News releases
June 11, 2015
140th commencement for UW’s Seattle campus at Husky Stadium June 13
A record 5,600-plus graduates, along with more than 40,000 family members, friends, faculty and other observers, are expected to attend the 140th University of Washington commencement ceremonies June 13 at Husky Stadium.
How the hawkmoth sees, hovers and tracks flowers in the dark
What researchers have discovered about the hummingbird-sized hawkmoth could help the next generation of small flying robots operate efficiently under a broad range of lighting conditions. The research is published in the June 12 edition of Science.
Greater suicide prevention efforts coming to rural Washington state
Washington state’s rural communities with the highest suicide rates soon will get more resources to help with prevention training and support. Washington Women’s Foundation is giving Forefront: Innovations in Suicide Prevention $100,000 for suicide prevention in six underserved rural communities.
June 10, 2015
Prolific and profound: UW professor named U.S. Poet Laureate
Juan Felipe Herrera, visiting professor of ethnic studies at the University of Washington, was named the 21st United States Poet Laureate on Wednesday. Herrera, who for the past two years has been the California Poet Laureate, is the first Latino honored since the U.S. Consultant in Poetry program began in 1937 (the title changed to…
June 9, 2015
Early intervention improves long-term outcomes for children with autism
Early intervention for toddlers with autism spectrum disorder helps improve their intellectual ability and reduces autism symptoms years after originally getting treatment, a new study shows.
June 8, 2015
Atmospheric signs of volcanic activity could aid search for life
Planets with volcanic activity are considered better candidates for life than worlds without such heated internal goings-on.
Now, graduate students at the UW have found a way to detect volcanic activity in the atmospheres of faraway planets when they transit, or pass in front of their host stars.
June 4, 2015
Warmer, lower-oxygen oceans will shift marine habitats
Warming temperatures and decreasing levels of dissolved oxygen will act together to create metabolic stress for marine animals. Habitats will shift to places in the ocean where the oxygen supply can meet the animals’ increasing future needs.
June 3, 2015
‘Stable beams’ achieved: Large Hadron Collider at CERN research facility begins recording data
The Large Hadron Collider has started recording data from the highest-energy particle collisions ever achieved on Earth. This new data, the first recorded since 2012, will enable an international collaboration of researchers — including many from the UW — to study the Higgs boson, search for dark matter and develop a more complete understanding of the laws of nature.
Ocean Modeling Forum to bring human element to herring fishery, others
The Ocean Modeling Forum is trying something very rare — bringing together multiple science models and people who care about a particular ocean resource or fishery to decide what’s most important for its vitality and the communities it serves.
June 2, 2015
UW psychology professor Yuichi Shoda honored for famous long-term study on delayed gratification
University of Washington psychology professor Yuichi Shoda has been honored for his ongoing participation in a well-known — and perhaps slightly misunderstood — long-term study about delayed gratification.
Public policy, business graduate student named next UW student regent
Gov. Jay Inslee has named Vanessa Kritzer, a graduate student at the University of Washington, as the next student member of the UW Board of Regents. The year-long appointment is effective July 1.
UW researchers scaling up fusion hopes with DOE grant
UW researchers are scaling up a novel plasma confinement device with a DOE grant, in hopes of producing a self-sustaining reaction to create fusion energy.
June 1, 2015
UW students use open source mapping to aid relief efforts in Nepal
University of Washington civil and environmental engineering students have joined a 4,000-volunteer crowdsourcing effort to turn satellite imagery of Nepal into maps that aid earthquake relief efforts.
May 28, 2015
Physicists conduct most precise measurement yet of interaction between atoms and carbon surfaces
UW physicists have conducted the most precise and controlled measurements yet of the interaction between the atoms and molecules that comprise air and the type of carbon surface used in battery electrodes and air filters — key information for improving those technologies.
May 27, 2015
Invisible helpers of the sea: Marine bacteria boost growth of tiny ocean algae
Using seawater collected in Seattle, Whidbey Island and other sites, UW oceanographers show that just as with plants on land, a common species of ocean diatom grows faster in the presence of helpful bacteria.
May 20, 2015
Burke Museum paleontologists discover the first dinosaur fossil in Washington state
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture paleontologists have documented the first dinosaur fossil from Washington state. The fossil was collected by a Burke Museum research team along the shores of Sucia Island State Park in the San Juan Islands.
May 19, 2015
Former Gov. Christine Gregoire to be UW commencement speaker
Christine Gregoire, who served as Washington’s 22nd governor from 2005 to 2013, will be the featured speaker at the University of Washington’s Commencement exercises June 13. Gregoire, a 1969 graduate of the UW, was named director of the Washington Department of Ecology in 1988. Four years later, she became the first woman elected to the position of attorney…
UW’s Deborah Kelley publishes atlas of seafloor volcanoes and deep-ocean life
Oceanographer Deborah Kelley is one of the lead authors of a first-of-its-kind atlas of the deep sea, titled “Discovering the Deep.”
May 18, 2015
Study: 44 percent of parents struggle to limit cell phone use at playgrounds
A new University of Washington study finds that cell phone use at playgrounds is a significant source of parental guilt, and that caregivers absorbed in their phones were much less attentive to children’s requests.
May 15, 2015
Washington Sea Grant’s Ed Melvin wins presidential award for seabird-saving streamer lines
A Washington Sea Grant staff scientist is sharing top honors for developing gear that nearly eliminates seabird bycatch in long-line fisheries from the West Coast to South Africa.
Chemical tags in ear bones track Alaska’s Bristol Bay salmon
A chemical signature recorded on the ear bones of Chinook salmon from Alaska’s Bristol Bay region could tell scientists and resource managers where they are born and how they spend their first year of life.
May 14, 2015
UW Regents vote to divest from coal companies
The University of Washington Board of Regents on Thursday voted to prohibit direct investment of endowment funds in publicly traded companies whose principal business is the mining of coal for use in energy generation. The Board also reaffirmed the importance of the University’s wide-ranging sustainability efforts. The vote is the culmination of a process that…
UW Regents appoint Presidential Search Advisory Committee, authorize Chair to contract with national search firm
The University of Washington Board of Regents took another critical step in selecting its next president Thursday by naming the members of its Presidential Search Advisory Committee and selecting a national search firm to assist in the process. Kenyon Chan, chancellor emeritus and professor at UW Bothell, will chair the committee comprising 27 additional members,…
UW Regents approve new name for Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs
The Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington has a new name following approval by the university’s Board of Regents during a meeting Thursday. Effective July 1, the university’s largest graduate degree program will be known as the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. “The Regents’ action…
May 12, 2015
Housing market strong, affordability issues linger in first quarter of 2015
Washington state’s housing market was strong in the first quarter of 2015, according to the UW’s Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies.
May 7, 2015
UW researchers hack a teleoperated surgical robot to reveal security flaws
University of Washington researchers easily hacked a next generation teleoperated surgical robot — one used only for research purposes — to test how easily a malicious attack could hijack remotely-controlled operations in the future and to make those systems more secure.
May 6, 2015
Fishermen, communities need more than healthy fish stocks
The Fishery Performance Indicators are the most comprehensive, global tool that considers social factors in addition to the usual biological measures when gauging a fishery’s health.
UW mapping app turns art into a sharable walking route
The Trace app turns a digital sketch that you draw on your smartphone screen — heart, maple leaf, raindrop — into a walking route that you can send to a friend. The recipient of the “gift” receives step-by-step walking directions that eventually reveal the hidden shape on a map.
May 4, 2015
Puget Sound’s clingfish could inspire better medical devices, whale tags
Researchers at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories are looking at how the biomechanics of clingfish could be helpful in designing devices and instruments to be used in surgery and even to tag and track whales in the ocean.
April 30, 2015
Sustainability progress should precede seafood market access, researchers urge
A team of researchers has evaluated fishery improvement projects, which are designed to bring seafood from wild fisheries to the certified market while promising sustainability in the future. In a policy paper appearing May 1 in Science, they conclude these projects need to be fine tuned to ensure that fisheries are delivering on their promises.
Engineering a better solar cell: UW research pinpoints defects in popular perovskites
A new UW study demonstrates that perovskite materials — superefficient crystal structures that have recently taken the scientific community by storm — contain previously undiscovered flaws that can be engineered to improve solar cells and other devices even further.
UW Regents seek public input at open forums as presidential search begins
The University of Washington Board of Regents began the process of selecting its next president, and board Chairman Bill Ayer is inviting students, faculty, staff and the public to a series of open forums about what they are looking for in the next leader of the university.
April 29, 2015
Antarctic ice core shows northern trigger for ice age climate shifts
UW glaciologists were part of a team that used a new Antarctic ice core to discover which region triggered sudden global-scale climate shifts during the last ice age.
April 28, 2015
UW apparatus measures single electron’s radiation to try to weigh a neutrino
UW researchers and their collaborators used an experiment in the physics building to measure the energy of a single electron emitted by radioactive decay, a key step in their strategy to measure the mass of the elusive neutrino.
Research shows brain differences in children with dyslexia and dysgraphia
University of Washington research shows that using a single category of learning disability to qualify students with written language challenges for special education services is not scientifically supported. Some students only have writing disabilities, but some have both reading and writing disabilities. The study, published online in NeuroImage: Clinical, is among the first to identify…
April 27, 2015
Tidal tugs on Teflon faults drive slow-slipping earthquakes
Teasing out how slow, silent earthquakes respond to tidal forces lets researchers calculate the friction inside the fault, which could help understand when and how the more hazardous earthquakes occur.
April 22, 2015
UW key player in new NASA coalition to search for life on distant worlds
The NASA Astrobiology Institute’s Virtual Planetary Laboratory, based at the University of Washington, has long brought an interdisciplinary approach to the study of planets and search for life outside our solar system. Now, a new NASA initiative inspired by the UW lab is embracing that same team approach to bring together 10 universities and two research institutions in the ongoing search for life on planets around other stars.
April 20, 2015
Study shows early environment has a lasting impact on stress response systems
New University of Washington research finds that children’s early environments have a lasting impact on their responses to stress later in life, and that the negative effects of deprived early environments can be mitigated — but only if that happens before age 2. Published April 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,…
April 16, 2015
Research identifies barriers in tracking meals and what foodies want
University of Washington and Georgia Institute of Technology researchers studied how mobile-based food journals integrate into everyday life. A new study suggests how future designs might make it easier and more effective.
April 15, 2015
3-D printed blossoms a growing tool for ecology
3-D printing has been used to make everything from cars to medical implants. Now, University of Washington ecologists are using the technology to make artificial flowers, which they say could revolutionize our understanding of plant-pollinator interactions.
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