2021 | UW News

September 21, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Henry Art Gallery Public Opening, Dawg Daze, and More

Through public events and exhibitions, connect with the UW community every week! This week, attend gallery exhibitions, watch recorded events, and more. While you’re enjoying summer break, connect with campus through UW live webcams of Red Square and the quad. Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students…

a group of people excavating fossils in Montana

A team of paleontologists from the University of Washington and its Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture excavated four dinosaurs in northeastern Montana this summer. The four dinosaur fossils are: the ilium — or hip bones — of an ostrich-sized theropod, the group of meat-eating, two-legged dinosaurs that includes Tyrannosaurus rex and raptors; the hips and legs of a duck-billed dinosaur; a pelvis, toe claw and limbs from another theropod that could be a rare ostrich-mimic Anzu, or possibly a new species; and a Triceratops specimen consisting of its skull and other fossilized bones.

September 16, 2021

Rankings: UW among best in world for health and life sciences

The University of Washington is among the best universities in the world for the studies of health and life sciences, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject 2022.

September 15, 2021

Rankings: UW School of Nursing undergrad program tied for No. 2 in nation

The University of Washington School of Nursing tied for second-best in the nation for its undergraduate programs, according to a new ranking from U.S. News & World Report.

September 14, 2021

Returning to the U District: Recovering from the pandemic with more changes ahead

Hardship, change and resilience — that’s been the experience of the U District community during the pandemic, just as it’s been the experience of us all. As students, faculty and staff return to campus in September, they are going to find that the UW’s front door looks different — and it is on the precipice of even bigger changes to come.

Sean Carr has been named Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Global Innovation Exchange (GIX). Carr will assume the role in January 2022 and will be based at the Steve Ballmer Building, GIX’s home in Bellevue, Washington.

girl sitting on a dock with her head in her hands

New research by the University of Washington and New York University explored gender, racial and ethnic differences among teens who think about and/or attempt suicide, as well as associated behavioral and environmental factors.

person in white suit holding long metal object

University of Washington glaciologists will join colleagues from around the country in a new effort to retrieve an ice core more than 1 million years old from East Antarctica, to better understand the history of our planet’s climate and predict future changes.

September 13, 2021

Do Alexa and Siri make kids bossier? New research suggests you might not need to worry

A simple drawing of a robot with a smiley face against a blue background

A team led by UW studied whether hanging out with conversational agents, such as Alexa or Siri, could affect the way children communicate with their fellow humans.

September 10, 2021

UW campus prepares for return to in-person classes, activities

It’s been about 18 months since the University of Washington led the nation in pivoting to largely online learning and working as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.

September 9, 2021

NSF to fund revolutionary center for optoelectronic, quantum technologies

Aerial shot of the University of Washington campus in Seattle

The National Science Foundation has announced it will fund a new endeavor to bring atomic-level precision to the devices and technologies that underpin much of modern life, and will transform fields like information technology in the decades to come. The five-year, $25 million Science and Technology Center grant will found the Center for Integration of Modern Optoelectronic Materials on Demand — or IMOD — a collaboration of scientists and engineers at 11 universities led by the University of Washington.

September 8, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Faculty Seminar: A Conversation with Samuel Wasser of Conservation Canines, Hostile Terrain 94, and More

September 7, 2021

Research, education hub on ‘coastal resiliency’ will focus on earthquakes, coastal erosion and climate change

The new Cascadia Coastlines and Peoples Hazards Research Hub, led by Oregon State University and the University of Washington, will study coastal hazards and community resilience. The National Science Foundation awarded $18.9 million for the hub over five years.

September 2, 2021

UW engineer explains how the redesigned levee system in New Orleans helped mitigate the impact of Hurricane Ida

A graphic showing Hurricane Ida superimposed on top of a map

UW News asked Michael Motley, a UW associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, to explain how levees protect cities like New Orleans.

Two new rankings out this month place UW among the best schools in the nation and the world.

September 1, 2021

Mary Gresch named UW’s Senior Vice President for University Advancement

Mary Gresch has been named senior vice president for advancement at the University of Washington, UW President Ana Mari Cauce announced this week. Gresch’s appointment is effective Sept. 1.

August 25, 2021

Volcanic eruptions may have spurred first ‘whiffs’ of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere

person crouching in distance on layered rock

A new analysis of 2.5-billion-year-old rocks from Australia finds that volcanic eruptions may have stimulated population surges of marine microorganisms, creating the first puffs of oxygen into the atmosphere. This would change existing stories of Earth’s early atmosphere, which assumed that most changes in the early atmosphere were controlled by geologic or chemical processes.

An image of the focal plane of a camera used for astrophysical observations of the cosmos

The University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University have announced an expansive, multi-year collaboration to create new software platforms to analyze large astronomical datasets generated by the upcoming Legacy Survey of Space and Time, or LSST, which will be carried out by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in northern Chile. The open-source platforms are part of the new LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing — known as LINCC — and will fundamentally change how scientists use modern computational methods to make sense of big data.

August 24, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Elaine Cameron-Weir: STAR CLUB REDEMPTION BOOTH, Fossils Uncovered, and More

August 20, 2021

With extreme heat increasingly common, UW expert calls for urgent planning to protect health in new Lancet series

In a new series on increasingly common extreme heat waves and their impact on human health published Thursday in the British medical journal The Lancet, a University of Washington climate change and health expert joined more than a dozen international experts to warn that we better prepare. “The preventable heat stress and deaths during this summer’s…

August 19, 2021

Youth mental health during the pandemic better with more sleep, structure and time in nature

A study led by Harvard and the University of Washington surveyed children, teens and their families about the stresses of the pandemic, and ways to cope.

August 17, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Lux Aeterna, A Gee’s Bend Quilt, and More

August 16, 2021

New analysis of landmark scurvy study leads to update on vitamin C needs

It was wartime and food was scarce. Leaders of England’s effort to wage war and help the public survive during World War II needed to know: Were the rations in lifeboats adequate for survival at sea? And, among several experiments important for public as well as military heath, how much vitamin C did a person…

August 11, 2021

‘More pepper, please’: New study analyzes role of scent compounds in the coevolution of bats and pepper plants

A study published Aug. 11 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B by researchers at the University of Washington and Stony Brook University reports on how bats and pepper plants in Central America have coevolved to help each other survive.

August 10, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Hostile Terrain 94, Lux Aeterna, and More

August 6, 2021

UW expert discusses protecting workers from wildfire smoke

With wildfire smoke forecast for next week in Seattle and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in Oregon posting rules for keeping workers safe during increasingly smoky conditions and heat in that state, we caught up with a University of Washington expert on worker safety for advice. Check out Professor Baker’s advice on worker safety…

August 5, 2021

Now how did that get up there? New study sheds light on development and evolution of dolphin, whale blowholes

Image of a dolphin swimming in the ocean

New research by scientists at the University of Washington and Duke University is shedding light on how the nasal passage of dolphins and whales shifts during embryonic development from emerging at the tip of the snout to emerging at the top of the head as a blowhole. The findings, published July 19 in the Journal of Anatomy, are an integrative model for this developmental transition for cetaceans.

firefighter silhouetted against flames at night

Firefighters have reported that Western wildfires are starting earlier in the morning and dying down later at night, hampering their ability to recover and regroup before the next day’s flareup. A study by University of Washington and U.S. Forest Service scientists shows why: The drying power of nighttime air over much of the Western U.S. has increased dramatically in the past 40 years.

an artists depiction of a small star with a planet orbiting it

Astronomers have long suspected that superflares, extreme radiation bursts from stars, can cause lasting damage to the atmospheres — and thus habitability — of exoplanets. A new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society reports that they pose only a limited danger to planetary systems.

August 4, 2021

ArtSci Roundup: Grit City Think and Drink, Unpacking Form and Function: Ceramics, and More

Using data from two large, long-running study projects in the Puget Sound region — one that began in the late 1970s measuring air pollution and another on risk factors for dementia that began in 1994 — University of Washington researchers identified a link between air pollution and dementia. In the UW-led study, a small increase…

August 3, 2021

What the Olympic Games can teach us about the workplace

Bruce Avolio, executive director of the UW Center for Leadership & Strategic Thinking and a professor of management in the UW Foster School of Business, talks about what we can learn about leadership, competition and collaboration — factors that are important in the workplace as well as the Olympics.

August 2, 2021

New report: State of the science on western wildfires, forests and climate change

Seeing the urgent need for change, a team of scientists from leading research universities, conservation organizations and government laboratories across the West has produced a synthesis of the scientific literature that clearly lays out the established science and strength of evidence on climate change, wildfire and forest management for seasonally dry forests. The goal is to give land managers and others across the West access to a unified resource that summarizes the best-available science so they can make decisions about how to manage their landscapes.

Close-up image of a male rough-nosed horned lizard.

A study published June 16 in Biotropica by a team of researchers at the University of Washington, the UW Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, WWF Hong Kong and the University of Colombo has provided an important road map to conserving rough-nosed horned lizards in Sri Lanka.

July 30, 2021

Food insecurity remains high and need for assistance dramatically up in Washington

Washington residents continue to experience a dramatically higher level of food insecurity — from 10% before the COVID-19 pandemic to 27%, according to the latest University of Washington and Washington State University research on food insecurity and food assistance in the state. The study team also found that need for food assistance has continued to…

Two students are on a rocky with hiking poles and a glacier in the background.

This week, a few members of our UW News team joined glaciologists from the UW Department of Earth & Space Sciences on a trip to Mt. Baker. Students that came along got to chat with their professor on the hike up, and we learned about how the recent heat wave impacted the snow melt on the ice.

July 29, 2021

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy honors UW College of Built Environments faculty, Nehemiah Studio for curriculum on mitigating gentrification

The Nehemiah Studio, a UW class on mitigating gentrification in Seattle's Central District designed by Rachel Berney, Donald King and Al Levine with support from College of Built Environments Dean Renée Cheng, been honored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. The course supports joint efforts by the college and the Nehemiah Initiative Seattle to train graduate students to help mitigate displacement in Seattle’s Central District.

The Nehemiah Studio, a UW class on mitigating gentrification in Seattle’s Central District, has been honored by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

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