The latest news from the UW

Country musician Billy Mize worked with great people in his long career — Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Buck Owens, Glen Campbell and many more. He also worked in a different way with Diane Kendall, now a University of Washington professor of speech and hearing sciences and director of the UW’s Aphasia Research Laboratory. Aphasia is an acquired communication disorder that impairs a person’s ability to process language but does not affect intelligence or cognition. Kendall’s work helping Mize regain his…

Elena I. Campbell, a University of Washington associate professor of history, has published her first book, which studies Russia’s policies toward Muslims in the 19th and 20th centuries and the impact of the “Muslim Question” on the modernizing path the country would follow. “The Muslim Question and Russian Imperial Governance” was published early this spring by Indiana University Press. “From the time of the Crimean War through the fall of the Tsar, the question of what to do about the…

One of the best ways children learn is by copying what they see others do. Now new research shows that this learning strategy can be used even with things that cannot be seen, including invisible scientific concepts. Weight, for example, is a concept that cannot be seen directly, and it puzzles most preschool-aged children. While they can figure out other more obvious properties about objects, such as their shape, color, or the sound they make, weight trips them up. Researchers…

As a graduate student and food justice activist in Santa Barbara, California, Megan Carney became aware that many migrant women in the area struggled to feed their families. Her recently published book “The Unending Hunger: Tracing Women and Food Insecurity Across Borders,” examines the personal and political aspects of hunger and tells the stories of the women she met through her research. Carney, now a lecturer in the University of Washington’s anthropology department and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies…

Sylvie Troxel didn’t own a driver’s license when she joined the University of Washington’s EcoCAR team as a freshman four years ago. A lifelong bus rider, she knew virtually nothing about cars. She had never manufactured anything before she started working in the UW machine shop where students fabricate the components to turn an iconic muscle car into a high-performance electric hybrid. “I joined the team with no skills and sort of no confidence in my engineering ability,” said Troxel,…

How can a sushi bar eliminate some of its most popular fish from the menu and still be profitable? One local establishment accomplished this, claiming that sustainable seafood is more important than profits in the long term. Hajime Sato, owner of Mashiko Japanese restaurant in West Seattle, will speak about his experience converting his sushi bar into the first (and likely still the only) fully sustainable sushi restaurant in the city as part of a UW School of Marine and…

The University of Washington communication department will open its new Center for Communication, Difference and Equity with public events May 27 to 29, on campus and off. “The CCDE is a space — a physical space, intellectual space and community space — where we as a department and as a university are going to be able to center these issues of power, privilege and difference,” said Ralina Joseph, professor of communication and the center’s director. “And to think of how…

The National Center for Women & Information Technology awarded its inaugural grand prize for excellence in recruiting, engaging and supporting women undergraduates in computer science to the University of Washington’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering (CSE). The national nonprofit that works to increase women’s participation in computing and technology selected UW CSE as the recipient of its top prize, which comes with $100,000, as part of its NCWIT Extension Services Transformation (NEXT) Awards recognizing academic departments that have shown…

More than two hundred high school students from four area high schools will visit the campus for a daylong seminar in the HUB May 27 as part of Teachers and Texts, which in turn is part of the UW in the High School program, sponsored by Professional and Continuing Education. The event is called the Northwest Collaborative Regional Symposium, with the subtitle “Student Voices Making Change.” About 240 students of a class called Margins and Centers at Eastlake, Roosevelt, Franklin…

“I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel,” a film directed by James Franco based on UW English Professor David Shields‘ latest book, with former student Caleb Powell, will be shown at Seattle literary venue Hugo House at 7 p.m. May 30, 31 and June 1. The screenings will be U.S. premiere for the film, which made its world debut May 3 at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver, B.C. “Life is serious business,” Shields said recently. “We all have…

An interdisciplinary team of UW graduate students and its proposal for a 69-unit affordable housing development in Tacoma’s Wedge neighborhood has won the 24th annual Bank of America Low-Income Housing Challenge, held May 14 in San Francisco. The team was organized by the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, which is in the UW College of Built Environments. Members were Ben Broesamle and Sam Yimparsit of the Master of Science in Real Estate program, Zi Cai and Genevieve Hale-Case of…

Poet David Ferry will give the 52nd annual Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Reading at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 28, Kane Hall’s room 130, also known as the Roethke Auditorium. The event is free and the public is invited. Ferry is the author of eight books of poetry, including “Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations,” which won the 2012 National Book Award for Poetry and was praised by The New Yorker as “one of the great books of poetry of this young…

If you’re looking for an escape this weekend, hop a ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island and check out UW marine science research ranging from invertebrates and plankton to quirky fish and ocean acidification. The UW’s Friday Harbor Laboratories will host its annual open house Saturday, May 16, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the campus in Friday Harbor, about a mile from the ferry terminal. The event is free and open to the public. Organizers expect more…