state climatologist provides weekly drought updates
This year’s pathetic snow season wasn’t just a problem for skiers. Now that it’s summer, salmon are struggling because there’s not enough snowmelt to feed streams, and water managers are worried by lack of snowpack or summer rains to feed water supplies until the fall. When Gov. Jay Inslee first declared a drought in April,…
Information School’s Michelle Carter explores our ‘IT identities’
Oh no — you’ve lost your smartphone. Anxiety spikes as you check pockets and bags. But wait — there it is and your worries vanish. All is well, and you feel yourself again, whole again. What’s up with that? Michelle Carter, an assistant professor in the University of Washington Information School, has studied and given…
August 4, 2015
UW workshop to explore Big Data solutions for science
At a University of Washington workshop this week, a hundred graduate students from around the country will explore a question that everyone is asking these days: What can data science do for me? To land an invite to the Data Science 2015 workshop on Aug 5 – 7, they were asked to identify a single…
‘How We Spent It’: UW infographic designs get attention from Seattle Police Department
When UW design professor Karen Cheng collaborated with students to create an infographic from publicly available City of Seattle data and published it in a local design magazine, the result was so good they were invited to present their work to the Seattle Police Department. Cheng, professor in the School of Art + Art History…
August 3, 2015
UW gets top green honor from Princeton Review
The University of Washington has again been named to Princeton Review’s Green Rating Honor Roll, receiving the highest possible score for the 2014-15 school year. This is the fifth year in a row the UW has achieved this distinction and the seventh year overall since the program began eight years ago. The UW was among…
UW-developed program boosts community-wide prevention, study finds
Almost 30 years ago, two University of Washington researchers developed a program that aimed to reduce problem behaviors among young people by implementing preventive measures at the community level. That program, Communities That Care, is now being used in states across the nation and has been shown to reduce risk factors that lead to problems…
July 29, 2015
Two UW researchers elected AGU fellows
Two University of Washington scientists have been elected as new fellows of the American Geophysical Union. The Earth sciences group recognizes only one in 1,000 members each year for major scientific work and sustained impact. The UW honorees are among 60 new 2015 fellows from U.S. and international institutions. They will both be honored in…
‘Odd’ Puget Sound conditions prompt multi-agency awareness day
It’s been a strange summer for Puget Sound and the Pacific Ocean that feeds it. Water temperatures are warmer than usual, shellfish harvesting has been closed because of a long-lived toxic algae bloom, and oxygen levels in some areas continue to drop, meaning fish kills could be a reality this fall. Local scientists from multiple…
NOAA funds UW, partners to investigate West Coast harmful algal bloom
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced last week it is committing $88,000 in event-response funding for our state to monitor and analyze an unusually large and long-lived bloom of toxic algae that has been affecting shellfish in the region. UW-based Northwest Association of Networked Ocean Observing Systems, or NANOOS, was awarded $75,000 of the…
July 24, 2015
UW historian Quintard Taylor’s BlackPast.org website honored by National Education Association
BlackPast.org, an extensive online reference center for African-American history and African ancestry created by UW history professor Quintard Taylor, has been honored by the National Education Association. The website has won the 2015 Carter G. Woodson Award, given annually by the education association and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which…
July 23, 2015
UW astronomer, students report irregularities in ‘rare, exotic’ binary system
UW astronomers were recently reminded that the diplomatic axiom to “trust, but verify” also applies to scientific inquiry when they analyzed fresh data from a distant galaxy. As they reported in July in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a puzzling stellar phenomenon may not be what other astronomers had reported. They studied…
Free oil-spill prevention kits for Washington boaters
Recreational boaters and commercial fishing boats in Western Washington can get free oil-spill reporting and cleanup kits this summer as part of a new campaign to prevent spills in Puget Sound. Washington Sea Grant, based at the UW, along with U.S. Coast Guard Sector Puget Sound, the Washington Department of Ecology and the state’s Clean…
July 22, 2015
Two UW art professors honored with 2015 Seattle Mayor’s Arts Awards
Of the five recipients of 2015 Seattle Mayor’s Arts Awards, two — Robin K. Wright and Akio Takamori — are faculty members in the UW School of Art + Art History + Design. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray’s office announced the awards on Tuesday, July 21. The awards, notes say, “recognize the contributions of artists, creative…
July 21, 2015
UW hosts conference on medieval text ‘Piers Plowman’
“Piers Plowman” is not only a 14th century alliterative narrative, it is also the reason a hundred scholars are coming to the UW this week. The Piers Plowman International Conference will be held July 23-25 in Alder Hall and the Simpson Center for the Humanities. “The poem is a work contemporary with Chaucer in the…
July 20, 2015
UW joins Seattle Sounders FC, others to support clean water partnership
In many areas of the world, women and girls walk an average of six kilometers to collect water for their families that often isn’t even safe to drink. Five Washington-based organizations — University of Washington, Washington Global Health Alliance (WGHA), PATH, Washington State University’s Paul G. Allen School for Global Animal Health and World Vision…
July 17, 2015
‘Lives matter’: Simpson Center project marries animal, postcolonial studies
The study of animals meets up with postcolonial studies in The Postcolonial Animal, a cross-disciplinary research project hosted by the UW’s Simpson Center for the Humanities. The work, notes from the center state, “considers relations between human and nonhuman lives and with indigenous ways of knowing” and “follows a conviction that violence toward any life…
Two UW faculty members named to Justice Department Science Advisory Board
Two University of Washington faculty members have been appointed to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs Science Advisory Board. Sociology professor Robert Crutchfield was named chair of the board’s justice system transparency and accountability subcommittee, and Alexes Harris, an associate professor of sociology, was named a new board member. The 25-member board,…
July 10, 2015
Ice core records show how huge volcanic eruptions cooled the planet
When big volcanoes like Mount St. Helens or Mount Pinatubo really blow their tops, the skies darken and temperatures drop. But since such massive eruptions – luckily for us – are fairly uncommon, scientists have few examples to help them piece together the details of how much it cools, and how far and long the…
July 9, 2015
UW Botanic Gardens ranked top in nation
The University of Washington Botanic Gardens is one of the best university gardens in the nation, according to a new ranking by Best Colleges Online. The UW tied for first place along with three other universities for the top honor. UW Botanic Gardens, which includes the gardens and programs at the Washington Park Arboretum and…
July 8, 2015
UW’s Conservation magazine snares top writing honors
The UW-based Conservation magazine has won a gold award in a national competition sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, or CASE. Conservation shares this top honor with a magazine from Stanford Medicine. The award recognizes magazines produced by universities or colleges for special external constituencies, including publications affiliated with individual colleges…
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