UW News blog
February 11, 2015
14 UW researchers win 2015 Innovation Awards
The University of Washington has chosen 14 researchers across campus to receive this year’s UW Innovation Awards. The awards are given to encourage early and mid-career scientists to pursue projects that may not yet qualify for outside funding, but show future promise and will engage students in innovative, creative work. “These are some of the…
February 10, 2015
Valentine’s Day ‘edit-a-thon’ to address Wikipedia gender gap
There is a widely recognized gender gap in the English language Wikipedia. Two members of the campus community are teaming to offer a four-hour hands-on workshop and discussion to bring feminist dialogues and theory to the information website, the seventh most-viewed in the United States. The event, titled “I Love To You: Critical Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon,”…
February 9, 2015
USA Today names UW third-best nationally for English majors
Pardon, Princeton. Step aside, Harvard. Maybe next time, Yale and Columbia — this one’s going to the University of Washington Department of English. UW colleges and departments are often named among the best in the country for science, technology and research. But the latest ranking has more to do with semi-colons than computer algorithms: USA…
Six Green Seed Fund winners selected for 2015
The Green Seed Fund, a grant fund for sustainability research projects at the UW, will award money to six projects that contribute to the university’s sustainability goals, are well-planned and achievable and will help the UW reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. The six winning projects for 2015 will share about $250,000 in grant money and…
February 5, 2015
White House honors UW climate scientist Amy Snover as a ‘Champion of Change’
Amy Snover, director of the UW’s Climate Impacts Group and assistant dean for applied research in the UW’s College of the Environment, has been named a White House Champions of Change for her work in promoting climate education and literacy. She will be honored during a ceremony Monday at the White House from 10 a.m….
UW alum Laurie Olin to deliver Dean’s Distinguished Lecture for College of Built Environments Feb. 11
Laurie Olin, teacher, artist, innovator and one of landscape architecture’s most famous names, will return to his alma mater to deliver the College of Built Environments’ 2015 Dean’s Distinguished Lecture at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 11, in Architecture Hall. His talk will be titled “Global, Regional, Local; Working Toward a Meaningful Landscape.” Olin is known…
February 3, 2015
UW Information School has key role as Gates Foundation’s Global Libraries Initiative winds down
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has worked for years with the University of Washington Information School‘s Technology & Social Change Group on the foundation’s multi-year Global Libraries Initiative, dedicated to improving digital connectivity around the world. The Gates Foundation announced in May 2014 that the initiative is entering a three- to five-year winding-down phase…
Teachers sought for storytelling event
Are you a UW alum or other local educator who’s passionate about your work and willing to talk publicly about it? The UW College of Education and the Seattle Times are hosting a storytelling event at the university on Feb. 25 and are looking for a handful of teachers to share five-minute personal stories onstage….
February 2, 2015
Alumni study highlights successes among UW early-entrance students
A recent study found that graduates of the University of Washington’s two early-entrance university programs excelled in their academic and subsequent professional lives. The study was published in January in Roeper Review, a publication focused on education for gifted students. It looked at the academic, professional and personal outcomes for 192 students in the UW…
January 30, 2015
Super Bowl means seafood bet for UW, University of Massachusetts
The 2015 Super Bowl just got serious, because now it involves a bet over delicious seafood between dining services at the University of Washington and the University of Massachusetts. UMass threw down the gauntlet, in the form of lobster, and the UW responded with crab. Here’s the bet: If the Seahawks win, UMass will provide…
Three UW conservation scientists awarded new Wilburforce Fellowship
Three members of the UW College of the Environment are among the first 20 recipients of a Wilburforce Fellowship, a new year-long training for conservation scientists in Western North America. The year-long program provides communication and leadership training to help build a community of conservation scientists and encourage them to reach beyond the scientific audiences….
Town hall on campus Feb. 2 to discuss role of software in academia
The University of Washington’s eScience Institute and GitHub, a code-sharing and publishing service, are hosting a town hall discussion on campus 6-9 p.m. Monday, Feb. 2, to talk about the role of software in academic research today. Six panelists will give short presentations, followed by a discussion moderated by Arfon Smith with GitHub. Dan Halperin,…
New faculty salary policy to be discussed at town hall Weds.
All faculty are invited to a town hall discussion of the proposed new faculty salary policy at 2:45 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 4, in the Walker Ames Room (225) in Kane Hall. The first half of the program will be devoted to a panel discussion and debate of the major arguments for and against the policy…
January 28, 2015
UW Bothell lecturer Kristy Leissle in PBS ‘Nature’ episode Jan. 28
Kristy Leissle, a lecturer in the UW Bothell School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, will appear in an episode of the PBS television series “Nature” tonight, Jan. 28. The episode, titled “Penguin Post Office,” is about a unique British post office located in the heart of the Antarctic Peninsula at Port Lockroy, about 700 miles…
January 23, 2015
UW Center for Philosophy for Children to host High School Ethics Bowl Jan. 31
The University of Washington Center for Philosophy for Children will host the 2015 Washington State High School Ethics Bowl on campus Saturday, January 31. The event is modeled after the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl and involves teams of high school students competing to analyze wide-ranging ethical dilemmas. Twenty-three high school bowls will take place around the…
John Wilkerson’s Legislative Explorer honored, paper published
The online Legislative Explorer, the big-data policy project by John Wilkerson and Nicholas Stramp of the UW political science department, has been named an award of excellence winner in interactive design by Communication Arts, an international trade journal of visual communications. Their website, www.legex.org, which tracks all Congressional legislation in the last 40 years, also…
January 22, 2015
Seahawks and fans save best for last on the seismograph
The UW seismologists couldn’t have asked for a better football game to monitor fan-generated stadium shaking. And indeed, the Seahawks’ improbable comeback victory in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game showed the biggest vibrations ever recorded at CenturyLink Field. See also: “How the ‘Beast Quake’ is helping scientists track real earthquakes” (Jan. 7) “Packers versus Seahawks game…
January 21, 2015
UW receives record number of freshman applications for 2015
A record 36,528 freshman applications – an increase of 5,000, or 16 percent, over last year – were submitted to the University of Washington for the 2015 academic year, according to figures released by the UW’s admissions office. Increases occurred among all categories: 12 percent from Washington residents, 19 percent from other parts of the…
Dance program kicks off 50th anniversary with Dance Faculty Concert Jan. 23-25
The University of Washington Dance Program begins its 50th anniversary with the 2015 Dance Faculty Concert which, advance notes say, “includes everything from flying bodies to soup cans that playfully and architecturally define space.” The concert will feature choreography by UW dance faculty members Rachael Lincoln and Wilson Mendieta, with guests Holley Farmer, an alumna…
January 15, 2015
Seismologists analyze last week’s game, prepare for more stadium shaking
UW seismologists (and everyone else in the region) got their wish: The Seahawks won last Saturday, and will play another hometown game in front of a cheering crowd that can rock the stadium. The Pacific Northwest Seismic Network’s post-game seismic analysis of the Jan. 10 game shows 197,000 page requests, almost twice as many as…
‘Paris and Beyond’: Jackson School to discuss recent terrorism in Jan. 21 roundtable
The eyes of the world are on France in the wake of the deadly shootings at the office of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo. The Jan. 7 act of terrorism has sparked questions about radical Islam, European unity and conflicts in the Middle East. The University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies will…
January 14, 2015
UW’s Calo, Weld advocate research for ‘robust, beneficial’ artificial intelligence
Two UW faculty members — Ryan Calo, assistant professor of law, and Daniel Weld, professor of computer science and engineering — have joined hundreds of other researchers in an open letter calling for research to make artificial intelligence more robust and beneficial to humankind. Others signing the letter include physicist Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk…
January 13, 2015
How large are the ocean’s biggest whales, squids and turtles?
How long are the tentacles of the largest jellyfish and how big are the ocean’s famed whales? It turns out it’s difficult to get exact measurements of many of the world’s largest marine megafauna, for the reasons one might expect: many of these animals are few in number, tricky to find and logistically hard to…
Washington state Legislature to celebrate Daniel J. Evans Jan. 14
The Washington state Legislature will pause to honor Daniel J. Evans on Jan. 14, marking 50 years, plus a day, since he was sworn in for the first of three terms as Washington state governor, on Jan. 13, 1965. Evans also will address the Senate. Evans began his office-holding career as a member of the…
January 9, 2015
50th anniversary edition of Native art book released
Half a century ago, UW graduate Bill Holm published what would become a seminal work on the distinctive art of the people who first inhabited the Pacific Northwest. “Northwest Coast Indian Art” was the result of Holm’s 15-year analysis of hundreds of artworks while studying at UW under Erna Gunther, former director of the Burke…
January 7, 2015
Long, strange trip samples the continent’s snow
A survey of pollution and other impurities in North American snow required researchers to find sites with undisturbed snow far from any city or major road – in other words, a recipe for getting stranded by the side of a cold, lonely road. During the campaign that went from late January to late March 2013,…
3 UW engineers make Forbes’ 30 Under 30 in energy list
Three University of Washington engineers were selected by Forbes magazine as part of its top 30 people in the world under age 30 in energy. This year’s list largely focuses on people who have produced inventions and founded companies with the goal of saving or conserving energy, instead of creating it. Shyam Gollakota, an assistant professor…
January 5, 2015
What singles should look for in a city
When deciding where to live, single people should choose cities with affordable housing, interesting job opportunities, vibrant neighborhoods and abundant sports activities. That was the advice of Pepper Schwartz, a UW sociology professor who was among experts consulted for personal finance website WalletHub’s recent ranking of 2014’s Best & Worst Cities for Singles. The site…
December 23, 2014
Foreign power demands apology for insulting film — in 1930, that is
Cancel all screenings of that insulting movie you made, then burn all the prints, and formally apologize — and don’t do it again. Demands from North Korea, perhaps, about Sony Pictures’ controversial James Franco-Seth Rogen film “The Interview”? No, that’s off by about 85 years. It was the Chinese Nationalist government’s reaction to a film…
UW prof: Handwriting engages the mind
High-tech companies are seeking to capitalize on the power of handwriting, but there are other reasons to value the practice, says UW educational psychology professor Virginia Berninger. “Writing is the way we learn what we’re thinking,” said Berninger, who studies the effect of handwriting on the human brain. “The handwriting, the sequencing of the strokes,…
December 22, 2014
Silent slapstick: UW Libraries now has streaming video of silent films
For those who love the silent film antics of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and others, UW Libraries has something new that’s as good as a Christmas present: the Silent Film Online database. It’s a streaming service administered by Alexander Street Press that includes more than 500 silent films, serials and shorts produced from…
December 18, 2014
Oceanography undergrads blog from Vancouver Island
Twenty-four UW oceanography students are aboard the UW’s large research vessel, the Thomas G. Thompson, taking measurements off Canada’s west coast for their senior-level research projects. They left Thursday, Dec. 11 and will get back Sunday, Dec. 21. The trip takes them to Nootka Sound, a complex inlet off the west coast of Vancouver Island….
December 17, 2014
UW moves to 11th on Kiplinger’s in-state ‘best value’ list
The University of Washington moved up to the 11th spot in the latest ranking of best value for in-state students among public universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. The ranking includes measures of economic value and educational quality. The UW placed 13th in the same ranking a year ago and was 17th two years ago. Kiplinger…
Memorial planned for longtime editor of UW Press
A celebration of life for Naomi Brenner Pascal, the longtime editor-in-chief of the University of Washington Press, is being planned for February. She died Dec. 5 at the age of 88. Colleagues at UW Press remember Pascal as a model of grace, good humor and high standards. Her wide-ranging knowledge, integrity and commitment to diplomacy…
December 16, 2014
UW English Professor David Shields’ views debated in The New Yorker
David Shields, UW professor and New York Times best-selling author, was at the center of a Dec. 2 article by Adelle Waldman in The New Yorker titled “An Answer to the Novel’s Detractors.” Waldman places Shields among those detractors, but does not entirely disagree with him. “It’s no coincidence that many of the most exciting…
December 12, 2014
Fearn-Banks’ African-American TV dictionary gets second edition
Kathleen Fearn-Banks, UW associate professor of communication, drew upon her 21 years of experience as a publicist in network television to write her 2005 “Historical Dictionary of African American Television.” This fall, an expanded second edition of the book was published. Banks was NBC’s first African-American publicist and second-ever female publicist when hired there in…
Online tool lets Washington residents calculate carbon tax impacts
University of Washington computer scientists have partnered with members of the Carbon Washington grassroots campaign to create an online tool that lets residents calculate how a state carbon tax swap proposed by the organization would impact them financially. The calculator offers information users can’t find elsewhere and is meant to be a neutral, unbiased tool….
December 10, 2014
Art exhibit on polar field research opens Friday
Marine mammal expert Kristin Laidre, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, studies Arctic mammals in their native habitat. She focuses on polar bears and narwhals, an Arctic whale with a distinctive spiral tusk. In spring 2013 she invited Seattle watercolor artist Maria Coryell-Martin…
I-LABS co-director part of White House Summit on Early Learning
The co-director of the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences is among officials from around the country participating in today’s White House Summit on Early Education. Patricia Kuhl, a world-renowned scientist in early language and brain development, joins state and local policymakers, school district superintendents, community leaders and others for the summit. Participants are…
December 9, 2014
New book by José Alaniz studies superheroes through the lens of disability studies
Superheroes are generally assumed to be healthy and virtually immortal, tending their superpowers as they save the planet time and again. But a new book by José Alaniz, UW associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures, seeks to redefine the contemporary image of the superhero. “Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond,”…
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