UW News blog
April 17, 2015
UW’s Jonathan Bricker a finalist for ‘Geek of the Year Award’
Some people think Jonathan Bricker is a geek, and they mean it in the best way possible. Bricker, an affiliate professor of psychology at the UW and a psychologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is among five finalists for the annual “Geek of the Year Award” from Seattle technology news site GeekWire. The award…
April 16, 2015
Interim President Ana Mari Cauce opens a dialogue about race and equity on campus
UW Interim President Ana Mari Cauce will give remarks and lead a conversation about equity, racism and difference Thursday afternoon on campus at the Intellectual House. Updated 4/14: Transcript of Cauce’s remarks The roundtable event, which starts at 2 p.m., will encourage students to participate in a discussion about these issues. Space is limited and…
April 14, 2015
UW Information School’s Katie Davis gets NSF Early Career Award
Katie Davis, assistant professor at the University of Washington Information School, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. Davis, who studies the role of digital media technologies in the lives of teenagers, will receive $759,462 over five years for a project titled “Digital Badges for STEM Education.” The work…
April 7, 2015
UW astronomer named 2015 Sagan Fellow
A UW postdoctoral scientist is among six nationwide recipients of the 2015 Carl Sagan Exoplanet Postdoctoral Fellowships. The Sagan Fellowships support recent postdoctoral students in research related to the scientific goals of NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program — specifically, to discover and characterize planetary systems and Earth-like planets around stars. Daniel Foreman-Mackey , an incoming postdoctoral…
April 3, 2015
University of Washington undergraduates assist search for El Salvador’s disappeared children
The country of El Salvador was torn apart by a brutal civil war from 1980 to 1992 that took the lives of 75,000 civilians, many the victims of massacres that wiped out entire villages. Throughout that war, thousands of children were forcibly disappeared from their homes and communities by agents of the Salvadoran state as…
Event explores mass incarceration, racial justice
The United States imprisons a larger percentage of African Americans than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. In Washington, D.C., three out of every four young black men are likely to serve time in prison, according to projections. Those stark facts are found in Michelle Alexander’s 2012 book “The New Jim Crow: Mass…
R2-D2 to driverless cars: UW conference to explore gray areas in robotics law
Robots such as household helpers, driverless cars and personal drones are — or will soon be —available to consumers. But what protections guarantee they won’t spy on us or surreptitiously sell us things? Could a robot be used to verify an alibi in a criminal court case? Who is liable if a driverless car crashes…
April 2, 2015
Public talk April 9 looks back at astronomy department’s 50 years
The UW Astronomy Department celebrates its 50th anniversary this school year. Julie Lutz, research professor emeritus of astronomy, will review that history in a free public talk at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 9, in the Physics/Astronomy Auditorium. The astronomy department was formed in 1965 by George Wallerstein, Paul Hodge and Theodor Jacobson, for whom a…
March 31, 2015
Anne Greenbaum a 2015 fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
Each year the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the fields of applied mathematics and computational science. A University of Washington mathematician is among 31 new fellows honored this year from academic, industrial and government institutions around the world. Anne Greenbaum, a UW professor of applied mathematics,…
March 30, 2015
Three UW programs make top 10 in LinkedIn’s graduate school program rankings
The University of Washington has three programs in the top 10 on LinkedIn’s rankings of university graduate school programs based on job outcomes in some select fields. The UW’s graduate program for software developers (ranked third), designers (fourth) and accounting professionals (seventh) were in the top 10 in their fields. “By analyzing the employment patterns…
Huge whirlpools help set oceanic spring bloom
On the UW campus, most people’s focus at this time of year is on pink cherry blossoms. But this time of year in the northern Atlantic Ocean, a massive bloom soon to appear at the ocean’s surface is a major event in our planet’s carbon cycle. Now UW-developed robots have captured what happens to these…
Lecture April 2 looks at how to fill nature void for kids, adults
We are attached to our devices nearly 24/7. As our number of activities and time spent outdoors shrinks, it’s perhaps no coincidence that the larger society faces higher occurrences of depression, child and adult obesity and attention deficit disorder. Getting more people outside and engaged with nature is the topic of this year’s School of…
March 27, 2015
UW-built mic records noisy glacier melt
One would imagine a glacier’s melt to be fairly quiet. That would be wrong. Recordings by current and former University of Washington researchers in fjords shows that melting at glacier edges in the narrow rock-edged canyons are some of the noisiest places in the sea. The study, published in Geophysical Research Letters, recorded the sound…
Students to pitch clean-tech solutions April 2 at Environmental Innovation Challenge
More than 40 University of Washington students will compete in the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge 2015. It asks students from around the state to identify an environmental problem, develop a solution, build a prototype and sell their idea to judges. Twenty-two interdisciplinary student teams will pitch and demonstrate their solutions April 2 at an…
March 25, 2015
Labor Archives of Washington kicks off minimum-wage history project April 11
The Labor Archives of Washington, part of UW Libraries Special Collections Department, is creating an online resource called the Minimum Wage History Project to document the 2013-2014 campaign that succeeded in mandating a $15 minimum hourly wage in the cities of Seattle and Sea-Tac. The effort kicks off with a public program, “Preserving Solidarity Forever:…
March 24, 2015
Is exposure to secondhand smoke child abuse?
No one would argue that exposing children to secondhand smoke is bad, but should it be considered child abuse? Taryn Lindhorst, a UW associate professor of social work, says no. In an opinion piece published online in the Annals of Family Medicine earlier this month, Lindhorst argues that treating children’s exposure to secondhand smoke as…
March 23, 2015
For Alternative Spring Break students, a cultural experience close to home
Years ago, a fellow educator made a comment that stuck in Christine Stickler’s head. University students don’t need to travel to a foreign country for spring break to immerse themselves in another culture, she said — they can do that right here in Washington state. That observation led Stickler to launch the UW’s Alternative Spring…
March 20, 2015
UW and local company unveil new five-person submarine
The University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory and Everett-based company OceanGate this month unveiled the first model of its joint project to build a new type of submarine for human research and exploration in the deep sea. Cyclops 1 was a developed over the past year and a half in the Applied Physics Lab’s co-laboratory…
March 19, 2015
UW releases strategy for reaching transportation carbon neutrality
The University of Washington’s latest step toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 came last week, with the release of its Climate Action Strategy for Transportation, or CAST. The CAST follows the UW Climate Action Plan, a set of broad strategies to guide the UW to the goal of carbon neutrality that was released…
March 18, 2015
Remembering architect, author, critic Norman Johnston, 1918 – 2015
Norman J. Johnston will be remembered as a dedicated and community-minded architect, city planner, teacher and critic. He died Monday, March 16, 2015, in his Seattle home. He was 96. Memorial for Norman J. Johnston 2 p.m. Sunday, May 31, University of Washington Club. Johnston earned a bachelor’s degree in art from the University of…
UW TechConnect conference Tuesday: The Future of IT
Members of the UW community are invited to a free daylong conference for technology professionals at the 2015 UW TechConnect Conference on March 24. Explore, learn and connect with other IT colleagues and choose from a dozen presentations about the future of information technology at the UW – from human resources and payroll modernization to…
March 17, 2015
AG Ferguson appoints senior attorney to top UW Division post
Attorney General Bob Ferguson has appointed Senior Counsel Karin Nyrop as the new chief of his office’s University of Washington Division. The division provides legal services to the university, including UW Bothell, UW Tacoma and the UW Medical Center. “The University of Washington will be well served by Karin’s impressive combination of legal expertise, leadership…
March 16, 2015
New ‘mediArcade’ in Allen Library supports multimedia work, play
UW Libraries has opened up a new multimedia space on the third floor of Allen library for the use of students, faculty and staff. It’s called the mediArcade, and is open weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to those with a Husky card. With iMacs, large televisions and DVDs, video game consoles, several media editing…
March 13, 2015
Public symposium features UW experts on ‘Reverse-engineering the brain’
One of modern science’s grand challenges is understanding how the human brain actually works — from cataloging millions of individual cells to figuring out how the circuitry that underlies our thoughts and actions decodes information. By deconstructing these intricate processes, engineers can use the human brain to build everything from smarter computers to better speech…
2015 UW cherry tree watch: Full bloom by March 14
Blossom update: 100 percent in bloom as of March 14. Follow @uwcherryblossom for more info. The cherry trees in the Quad at the UW reached full bloom March 14. Exact timing always depends on the weather — if we have sunny, warm days, the trees reach full bloom faster, but colder weather stretches out the timing. Still, full bloom…
iSchool’s Technology & Social Change Group to study online education in developing countries
Online education has great potential to improve lives, but few people in developing countries have access to such classes. The UW Information School’s Technology & Social Change Group will conduct research as part of a $1.55 million multiagency initiative to study and address this need. The project will include research on online course enrollment in…
March 11, 2015
Sephardic Studies document appears in PBS documentary ‘The Jewish Journey: America’
A document from the UW Sephardic Studies Program‘s Digital Library and Museum appears in a new PBS documentary called “The Jewish Journey: America.” The documentary will be broadcast at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 16, on KBTC, Tacoma’s public broadcasting station, and is now available for viewing online as well. The hour-long film, directed by Emmy-winner…
March 10, 2015
DRIVE/conference offers a deep dive into data mining
No matter what your business — from a nonprofit museum that wants to deepen visitor engagement to a chain store looking for new markets — it’s essential to be able to extract meaningful patterns and results from often massive reservoirs of data. Improving this “art and science” of data analysis, reporting and visualization is the…
March 6, 2015
Study: Lower property values match high body-weight index in King County
New research from the UW College of Built Environments on the “spatial clustering of obesity” in urban areas has helped clarify and build upon work a 2007 study began. The takeaway, in brief: In King County, Washington, at least, low property values match with high body-mass indexes, or BMIs in less diverse, lower-income South King…
March 4, 2015
Women Who Rock host fifth annual (un)conference on Saturday
The power of social media in fueling movements such as Black Lives Matter, the racial justice campaign sprung from last year’s protests in Ferguson, Missouri, has become increasingly evident in recent years. Recognition of those grassroots efforts is the focus of the fifth annual Women Who Rock “unconference” event, to be held Saturday, March 7,…
February 27, 2015
Watch UW team test a new asteroid-sampling rocket
Take five minutes and experience the life of a rocket scientist building a prototype to bring back samples of objects in space. In these tests, success is nose-diving into the California desert, which stands in for the surface of an asteroid. In the “Asteroid Sampler” video, which aired Jan. 15 on Discovery Channel Canada, a…
‘Handathon’ challenges students to build better 3-D printed prosthetic hands
Seattle’s first-ever “Handathon” will bring together students, faculty and clinicians in a hackathon-style, 24-hour event that challenges two dozen graduate and undergraduate students to design creative improvements to an existing 3-D printed prosthetic hand. Research teams from the University of Washington, UW Bothell and Seattle Pacific University have been designing and printing prosthetic hands, and…
February 26, 2015
Student video contest: Climate change impacts in 3 minutes
What does climate change mean to you, in three minutes or less? That’s what the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences is asking all high school and undergraduate students in the state of Washington in a video competition that will award up to $5,000 to the top entries in each age category. The UW…
Donations in memory of journalism professor Fendall Yerxa, 1913-2014
Fendall Yerxa, a former faculty member in the Department of Communication, died in October 2014 at the age of 101. He is remembered as a patient teacher and an insightful and highly professional old-school journalist. He worked as Washington, D.C., bureau chief for The New York Times and managing editor of the International Herald Tribune….
February 24, 2015
10th annual Polar Science Weekend kicks off Friday
Polar Science Weekend, held in partnership with the UW Applied Physics Laboratory, blows into the Pacific Science Center this Friday through Sunday. For the 10th year, this event will give visitors a taste of exploration at the ends of the Earth. Discover why polar regions are crucial to climate change, examine real ice cores from…
February 23, 2015
Documentary explores a juvenile crime, a life transformed
The possibility of longtime prisoners being released from prison and leading happy, productive lives may seem unlikely. But a new radio documentary project aims to dispel that perception. The Rethinking Punishment Radio Project is a collaboration between UW professor Katherine Beckett and two radio journalists from the University of British Columbia. The first episode, which…
Five UW early career researchers win Sloan Research Fellowships
Five University of Washington professors have received the 2015 Sloan Research Fellowships that honor early career scientists and scholars who are seen as rising stars in their fields. The UW’s winners are Brandi Cossairt, assistant professor of chemistry; Cole Trapnell, assistant professor of genome sciences; Shyam Gollakota, assistant professor of computer science and engineering; Emily…
February 20, 2015
Students join Robin McCabe for lively faculty recital March 2
In the first half of her March 2 faculty recital in Meany Hall titled “Around Robin,” Robin McCabe will play a well-loved piano suite by French impressionist composer Maurice Ravel. And then in the second half, things are going to get a little nutty. McCabe, UW professor of piano, said she’ll start with Ravel’s “Miroirs,”…
February 17, 2015
Lecture series looks at inequity and quality of life
Factors affecting the quality of life for marginalized populations are the focus of a three-part UW lecture series that starts tomorrow. The 10th Annual Allen L. Edwards Psychology Lectures presents, “The Psychological Science of Inequity and Inequality,” bringing together faculty from the UW Department of Psychology with national experts for the free public talks. The…
February 12, 2015
Two famous names added to College of Built Environments’ Roll of Honor
The UW College of Built Environments has added two names to the Roll of Honor located in the auditorium of Architecture Hall — Roland Terry and Grant Jones. A celebration for the two honorees will take place April 29. Terry was a Seattle architect committed to artistry appropriate to its regional setting who also played…
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