The latest news from the UW

Government finance is a bit like Italian opera, writes Justin Marlowe, professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance: It’s beautiful and elaborate, sure — but it’s also in a foreign language full of “traditions, customs and unspoken rules most casual fans don’t understand.” And though local, county and state government officials don’t need to know Verdi from Wagner, they do need to know about public finance and how to keep the offices they represent solvent and successful….

As a subarctic, seasonally ice-filled ocean that produces about 40 percent of the nation’s annual fish catch, the Bering Sea is of particular interest to researchers as the climate changes and forces wildlife and fishing practices to adapt. The UW is a partner in a new effort to understand how changes to the Bering Sea’s biophysical environment — such as temperature, salinity, currents, nutrients and plankton — may impact fish stocks and fishing practices as the climate warms. Scientists from…

The University of Washington is among the 2015 Campus Pride Top 25 LGBTQ-Friendly Colleges & Universities list released Monday. For seven years, the list has highlighted the most LGBTQ-inclusive colleges and universities around the country. But this is the first year Campus Pride has released a Top 25 list based on new higher LGBTQ benchmarks in its Campus Pride Index. The list is based on responses to the index, a national benchmarking tool which assesses LGBTQ-friendly policies, programs and practices. The…

Though the number of mixed-race couples in the United States has nearly quadrupled since 1980, relatively little research has been done about where those couples live — and specifically, the level of poverty within their neighborhoods. That dearth of data prompted Ryan Gabriel, a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Washington, to look at where mixed-race couples live as an indicator of their standing in the broader culture. Gabriel analyzed data on a representative sample of mixed-race couples…

A public celebration of the life of writer Ann Rule will be held at 5 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 23, in Room 130 of Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus. The gathering, under the title “Ann Rule, Our Tribute to a Life Well Lived,” will feature friends and colleagues remembering the writer’s life and work. Among these will be CBS News reporter Peter Van Sant, KOMO TV reporter Elisa Jaffe, journalist Anne Jaeger and Ben Benson, homicide detective with…

Protecting African-Americans from state-sanctioned violence remains “an unmet challenge for civil rights groups committed to racial equality,” writes Megan Ming Francis, UW assistant professor of political science, in a much-read post at HistPhil, a blog launched in June to cover the history of philanthropy. Why is preventing racial violence not a higher priority? In part because of money, Francis writes. Journalists and scholars cite discriminatory policies and racist policing among contributing factors, Francis notes in her Aug. 17 post, “Do…

A new study finds that acceptance of a policy is an important process through which people’s beliefs and economic ideologies influence their support for putting a price on carbon emissions, but general acceptance doesn’t always lead to support. A University of Washington researcher led a study looking at views towards a carbon pricing policy before and after the 2013 federal election in Australia, which was the first nation to repeal an existing carbon pricing policy. Despite heated debate on the…

When University of Washington oceanographers visited the deep-ocean Axial Volcano in late July, parts of the seafloor were still warm. The team knew to expect changes in the mile-deep volcano 300 miles off the Oregon coast. This spring, seafloor seismometers connected to shore by a new Internet cable showed that Axial Volcano, a 3,600-foot-tall underwater volcano, started shaking April 24 and shook continuously for several days. The recent visit, part of a larger cruise, was scientists’ first chance to see…

This year’s pathetic snow season wasn’t just a problem for skiers. Now that it’s summer, salmon are struggling because there’s not enough snowmelt to feed streams, and water managers are worried by lack of snowpack or summer rains to feed water supplies until the fall. When Gov. Jay Inslee first declared a drought in April, the Department of Ecology funded the office of the Washington State Climatologist at the University of Washington to produce weekly updates on the current conditions….

Oh no — you’ve lost your smartphone. Anxiety spikes as you check pockets and bags. But wait — there it is and your worries vanish. All is well, and you feel yourself again, whole again. What’s up with that? Michelle Carter, an assistant professor in the University of Washington Information School, has studied and given a name to this feeling of reliance on — even seeming to become one with — the information technologies of our lives. She calls it…

At a University of Washington workshop this week, a hundred graduate students from around the country will explore a question that everyone is asking these days: What can data science do for me? To land an invite to the Data Science 2015 workshop on Aug 5 – 7, they were asked to identify a single challenge, big idea or solution that data science — the process of extracting knowledge and making discoveries from vast amounts of data — could advance…

When UW design professor Karen Cheng collaborated with students to create an infographic from publicly available City of Seattle data and published it in a local design magazine, the result was so good they were invited to present their work to the Seattle Police Department. Cheng, professor in the School of Art + Art History + Design, worked with design graduate student Catherine Lim and seniors Melissa Leith and Karlie Grasle to create two infographics, one on how public money…

The University of Washington has again been named to Princeton Review’s Green Rating Honor Roll, receiving the highest possible score for the 2014-15 school year. This is the fifth year in a row the UW has achieved this distinction and the seventh year overall since the program began eight years ago. The UW was among 24 colleges and universities to receive the top rating, out of 804 institutions reviewed for their sustainability-related practices, policies and academic offerings. “The University of…

Almost 30 years ago, two University of Washington researchers developed a program that aimed to reduce problem behaviors among young people by implementing preventive measures at the community level. That program, Communities That Care, is now being used in states across the nation and has been shown to reduce risk factors that lead to problems such as substance abuse and juvenile crime. But whether it was primarily the reduction of risk factors — or also the strengthening of protective ones…