College of Arts & Sciences

March 19, 2021

How white supremacy, racist myths fuel anti-Asian violence

Signs read "hate has no place" and "stop Asian hate"

Linh Thủy Nguyễn, an assistant professor of American ethnic studies at the University of Washington, discusses the recent wave of violence against Asians and Asian Americans, and the history behind it.

March 17, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Joff Hanauer Honors Lecture Series, Museums on a Mission?, and More

During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunities to connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the UW, and the greater community, together online. Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT. Joff…

The message of “Forgetting Nature,” a new documentary film featuring Peter Kahn, is short but powerful: We humans are losing our connection to the natural world, at our great peril.

March 16, 2021

Relearning normalcy, focusing on the positive: UW psychologist on the vaccine phase of the pandemic

University of Washington psychology professor Jane Simoni discusses how COVID-19 vaccines are gradually spurring the return to normal life, and the role of positive public health messaging.

March 15, 2021

New Stroum Center podcast series ‘Jewish Questions’ explores anti-Semitism, features UW faculty

“Jewish Questions,” a podcast from the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies, explores issues of Jewish life, politics, history and culture

March 12, 2021

Role of solvent molecules in light-driven electron transfer revealed

An artistic depiction of small molecules moving within a solvent

In a study published Feb. 15 in Nature Chemistry, a research team led by Munira Khalil, professor and chair of chemistry at the University of Washington, has captured the rapid motions of solvent molecules that impact light-driven electron transfer in a molecular complex for the first time. This information could help researchers learn how to control energy flow in molecules, potentially leading to more efficient clean energy sources.

March 11, 2021

Mindfulness program in campus dorms, groups improved students’ mental health

Students standing silently, eyes closed, in a yoga or meditation class

Amid a growing mental health crisis among teens and young adults nationwide, a pilot program teaching mindfulness and coping techniques to students at the University of Washington has helped lower stress and improve emotional well-being.

March 10, 2021

Helpful behavior during pandemic tied to recognizing common humanity

Woman gives a box of masks to a donation drive at a UW parking lot.

A new University of Washington study finds that an identification with all humanity, as opposed to identification with a geographic area like a country or town, predicts whether someone will engage in “prosocial” behaviors particular to the pandemic, such as donating extra masks or coming to the aid of a sick person.

March 9, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Bambitchell: Dolphins, ships and other vessels, Illustrating Injustice: The Power of Print, and More

March 4, 2021

Can’t solve a riddle? The answer might lie in knowing what doesn’t work

Scrabble tiles forming a word with one tile missing

With the help of about 200 human puzzle-takers, a computer model and functional MRI images, University of Washington researchers have learned more about the processes of reasoning and decision making, pinpointing the brain pathway that springs into action when problem-solving goes south.

March 2, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: UW Museums Reopen, Uncharted Waters, UW Dance Presents, and More

Recent honors and achievements by UW faculty and staff include a grant for field research in the Middle East, a staffer’s play being streamed by a Seattle theater and a professor’s cartoon remembrance of a relative lost to COVID-19.

February 24, 2021

Scientists describe earliest primate fossils

An artistic rendering of an ancient primate eating fruit in a tree shortly after the extinction of the dinosaurs

A new study published Feb. 24 in the journal Royal Society Open Science documents the earliest-known fossil evidence of primates. These creatures lived less than 150,000 years after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event that killed off non-avian dinosaurs and saw the rise of mammals.

February 23, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Fermented Face with Candice Lin, After Democracy: A Conversation with Zizi Papacharissi, and More

February 18, 2021

Faculty/staff honors: Polymer Physics Prize, anthropology dissertation award

The Polymer Physics Prize from the American Physical Society and a dissertation award from the Society for American Archaeology.

February 17, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Katz Distinguished Lecture: Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Contemporary Environmental Issues In Taiwan, Global Perspectives on Restorative Justice & Race, and More

February 16, 2021

UW books in brief: Historian Anand Yang explores British ‘penal transportation’; world music textbooks by Patricia Shehan Campbell

Historian Anand Yang writes about the British history of shipping of convicted criminals to other continents; and new world music education books from ethnomusicologist Patricia Shehan Campbell.

February 10, 2021

List of 1,000 inspiring Black scientists includes seven from UW

Seven University of Washington scientists are included in Cell Mentor’s list of 1,000 inspiring Black scientists, published in December 2020. Cell Mentor is a collaborative resource between Cell Press and Cell Signaling Technology.

February 9, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Monsen Photography Lecture, Meany On Screen: Martha Graham Dance Company, and More

Recent honors and achievements by UW faculty include a keynote address at a national Holocaust commemoration event, an album of new compositions and a best-of-2020 musical nod from the Seattle Times.

Even if all countries meet their Paris Agreement goals for reducing emissions, Earth has only a 5% chance of staying below 2 C warming this century, a previous study showed. But reductions about 80% more ambitious, or an average of 1.8% drop in emissions per year rather than 1% per year, would be enough to meet the Paris Agreement’s temperature goal.

February 8, 2021

UW physicist pens math-free tour of quantum mechanics and technology

Morales has authored a seven-part series for Ars Technica on quantum mechanics for a general audience. One article in the series is rolling out each week from Jan. 10 to Feb. 21. Morales sat down with UW News to talk about the series, quantum mechanics and what he hopes the public can learn about this seemingly odd and possibly intimidating realm of science.

February 5, 2021

New nationwide survey shows MAGA supporters’ beliefs about the pandemic, the election and the insurrection

New data from the University of Washington, collected just before and after the Capitol riot, reveals fervent Trump voters’ opinions about race, gender, the pandemic and the 2020 election.

February 4, 2021

‘Audeo’ teaches artificial intelligence to play the piano

A UW team created Audeo, a system that can generate music using only visual cues of someone playing the piano.

February 2, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Patty Hayes – The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Impacts of Systemic Racism, Book Launch: Union by Law, and More

outside of prison, surrounded by razor-wire fence

“Making Amends,” a new podcast by University of Washington professor Steve Herbert, explores themes of atonement among men incarcerated at the Oregon State Penitentiary.

February 1, 2021

UW books in brief: African American political theory, philosophy and migration, data science for health

Notable recent books written or edited by UW faculty include an exploration of African American political theory, a book on philosophy and migration and a textbook on health data science.

January 27, 2021

Undergrad’s first novel, optioned for a movie, features big robots and even bigger feelings

UW student Zoe Mikuta’s first book, “Gearbreakers,” is set to come out June 29. Categorized in the young adult genre, it tells the story of Eris and Sona, who live under a tyrannical regime enforced by 100-foot-tall mecha robots. She’s sold the film rights to “Gearbreakers” and is currently working on its sequel.

Sleep cycles in people oscillate during the 29.5-day lunar cycle: In the days leading up to a full moon, people go to sleep later in the evening and sleep for shorter periods of time. The team, led by researchers at the University of Washington, observed these variations in both the time of sleep onset and the duration of sleep in urban and rural settings — from Indigenous communities in northern Argentina to college students in Seattle, a city of more than 750,000. They saw the oscillations regardless of an individual’s access to electricity, though the variations are less pronounced in individuals living in urban environments.

An image of the planet Venus, showing its thick atmosphere.

A University of Washington-led team has revisited and comprehensively reinterpreted the radio telescope observations underlying a widely reported 2019 claim that phosphine gas was present in the atmosphere of Venus. In a paper accepted to the Astrophysical Journal, they report that sulfur dioxide, a common gas in the atmosphere of Venus, is likely what was detected instead of phosphine.

January 25, 2021

Ancient food scraps provide clues to past rainfall in Australia’s Northern Territory

A new study led by the University of Queensland and involving the University of Washington provides a glimpse into the Australia’s ancient climate and early human occupation.

January 22, 2021

The 7 rocky planets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 may be made of similar stuff

An image showing three illustrations of potential interiors of the exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 star system.

A study accepted by the Planetary Science Journal shows that the planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system share similar densities. That could mean they all contain roughly the same ratio of materials thought to be common to rocky planets, such as iron, oxygen, magnesium and silicon — though they appear to differ notably from Earth.

January 20, 2021

‘Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems,’ co-edited by UW’s Robert Pekkanen, out in paperback, online

"The Oxford Handbook of Electoral Systems," published in 2018, is coming out in paperback in February from Oxford University Press. The entire book is already available online through UW Libraries.

A book co-edited by Robert Pekkanen of the UW’s Jackson School of International Studies brings together top scholars to study the origins and effects of electoral systems in the United States and other democracies.

January 14, 2021

Astronomers document the rise and fall of a rarely observed stellar dance

An image of stars in the night sky, showing a particularly bright binary at the center called HS Hydra.

Astronomers have catalogued 126 years of changes to a binary star system called HS Hydrae. Analyzing observations from astro-photographic plates in the late 1800s to TESS observations in 2019, they show that the two stars in HS Hydrae began to eclipse each other starting around a century ago, peaking in the 1960s. The degree of eclipsing then plummeted over the course of just a half century, and will cease around February 2021.

A man and woman sitting across a desk. Only their hands are visible, using a tablet and notebook.

A new UW study reveals people’s perceptions that sexual harassment primarily affects young, feminine and conventionally attractive women. Women who fall outside that prototype not only are perceived as unharmed by harassment, but also have a harder time convincing others that they have been harassed.

January 12, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Events to honor Martin Luther King, Jr; ‘Attack on the Capitol: What Does It Mean for Democracy?’; COVID-19 and racial inequities — and more

January 6, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: The Converso’s Return, Drop-in Meditation Session, and More

December 28, 2020

ArtSci Roundup: Protest, Race and Citizenship across African Worlds, TEAL Digital Scholarship for East Asian Studies: The Deep Fake of Place, and More

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