March 23, 2015
University of Washington scientists have built a new nanometer-sized laser using a semiconductor that’s only three atoms thick. It could help open the door to next-generation computing that uses light, rather than electrons, to transfer information.
Mia Tuan has been named dean of the College of Education at the University of Washington, interim President Ana Mari Cauce and interim Provost Jerry Baldasty announced today. Tuan comes to the UW from the University of Oregon, where she has held a number of academic and leadership positions over the past 18 years. The appointment, effective July 1, 2015, is subject to approval by the UW Board of Regents. “Mia Tuan brings a wealth of successful administrative experience in…
Charles Johnson, English professor emeritus discusses three new books out, including the second children’s book in the Adventures of Emery Jones series, “The Hard Problem,” illustrated by Johnson himself.
Years ago, a fellow educator made a comment that stuck in Christine Stickler’s head. University students don’t need to travel to a foreign country for spring break to immerse themselves in another culture, she said — they can do that right here in Washington state. That observation led Stickler to launch the UW’s Alternative Spring Break program, which sends out teams of undergraduates to small rural and tribal communities throughout Washington to work with elementary and middle school students on…
March 20, 2015
The University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory and Everett-based company OceanGate this month unveiled the first model of its joint project to build a new type of submarine for human research and exploration in the deep sea. Cyclops 1 was a developed over the past year and a half in the Applied Physics Lab’s co-laboratory space down by the Ship Canal. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush introduced the vessel and gave tours of the inside March 11 on the dock of…
March 19, 2015
A UW geologist and geotechnical engineer look back at what the past year has meant, personally and professionally, as they helped recovery efforts from the nation’s deadliest landslide in our own backyard.
Suspending kids from school for using marijuana is likely to lead to more — not less — pot use among their classmates, a new study finds. Counseling was found to be a much more effective means of combating marijuana use. And while enforcement of anti-drug policies is a key factor in whether teens use marijuana, the way schools respond to policy violators matters greatly. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Washington and in Australia, compared drug policies…
The University of Washington’s latest step toward its goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 came last week, with the release of its Climate Action Strategy for Transportation, or CAST. The CAST follows the UW Climate Action Plan, a set of broad strategies to guide the UW to the goal of carbon neutrality that was released in 2009. The CAST suggests specific actions for reducing emissions in the transportation sector. “This represents an important step toward strategically reducing a significant portion…
March 18, 2015
Norman J. Johnston will be remembered as a dedicated and community-minded architect, city planner, teacher and critic. He died Monday, March 16, 2015, in his Seattle home. He was 96. Memorial for Norman J. Johnston 2 p.m. Sunday, May 31, University of Washington Club. Johnston earned a bachelor’s degree in art from the University of Washington in 1942. He returned to the campus in 1960 as a faculty member in architecture and urban planning, and taught until his retirement in…
Members of the UW community are invited to a free daylong conference for technology professionals at the 2015 UW TechConnect Conference on March 24. Explore, learn and connect with other IT colleagues and choose from a dozen presentations about the future of information technology at the UW – from human resources and payroll modernization to accessibility and the latest in computer networking. Keynote speakers start the day with a presentation at 8:30 a.m. by UW Vice Provost for Innovation Vikram…
Gyroscopes measure rotation in everyday technologies, from unmanned aerial vehicles to cell phone screen stabilizers. Though many animals can move with more precision and accuracy than our best-engineered aircraft and technologies, gyroscopes are rarely found in nature. Scientists know of just one group of insects, the group including flies, that has something that behaves like a gyroscope — sensors called halteres, clublike structures that evolved from wings. Halteres provide information about the rotation of the body during flight, which helps…
As we approach spring break, sit back, relax and take in an event or two. This week, the Henry Art Gallery hosts a slew of collaborative events including a performance by the Seattle Chamber Players and Juan Pampin, director of Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS).
A new center at the University of Washington funded by the U.S. Air Force will focus on how elements in nature can help solve challenging engineering and technological problems related to building small, remotely operated aircraft.
March 17, 2015
Attorney General Bob Ferguson has appointed Senior Counsel Karin Nyrop as the new chief of his office’s University of Washington Division. The division provides legal services to the university, including UW Bothell, UW Tacoma and the UW Medical Center. “The University of Washington will be well served by Karin’s impressive combination of legal expertise, leadership experience, personal achievements and demonstrated commitment to public service,” said Ferguson in a statement. Nyrop brings 30 years of legal experience to this position. She…
A University of Washington scientist is lead author on the first census of all Arctic marine mammals, including whales, walruses, seals and polar bears. The multinational report assesses the current status of these populations and makes recommendations for conservation of these species under climate change.
March 16, 2015
UW Libraries has opened up a new multimedia space on the third floor of Allen library for the use of students, faculty and staff. It’s called the mediArcade, and is open weekdays 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to those with a Husky card. With iMacs, large televisions and DVDs, video game consoles, several media editing programs and even VHS playback, UW community members can use the room to watch videos and listen to music, or to create and edit their…
March 13, 2015
One of modern science’s grand challenges is understanding how the human brain actually works — from cataloging millions of individual cells to figuring out how the circuitry that underlies our thoughts and actions decodes information. By deconstructing these intricate processes, engineers can use the human brain to build everything from smarter computers to better speech recognition programs to artificial limbs that can “recognize” thoughts. Some of the University of Washington’s leading experts on this process — called “Reverse- Engineering the…
Blossom update: 100 percent in bloom as of March 14. Follow @uwcherryblossom for more info. The cherry trees in the Quad at the UW reached full bloom March 14. Exact timing always depends on the weather — if we have sunny, warm days, the trees reach full bloom faster, but colder weather stretches out the timing. Still, full bloom by mid-March is about a week earlier than most years, according to Sara Shores, the UW arborist. Depending on the weather, the blossoms will likely…
Online education has great potential to improve lives, but few people in developing countries have access to such classes. The UW Information School’s Technology & Social Change Group will conduct research as part of a $1.55 million multiagency initiative to study and address this need. The project will include research on online course enrollment in Colombia, the Philippines and South Africa, and is being conducted by the U.S. Agency for International Development together with Coursetalk.com, the largest source of online…
Decades of efforts to end female genital cutting have resulted in some progress, but the ancient tradition stubbornly persists in many places. The latest initiative to tackle the issue is a $12 million research project launched this month by a consortium comprising several African organizations and two U.S. researchers: Bettina Shell-Duncan, a University of Washington anthropology professor, and Gerry Mackie of the University of California, San Diego. The five-year project, funded by the U.K. Department for International Development and led…
March 12, 2015
For more than 100 years, marine biologists at Friday Harbor Laboratories have studied the ecology of everything from tiny marine plants to giant sea stars. Now, as the oceans are undergoing a historic shift in chemistry, the lab is establishing itself as a place to study what that will mean for marine life. And the University of Washington laboratory is uniquely placed in naturally acidic waters that may be some of the first pushed over the edge by human-generated carbon…
March 11, 2015
New research by UW astronomer Rory Barnes and co-authors describes possible planetary systems where a gravitational nudge from one planet with just the right orbital configuration and tilt could have a mild to devastating effect on the orbit and climate of another, possibly habitable world.
This week, the UW World Series presents Russian pianist Olga Kern and the School of Art concludes its Critical Issues in Contemporary Art public lecture series. Other events include a free UW Campus Philharmonia concert in Kane Hall and the final weekend of the School of Drama’s “The Hostage.”
A document from the UW Sephardic Studies Program‘s Digital Library and Museum appears in a new PBS documentary called “The Jewish Journey: America.” The documentary will be broadcast at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 16, on KBTC, Tacoma’s public broadcasting station, and is now available for viewing online as well. The hour-long film, directed by Emmy-winner Andrew Goldberg, traces Jewish immigration to America over five centuries, using the perspectives of immigrants, historians and Jewish-American writers. The film’s producers contacted Devin Naar,…
March 10, 2015
Representatives from more than 50 University of Washington departments crowded into the HUB Lyceum on Tuesday afternoon to share recent workplace improvements at the first Organizational Excellence Showcase. “What’s most exciting to see is that there is a real appetite for continuous improvement and change on campus,” said Ruth Johnston, leader of Organizational Excellence and associate vice president and chief of staff in Planning and Budgeting. “There are more people now here at the UW with the interest, training and…
No matter what your business — from a nonprofit museum that wants to deepen visitor engagement to a chain store looking for new markets — it’s essential to be able to extract meaningful patterns and results from often massive reservoirs of data. Improving this “art and science” of data analysis, reporting and visualization is the focus of the DRIVE/conference developed by the University of Washington, which will draw more than 700 IT and data professionals to Seattle and Bellevue on…
University of Washington researchers have developed a new injectable polymer that strengthens blood clots, called PolySTAT. Administered in a simple shot, the polymer finds any unseen injuries and has the potential to keep trauma patients from bleeding to death before reaching medical care.
Though it doesn’t officially open until March 12, the modern, longhouse-style building on the University of Washington campus is already steeped in significance. wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ – Intellectual House represents a dream four decades in the making. It will be an anchor for indigenous students, a hub for Native learning and a means of acknowledging the Duwamish people whose village and longhouses were once on the university grounds. “It means that we still exist. We still matter,” said Intellectual House Director Ross Braine, who…
March 9, 2015
The University of Washington has 42 graduate schools and specialty programs among the nation’s top 10 in each area, according to U.S. News & World Report’s Graduate School Rankings released Tuesday. The UW again ranked as the No. 1 primary care medical school, while the rural medicine and family medicine specialties continue to lead the nation. Seven other health and medicine schools and programs rank in the top five. “Top graduate programs around the country are incredibly competitive with one…
More than two years after Washington legalized marijuana, parents and teens may be hazy on the specifics of the law, if the findings of a new study are any indication. University of Washington research, published recently in Substance Use & Misuse, found that only 57 percent of Washington parents surveyed knew the legal age for recreational marijuana use and just 63 percent knew that homegrown marijuana is illegal under the law. And while 71 percent of 10th-graders correctly identified the…
March 6, 2015
The Meeting of the Board of Regents on Thursday, March 12, at UW Bothell in the Rose Room, Founders Hall, UW1-280. The first committee meeting is scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. The Regular Board meeting is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. Meeting information is now available online.
New research from the UW College of Built Environments on the “spatial clustering of obesity” in urban areas has helped clarify and build upon work a 2007 study began. The takeaway, in brief: In King County, Washington, at least, low property values match with high body-mass indexes, or BMIs in less diverse, lower-income South King County, and higher property values match with low BMIs in more populous, prosperous North King County. Body-mass indexes are a measure of a person’s relative…
March 4, 2015
The power of social media in fueling movements such as Black Lives Matter, the racial justice campaign sprung from last year’s protests in Ferguson, Missouri, has become increasingly evident in recent years. Recognition of those grassroots efforts is the focus of the fifth annual Women Who Rock “unconference” event, to be held Saturday, March 7, at Rainier Valley Cultural Center in South Seattle. The event’s theme, Rocking Media Justice, celebrates the use of social media to document the realities of…
From drama to dance to dinosaurs, it’s an exciting week in the arts. The School of Drama’s production of “The Hostage” continues, the Burke Museum presents Dino Day and the School of Music offers a plethora of performances including Music from the Great War and Studio Jazz and Modern Bands.
March 3, 2015
Historic submarine and modern satellite records show that ice thickness in the central Arctic Ocean dropped by 65 percent from 1975 to 2012. September ice thickness, when the ice cover is at a minimum, dropped by 85 percent.
February 27, 2015
Take five minutes and experience the life of a rocket scientist building a prototype to bring back samples of objects in space. In these tests, success is nose-diving into the California desert, which stands in for the surface of an asteroid. In the “Asteroid Sampler” video, which aired Jan. 15 on Discovery Channel Canada, a UW team of faculty, graduate students and undergraduates launched a new type of rocket in California. The work is part of a NASA-funded project to…
UW alumnus and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist David Horsey discusses the Charlie Hebdo shootings and editorial cartooning in politically volatile times.
Seattle’s first-ever “Handathon” will bring together students, faculty and clinicians in a hackathon-style, 24-hour event that challenges two dozen graduate and undergraduate students to design creative improvements to an existing 3-D printed prosthetic hand. Research teams from the University of Washington, UW Bothell and Seattle Pacific University have been designing and printing prosthetic hands, and now they’re hoping a larger community of students can help improve the design with a little friendly competition. “We are hoping for lots of fun,…
February 26, 2015
Project Name: Computer Science and Engineering Expansion (CSE II) Proponent: University of Washington — Seattle Campus Description of Proposal: Site selection and construction of a new 130,000 gross square foot above and below grade building to create expansion space for education and research for the Computer Science and Engineering program. The structure will house new instructional space, undergraduate student spaces, research and educational labs, shops, offices and event space. Three alternatives will be analyzed in the Draft Environmental Impact Statement…
Colleen Fukui-Sketchley, diversity affairs director for Nordstrom, has been named the 2015 recipient of the University of Washington Charles E. Odegaard Award. Established in 1973, the Odegaard award honors individuals whose leadership in the community exemplifies the former UW president’s work on behalf of diversity. It is the only university- and community-selected award, and is regarded as the highest achievement in diversity at the UW. The award will be presented at the 45th annual EOP Celebration, Fête and Honors event…