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Category: Featured

Research shows a single migration from Africa populated the world

In the journal Nature, three separate teams of geneticists survey DNA collected from cultures around the globe, many for the first time, and conclude that all non-Africans today trace their ancestry to a single population emerging from Africa between 50,000 and 80,000 years ago.

“I think all three studies are basically saying the same thing,” said Joshua M. Akey of the University of Washington, who wrote a commentary accompanying the new work. “We know there were multiple dispersals out of Africa, but we can trace our ancestry back to a single one.”

Read more from The New York Times…

Update: Italy earthquake

Media reports indicate a strong earthquake overnight in central Italy. The UW has more than 50 students and 8 faculty and staff taking part in faculty-led study abroad programs in Rome. We do not anticipate that our students or faculty were directly affected by this event. The UW Global Travel Security Manager is connecting with our students and faculty to be certain they are safe, and to provide additional health and safety information in the wake of this event.

Visit UW Global Travelers to learn about health, safety and security resources for the UW community.

UW again maintains No. 15 in world university ranking

The University of Washington remained No. 15 on the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities, conducted by researchers at the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which was released Tuesday.

The UW again ranked 13th among U.S. universities and fourth among public institutions worldwide. The ranking considers several indicators of academic or research performance, including alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in the journals Nature and Science, papers indexed in major citation indices, and the per capita academic performance of an institution, according to the organization.

Read more from UW Today…

How the ‘Seattle Tech Universe’ map ended up at the World Economic Forum

The Seattle region’s technology landscape was in the spotlight over the weekend in Davos, Switzerland, where top corporate executives and global leaders were gathered for the World Economic Forum.

Brad Smith, the Microsoft president and chief legal officer, showed the Seattle Tech Universe map during an event Friday night in Davos to help make his point about the ways universities and industry can collaborate to foster innovation.

Unveiled in December by Madrona Venture Group and the Washington Technology Industry Association, the Seattle Tech Universe is a visual guide to Seattle’s complex technology ecosystem — showing the impact of University of Washington spinoffs and employees who leave tech giants like Microsoft and Amazon to launch their own startups. Many Seattle startups also share parentage, with founders coming from a combination of Microsoft, Amazon, and the UW.

Read more from Geekwire…

Standing together for justice

In light of recent devastating acts of violence in the U.S. and around the world, UW President Ana Mari Cauce and UW Provost Jerry Baldasty write, “The essence of our mission as a public university is to educate, shape and prepare generations of students not simply to exist in our world, but to create change for the betterment of all. The burden of addressing racism and inequity in this country, as well as violence around the globe, falls to all of us.”

With CoMotion Labs, the UW seeds innovation and start-ups

The University of Washington is expanding its portfolio of startup incubation spaces and inviting in companies even if they don’t yet have an explicit connection to the university. The new strategy is part of a broader rethinking of how the UW, consistently ranked in the upper echelons of research universities around the world, attempts to transfer the innovations happening inside its walls—be they in electrical engineering or social work—to the community.

Read more from Xconomy...

UW project highlights liability of internet ‘intermediaries’ in developing countries

How much liability do website owners and other online service providers have for content posted by other people? If someone posts content on your website that is defamatory, constitutes hate speech, disseminates child pornography or invades someone’s privacy, are you liable?

The answers to such questions can be murky in developing countries. And as internet use expands around the globe, so does the potential liability for the owners of websites, search engines, social media sites and other online platforms, who are subject to laws in each country where their websites and services are accessible.

Read more from UW Today…

Board of Regents approves first UW master’s program through Global Innovation Exchange

The UW Board of Regents has approved the Master of Science in Technology Innovation (MSTI) degree, a 60-credit interdisciplinary program developed by the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX), in collaboration with the UW departments of Computer Science & Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Human Centered Design & Engineering, the Foster School of Business, the Information School and the School of Law.

 

The MSTI degree will be the first U.S.-based program offered through the Global Innovation Exchange, a partnership between the University of Washington and Tsinghua University, with foundational support from Microsoft.

Read more from UW Today…