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UW News blog

In a paper published Oct. 8 in the journal Nano Letters, a team from the University of Washington and the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan announced that it has constructed functional metalenses that are one-tenth to one-half the thickness of the wavelengths of light that they focus. Their metalenses, which were constructed out of layered 2D materials, were as thin as 190 nanometers — less than 1/100,000ths of an inch thick.

When it comes to supporting and promoting the growth of minority businesses, the University of Washington has a long track record – 27 years to be exact. This milestone represents the UW’s long-standing relationship with the Northwest Mountain Minority Supplier Development Council (MSDC).

The University of Washington has distributed news to the campus community — in one form or another — since 1975. Such communication began as a way to streamline how faculty, staff and students received important administrative news and was initially published as a pamphlet of memos. In 1983, it evolved into University Week, a weekly printed newspaper with research news and feature stories. The newspaper became an online-only publication in 2008, and the first UW Today email newsletter was sent…

The University of Washington will lead one of three teams that will partner with the Honda Research Institute to explore the mechanisms behind curiosity and seek advances in artificial cognition. The UW-led team will receive $2.7 million over the next three years to generate a mathematical model of curiosity.

Jiun-Haw Chu, a University of Washington assistant professor of physics and faculty member at the UW’s Clean Energy Institute, has been named a 2018 fellow by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation for his research on quantum materials — substances that exhibit novel combinations of quantum-mechanical properties that could one day transform information technology.

The University of Washington’s Urban Freight Lab at the Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center has been looking for solutions to Seattle’s traffic congestion: Parcel lockers that aren’t owned by a specific company could alleviate the strain. Now the researchers have identified five viable locker locations at three different Seattle Link light rail stations for a future pilot test.

Pablo García Borboroglu, president of the Global Penguin Society and a UW affiliate associate professor of biology, has won the Whitley Gold Award and the National Geographic/Buffett Award for Leadership in Conservation, as well as accolades from the Argentine National Congress, for his research and advocacy for penguin conservation.

A new book by University of Washington history professor George Behlmer seeks to improve understanding of the British colonial era by “reconsidering the conduct of islanders and the English-speaking strangers who encountered them.”

Margaret O’Mara, UW professor of history, explores the impact of a December 1968 computer presentation that came to be called “the mother of all demos” in an essay and podcast from the news website The Conversation.

The National Science Foundation announced on Sept. 11 that it is awarding grants totaling $8.5 million to 19 collaborative projects at 23 universities for the study of complex and entrenched problems in data science. Three of these projects will be based at the University of Washington and led by researchers in the College of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences.

Justin Marlowe, a professor in the UW’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, has been named a member of Washington Governor Jay Inslee’s Council of Economic Advisors. He will be among those advising the governor on local and state economic conditions and national developments that affect state policies.

Last year, King County Metro and the Seattle Department of Transportation started a pilot program that allowed Microsoft’s and Seattle Children’s Hospital’s private shuttles to pick up employees at a few public bus stops throughout Seattle. Now a recent study from researchers at the University of Washington suggests that public buses are unaffected by private shuttles most of the time.