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June 12, 2019

ArtsUW Roundup: Design show reception, DMA recitals, and more

This week in the arts, partake in the Design Show reception at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery or the MFA + MDes Thesis Exhibition at the Henry, attend a DMA recital, and more! 2019 School of Art + Art History + Design Graduation Exhibitions Each year we celebrate graduating Art and Design undergraduate and graduate students…


June 11, 2019

Behind the magic: Making moving photos a reality

Picasso's "Niña con corona y barco" steps out of the frame

UW researchers have figured out how to take a person from a 2D photo or a work of art and make them run, walk or jump out of the frame. The system also allows users to view the animation in three dimensions using augmented reality tools.


June 10, 2019

Golden State Warriors President and COO Rick Welts to speak at UW’s 144th commencement on Saturday

A record 5,900 graduates, along with 50,000-plus family members, friends, faculty and other observers, are expected to attend the 144th University of Washington commencement ceremonies at 12:30 p.m. Saturday, June 15, at Husky Stadium.


UW’s Pacific Northwest English Study seeking new group of research participants for summer 2019

The Pacific Northwest English Study, headed by UW linguist Alicia Beckford Wassink, is about to begin a new, three-year research project listening to voices from throughout the region and is looking for participants.


Mysterious holes in Antarctic sea ice explained by years of robotic data

map of white ice with dark hole

Why did a giant hole appear in the sea ice off Antarctica in 2016 and 2017, after decades of more typical sea ice cover? Years of Southern Ocean data have explained the phenomenon, helping oceanographers to better predict these features and study their role in global ocean cycles.


June 6, 2019

UW professor leads students to hidden history in a small Tennessee town

This 19th century map shows Blount County, Tennessee, home to the communities involved in the Off the Map project, which is led by Katie Headrick Taylor, UW assistant professor of education.

Uncovering the “hidden history” of two eastern Tennessee communities is the goal of Off the Map, a project with high school students led by Katie Headrick Taylor, a University of Washington assistant professor of education.


June 5, 2019

Urgent action on climate change will prevent heat-related deaths in major U.S. cities

The planet will warm by about 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century if the U.S. and other nations meet only their current commitments under the Paris climate agreement to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases. According to a paper by U.S. and U.K. scientists published in Science Advances today, accelerating ambition to reduce global warming emissions to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius could prevent thousands of extreme heat-related deaths in cities across the U.S.


June 4, 2019

ArtsUW Roundup: A site responsive exhibition, #HEREproject, Strange Coupling 2019 exhibition reception, Daniel Alexander Jones reading and more

This week in the arts, partake in the #HEREproject  – a celebratory interactive art installation honoring places around campus that have defined our #HuskyExperience and set us on our path, attend one of the 2019 School of Art + Art History + Design Graduation Exhibitions, attend a performance by UW Symphony and Choirs, and more! ASUW…


Early lives of Alaska sockeye salmon accelerating with climate change

sockeye salmon

An ample buffet of freshwater food, brought on by climate change, is altering the life history of one of the world’s most important salmon species.


June 3, 2019

Documentary films by UW faculty members Jeff Shulman, David Shields to screen

Two films by UW faculty members — business professor Jeff Shulman and English professor David Shields — will have screenings in Seattle in coming days — both with strong connections to the city.


May 30, 2019

16 UW students awarded Fulbright fellowships

collage

Sixteen UW students and alumni were awarded Fulbright U.S. Student Program scholarships for the 2019-20 academic year, and one has been named an alternate, joining about 1,900 students and recent graduates from around the country to study and teach abroad this coming year.


May 29, 2019

ArtsUW Roundup: You Are Not Invited, world premier of ‘Lynch: A History’ at SIFF, last week to see ‘Nina Simone: Four Women’, Edgar Arceneaux’s Library of Black Lies, and ‘The Learned Ladies’, and more!

Photo: Free Sheep Foundation, Bridge Motel, 2007 Photo by Dan Hawkins

This week in the arts, visit one of the School of Art + Art History + Design exhibitions, attend the premier of “Lynch: A History’” – an official selection in SIFF’s documentary competition, see “Nina Simone: Four Women” at the Seattle Rep., and more! You Are Not Invited: A Critical Survey of Seattle Art History…


Young herring ‘go with the older fish’ a key finding in Ocean Modeling Forum’s efforts

A collaborative group led by the University of Washington has released a set of research papers, fact sheets and modeling tools to help agencies incorporate traditional knowledge and human dimensions into Pacific herring management.


May 24, 2019

UW books in brief: Mindful travel in an unequal world, day laborers in Brooklyn, activist educators

Recent notable books by University of Washington faculty explore mindful international travel, men seeking work as day laborers, and activist teachers.


Origami-inspired materials could soften the blow for reusable spacecraft

a hand pointing to the paper model

University of Washington researchers used the paper folding art of origami to develop a novel solution to help reduce the forces associated with impact — like in car crashes, football helmets, landing spacecraft and more.


May 23, 2019

Tiny fishes fuel life on coral reefs

small fish looks out cautiously

In a paper published May 23 in Science, a team of international researchers from Simon Fraser University, University of Washington and other institutions reveals that the iconic abundance of fishes on reefs is fueled by an unlikely source: tiny, bottom-dwelling reef fishes.


Hot spots in rivers that nurture young salmon ‘flicker on and off’ in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region

A spawning sockeye salmon.

Chemical signatures imprinted on tiny stones that form inside the ears of fish show that two of Alaska’s most productive salmon populations, and the fisheries they support, depend on the entire watershed.


May 21, 2019

ARTSUW Roundup: Eleventh Improvised Music Project Festival (IMPFest XI), Graduation Exhibitions, The Learned Ladies, and more!

This week in the arts, stop by one of the School of Art + Art History + Design’s Graduation Exhibitions, see The Learned Ladies performed in the United States’ first Theatre in the Round, attend IMPFest XI,  featuring UW Jazz Studies faculty, students and seasoned professionals of international renown, and more! 2019 School of Art…


Help by design: Art assists science at UW Design Help Desk

Sometimes when science gets stuck, art can come to the rescue. Such is the case, a new study shows, with the UW Design Help Desk, which guides faculty, students and staff in improving the more artistic aspects of presenting research or reports — figures, diagrams, posters and such.


May 20, 2019

Scientists use molecular tethers and chemical ‘light sabers’ to construct platforms for tissue engineering

In a paper published May 20 in the journal Nature Materials, a team of researchers from the University of Washington unveiled a new strategy to keep proteins intact and functional in synthetic biomaterials for tissue engineering. Their approach modifies proteins at a specific point so that they can be chemically tethered to the scaffold using light. Since the tether can also be cut by laser light, this method can create evolving patterns of signal proteins throughout a biomaterial scaffold to grow tissues made up of different types of cells.


May 16, 2019

Children describe technology that gives them a sense of ambiguity as ‘creepy’

a small girl touches a robot's hand

University of Washington researchers have defined for the first time what children mean when they say technology is “creepy.”


May 15, 2019

ARTSUW Roundup: newly launched ARTSUW website, JACK Quartet performance, Heisenberg, Print Sale, Screening at LANGSTON, MFA Dance Concert, and more!

This week in the arts, partake in an audio augmented reality (AR) experience with hundreds of others on Red Square, explore the newly redesigned ARTSUW website, attend JACK Quartet, and more! Inspiring arts exploration: ArtsUW website redesigned with students in mind “We want the arts to be part of the DNA of every student’s experience.” That…


First smartphone app that can hear ear infections in children

a smartphone displaying the app

Researchers at the UW have created a new smartphone app that can detect fluid behind the eardrum by simply using a piece of paper and the phone’s microphone and speaker.


May 14, 2019

Provost announces new initiative to bolster Ph.D. student recruitment and support

Mark Richards in front of brick building

The University of Washington today announced a new $5 million initiative to strengthen recruitment and support of Ph.D. students. Mark Richards, the university’s provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, introduced the effort during the Provost Town Hall this afternoon.


May 13, 2019

UW Information School’s Hala Annabi creates new ‘Autism @ Work Playbook’

Hala Annabi, associate professor in the UW Information School, created the Autism @ Work Playbook, which advises companies how to create and support inclusive work programs for individuals on the autism spectrum.

Hala Annabi, associate professor in the UW Information School, is creator of the new “Autism @ Work Playbook,” a resource to guide organizations toward creating well-supported employment opportunities for individuals on the autism spectrum.


From counseling services to commissary items, how the private sector shapes ‘offender-funded justice’

An article by University of Washington sociology professor Alexes Harris focuses on the role of the private sector in collecting court-imposed fines and fees.


May 10, 2019

UW students face food, housing insecurity, survey shows

A study of college students from around the state shows the prevalence of depression and anxiety. Suicide prevention advocates say this illustrates the need for more mental health resources on campuses.

Early results from a faculty-led survey on the University of Washington’s three campus estimate the extent of food and housing insecurity among students.


May 9, 2019

Former cleantech executive leads development of University of Washington energy research and technology center

A future building on the University of Washington campus.

The University of Washington and its Clean Energy Institute named Kevin Klustner executive director of the Center for Advanced Materials and Clean Energy Technologies, or CAMCET. When complete, CAMCET will be a 340,000-square-foot building that will bring together UW scientists and engineers with industry, civic and nonprofit partners to accelerate clean energy solutions for a healthy planet.


May 8, 2019

One-third of the world’s longest rivers remain free-flowing, new analysis finds

laird river

Just over one-third of the world’s 246 longest rivers remain free-flowing, according to a new study published May 8 in Nature. Dams and reservoirs are drastically reducing the diverse benefits that healthy rivers provide to people and nature across the globe.


ARTSUW Roundup: Peruvian Textiles, This Moment, Innovation the Nordic Way, International Experimental Music Ensemble, MFA Concert, and more!

This week in the arts, examine up-close a selection of Peruvian textiles from the Henry’s collection, attend a lecture about Nordic innovation at the Nordic Museum, go to a graduation exhibition at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery, and more! From the Collection: Peruvian Textiles May 9, 6:30 pm | Henry Art Gallery Quipus, knotted strings used for…


May 3, 2019

Researchers take a bottom-up approach to synthesizing microscopic diamonds for bioimaging, quantum computing

Two people operating a laser to heat material and make nanodiamonds.

Researchers at the University of Washington, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discovered that they can use extremely high pressure and temperature to introduce other elements into nanodiamonds, making them potentially useful in cell and tissue imaging, as well as quantum computing.


May 2, 2019

Bats evolved diverse skull shapes due to echolocation, diet

A close-up image of a California leaf-nosed bat.

In a paper published May 2 in Nature Communications, a University of Washington team reports that two major forces have shaped bat skulls over their evolutionary history — echolocation and diet — generating a huge diversity of skull shapes across 1,300 bat species today.


May 1, 2019

Arsenic-breathing life discovered in the tropical Pacific Ocean

people working on deck of boat

In oxygen-poor parts of the ocean, some microorganisms survive by breathing arsenic. This holdover from the ancient Earth was not thought to still exist in the open ocean.


US public support for undocumented immigrants seeking citizenship stronger if pathway includes military service, UW research shows

Americans appear more willing to support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants if that path includes serving in the United States military, according to new research from UW political scientists Sophia Jordán Wallace and Geoffrey Wallace.


Chemical records in teeth confirm elusive Alaska lake seals are one of a kind

seal in lake

Lifelong chemical records stored in the canine teeth of an elusive group of harbor seals show that the seals remain in freshwater their entire lives and are likely a distinct population from their relatives in the ocean. Their home territory, Iliamna Lake, is in the heart of the proposed Pebble Mine project.


April 30, 2019

Flowering plants, new teeth and no dinosaurs: New study sheds light on the rise of mammals

Well-preserved fossils ― like this Yanoconodon allini (Specimen No.: NJU P06001; Formation: Yixian; Age: 122.2–124.6 million years ago; Provenance: China) ― enabled the team to infer ecology of these extinct mammal species and look at changes in mammal community structure during the last 165 million years.

A new study published April 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identified three factors critical in the rise of mammal communities since they first emerged during the Age of Dinosaurs: the rise of flowering plants; the evolution of tribosphenic molars in mammals; and the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, which reduced competition between mammals and other vertebrates in terrestrial ecosystems.


UW OMA&D receives $3.6 million gift commitment from Armon Dadgar and Joshua Kalla to support underrepresented students

The University of Washington today announced a $3.6 million gift commitment awarded over 12 years to the Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity (OMA&D). The gift commitment will fund full scholarship packages for approximately 30 underrepresented undergraduate students based on financial need.


April 29, 2019

Patterns of compulsive smartphone use suggest how to kick the habit

A group of people looking at their phones

UW researchers conducted in-depth interviews to learn why we compulsively check our phones.


April 22, 2019

Brains of blind people adapt to sharpen sense of hearing, study shows

People who are visually impaired rely on other senses to interpret their surroundings. A pair of studies from the University of Washington shows how the brains of blind people adapt to process information. Photo of blind person walking with cane.

Research from the University of Washington uses functional MRI to identify two differences in the brains of blind individuals — differences that might be responsible for their abilities to make better use of auditory information.


April 19, 2019

New space race: Essays from Jackson School symposium explore changing law, policy

Saadia Pekkanen, UW professor of international studies

A new space race is underway, characterized by the intersecting trends of democratization, commercialization and militarization. Saadia Pekkanen, UW professor of international relations, is lead guest editor for a group of essays addressing such issues and more published online this month in the American Journal of International Law.



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