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The latest news from the UW

News releases | Social science

September 13, 2018

Poverty rates hold steady, average incomes continue to increase in Seattle area and Washington state

The share of Washingtonians living below the federal poverty threshold declined slightly from 11.3 percent to 11 percent between 2016 and 2017, according to new Census data released Thursday. While this change was not statistically significant, the 2017 poverty rate remains below the post-recession high of 14.1 percent in 2013. Washington was one of 28 states and the District of Columbia where poverty rates remained statistically unchanged from the prior year. During that period, poverty rates declined in 20 states…

Honors and awards | News releases | Social science

UW psychology professor honored for founding research on implicit bias

When Tony Greenwald and his colleagues developed the online Implicit Association Test two decades ago, it enjoyed quick success in the pre-laptop, pre-smartphone, nascent Internet world, with some 45,000 participants in the first month. The test, which requires classifying words and images rapidly according to their meanings, captures unconscious biases toward — depending on the test version — race, gender, age and dozens of other traits and preferences. Since its debut in 1998, the test has been taken online more…

Engineering | Research | Science | UW News blog

September 12, 2018

Three UW teams receive TRIPODS+X grants for research in data science

The National Science Foundation announced on Sept. 11 that it is awarding grants totaling $8.5 million to 19 collaborative projects at 23 universities for the study of complex and entrenched problems in data science. Three of these projects will be based at the University of Washington and led by researchers in the College of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences.

Honors and awards | News releases | Politics and government | Research | UW and the community | UW News blog

September 10, 2018

Evans School professor Justin Marlowe appointed to Washington Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors

Justin Marlowe, a professor in the UW’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, has been named a member of Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s Council of Economic Advisors. He will be among those advising the governor on local and state economic conditions and national developments that affect state policies.

News releases

Visionary gift from Hawaii businessman and philanthropist transforming education at University of Washington and University of Hawaii

An innovative gift from Honolulu-based real estate investor Jay H. Shilder to the Universities of Washington and Hawaii is being celebrated this week in Seattle. The gift includes cash, potential future leasing income and a transformational real estate gift to be realized a century from now.

Buildings and grounds | News releases | Video

September 7, 2018

New Life Sciences Building is a nexus for modern-age teaching and research at the University of Washington

The University of Washington today opened the doors to a new Life Sciences Building that will transform learning, teaching and research for generations.

The $171 million Life Sciences complex includes seven floors and 207,000 square feet that encourages and makes possible team-oriented science. Designed by Perkins+Will and built by Skanska, the building encompasses a 187,000-square-foot research and teaching facility and a 20,000-square-foot research greenhouse with UW plant collections.

News releases | Research | Science

September 4, 2018

NSF to fund new $25M software institute to enable discoveries in high-energy physics

On Sept. 4 the National Science Foundation announced the creation of the Institute for Research and Innovation in Software for High Energy Physics, or IRIS-HEP. The institute is a coalition of 17 research institutions, including the University of Washington, and will receive $25 million from the NSF over five years.

News releases | Research | Science

August 30, 2018

Climate change projected to boost insect activity and crop loss, researchers say

In a paper published Aug. 31 in the journal Science, a team led by scientists at the University of Washington reports that insect activity in today’s temperate, crop-growing regions will rise along with temperatures. Researchers project that this activity, in turn, will boost worldwide losses of rice, corn and wheat by 10-25 percent for each degree Celsius that global mean surface temperatures rise.

News releases | Research | Science | UW and the community

August 23, 2018

Hack week: Study supports collaborative, participant-driven approach for researchers to learn data science from their peers

A team from the University of Washington, New York University and the University of California, Berkeley has developed an interactive workshop in data science for researchers at multiple stages of their careers. The course format, called “hack week,” blends elements from both traditional lecture-style pedagogy with participant-driven projects.

Engineering | Research | UW News blog

August 21, 2018

Bus battle: Do private shuttles affect the reliability of public transit?

Last year, King County Metro and the Seattle Department of Transportation started a pilot program that allowed Microsoft’s and Seattle Children’s Hospital’s private shuttles to pick up employees at a few public bus stops throughout Seattle. Now a recent study from researchers at the University of Washington suggests that public buses are unaffected by private shuttles most of the time.

Environment | News releases | Research | Science

August 14, 2018

Diving robots find Antarctic winter seas exhale surprising amounts of carbon dioxide

A new study led by the University of Washington uses data gathered by floating drones in the Southern Ocean over past winters to learn how much carbon dioxide is transferred by the surrounding seas. Results show that in winter the open water nearest the sea ice surrounding Antarctica releases significantly more carbon dioxide than previously believed.

Honors and awards | News releases | Politics and government | Research | Social science | Technology | UW and the community | UW News blog

Information School’s Hans Scholl on promises, cautions of ‘digital government’

Hans Scholl, professor in the UW Information School, discusses the challenges and opportunities of digital government. The website Apolitical has named him among the “Top 100 Most Influential People in digital government.”

News releases | Research | Science

August 9, 2018

For UW physicists, the 2-D form of tungsten ditelluride is full of surprises

In a paper published online July 23 in the journal Nature, a UW-led research team reports that the 2-D form of tungsten ditelluride can undergo “ferroelectric switching.” Materials with ferroelectric properties can have applications in memory storage, capacitors, RFID card technologies and even medical sensors — and tungsten ditelluride is the first exfoliated 2-D material known to undergo ferroelectric switching.

Engineering | Health and medicine | News releases | Research | Science

August 7, 2018

NIH awards University of Washington, partner institutions $6.5M for reusable, reproducible biomedical modeling

The NIH has awarded a $6.5 million, five-year grant to the University of Washington and partner institutions to establish the Center for Reproducible Biomedical Modeling. The center’s primary goal is to develop more effective predictive models of biological systems, which are used in research and medicine.

Engineering | News releases | Research | Social science | Technology

August 6, 2018

Alexa, be my friend: Children talk to technology, but how does it respond?

When young children talk to voice-activated technologies, the devices don’t always respond in a helpful way. A new University of Washington study suggests that these interfaces could be designed to be more responsive – repeating or prompting the user, for example – and be more useful to more people.

Engineering | News releases | Research | Science

August 3, 2018

UW, PNNL to host energy research center focusing on bio-inspired design and assembly

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded an expected $10.75 million, four-year grant to the University of Washington, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and other partner institutions for a new interdisciplinary research center to define the enigmatic rules that govern how molecular-scale building blocks assemble into ordered structures and give rise to complex hierarchical materials.

Arts and entertainment | News releases | Politics and government | Research | Social science | UW and the community | UW News blog

August 2, 2018

UW books in brief: Urban diaries, battling Jim Crow on campus and more

Recent notable books by University of Washington authors tell of the struggle to break free of racism in higher education, taking an “urban diary” approach to documenting city life and more.

Engineering | News releases | Research | Science

July 25, 2018

And then there was (more) light: Researchers boost performance quality of perovskites

In a paper published online this spring in the journal Nature Photonics, scientists at the University of Washington report that a prototype semiconductor thin-film has performed even better than today’s best solar cell materials at emitting light.