Three University of Washington engineers were selected by Forbes magazine as part of its top 30 people in the world under age 30 in energy. This year’s list largely focuses on people who have produced inventions and founded companies with the goal of saving or conserving energy, instead of creating it. Shyam Gollakota, an assistant professor in computer science and engineering, was selected for his work in powering devices without using batteries. He develops sensors that get power by absorbing small…
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When deciding where to live, single people should choose cities with affordable housing, interesting job opportunities, vibrant neighborhoods and abundant sports activities. That was the advice of Pepper Schwartz, a UW sociology professor who was among experts consulted for personal finance website WalletHub’s recent ranking of 2014’s Best & Worst Cities for Singles. The site ranked the 150 most populated U.S. cities on 25 metrics including the percentage of singles, costs for restaurant meals and movies, rental housing costs and…
Cancel all screenings of that insulting movie you made, then burn all the prints, and formally apologize — and don’t do it again. Demands from North Korea, perhaps, about Sony Pictures’ controversial James Franco-Seth Rogen film “The Interview”? No, that’s off by about 85 years. It was the Chinese Nationalist government’s reaction to a film called “Welcome Danger” featuring the famously bespectacled silent screen star Harold Lloyd, released in 1929. The scene is from “Silent Cinema and the Politics of…
High-tech companies are seeking to capitalize on the power of handwriting, but there are other reasons to value the practice, says UW educational psychology professor Virginia Berninger. “Writing is the way we learn what we’re thinking,” said Berninger, who studies the effect of handwriting on the human brain. “The handwriting, the sequencing of the strokes, engages the thinking part of the mind.” Berninger was recently interviewed for a CBS This Morning story about how tech companies are reviving the art…
For those who love the silent film antics of Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin and others, UW Libraries has something new that’s as good as a Christmas present: the Silent Film Online database. It’s a streaming service administered by Alexander Street Press that includes more than 500 silent films, serials and shorts produced from the 1890s to the 1930s. Fritz Lang’s famous “Metropolis” is there as well as works by Mack Sennett, D.W. Griffiths (including his odd version of…
Twenty-four UW oceanography students are aboard the UW’s large research vessel, the Thomas G. Thompson, taking measurements off Canada’s west coast for their senior-level research projects. They left Thursday, Dec. 11 and will get back Sunday, Dec. 21. The trip takes them to Nootka Sound, a complex inlet off the west coast of Vancouver Island. UW oceanography professor Charles Eriksen is leading the 10-day expedition. Also aboard are oceanography faculty members Julie Keister, Miles Logsdon and Julian Sachs. They will…
The University of Washington moved up to the 11th spot in the latest ranking of best value for in-state students among public universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. The ranking includes measures of economic value and educational quality. The UW placed 13th in the same ranking a year ago and was 17th two years ago. Kiplinger data showed the total cost per year for in-state UW students, after adding need-based aid, is $10,433, and average debt at graduation is $21,263. UW…
A celebration of life for Naomi Brenner Pascal, the longtime editor-in-chief of the University of Washington Press, is being planned for February. She died Dec. 5 at the age of 88. Colleagues at UW Press remember Pascal as a model of grace, good humor and high standards. Her wide-ranging knowledge, integrity and commitment to diplomacy were critical to the success of the press, and many recall her generosity of spirit and promotion of collegiality locally and in the publishing community….
David Shields, UW professor and New York Times best-selling author, was at the center of a Dec. 2 article by Adelle Waldman in The New Yorker titled “An Answer to the Novel’s Detractors.” Waldman places Shields among those detractors, but does not entirely disagree with him. “It’s no coincidence that many of the most exciting novels to have appeared in recent years … have been distinctly un-novelistic,” Waldman wrote, “featuring protagonists who share many biographical details (and sometimes names) with…
Kathleen Fearn-Banks, UW associate professor of communication, drew upon her 21 years of experience as a publicist in network television to write her 2005 “Historical Dictionary of African American Television.” This fall, an expanded second edition of the book was published. Banks was NBC’s first African-American publicist and second-ever female publicist when hired there in 1969 after working in journalism. She spent two years researching the book, ranging from the 1939 broadcast of the “Ethel Waters Show” to current television…
University of Washington computer scientists have partnered with members of the Carbon Washington grassroots campaign to create an online tool that lets residents calculate how a state carbon tax swap proposed by the organization would impact them financially. The calculator offers information users can’t find elsewhere and is meant to be a neutral, unbiased tool. “The tool should be very useful to voters trying to decide their position on the carbon tax policy. Many people will have broader societal motivations…
Marine mammal expert Kristin Laidre, a polar scientist at the UW Applied Physics Laboratory and in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, studies Arctic mammals in their native habitat. She focuses on polar bears and narwhals, an Arctic whale with a distinctive spiral tusk. In spring 2013 she invited Seattle watercolor artist Maria Coryell-Martin to join an expedition to West Greenland and share an artist’s perspective on what it’s like to do research in the far north. (Coryell-Martin is…
The co-director of the UW’s Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences is among officials from around the country participating in today’s White House Summit on Early Education. Patricia Kuhl, a world-renowned scientist in early language and brain development, joins state and local policymakers, school district superintendents, community leaders and others for the summit. Participants are expected to share their ideas about best practices and effective strategies, with the goal of expanding access to high-quality early education for children nationwide. Kuhl…
Superheroes are generally assumed to be healthy and virtually immortal, tending their superpowers as they save the planet time and again. But a new book by José Alaniz, UW associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures, seeks to redefine the contemporary image of the superhero. “Death, Disability, and the Superhero: The Silver Age and Beyond,” published this fall by University of Mississippi Press, draws on DC and Marvel comics from the 1960s to the 1990s to investigate how death and…
Jane Heinrichs is a doctoral student in piano performance at the UW School of Music and will perform in two of the three concerts that comprise the three-part series “Music from the War to End All Wars.” The series begins Sunday, Dec. 7, in Brechemin Auditorium, and continues on March 3 and May 8, 2015. So, does knowing the historical context of a piece of music affect how she approaches and performs it? Not exactly, Heinrichs said, “but it is…
Andrew J. Boydston, a UW associate professor of chemistry, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation. The award is intended to support junior faculty who “exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research,” according to the NSF. Boydston received the award for his proposal to develop materials that apply mechanical force to drive chemical reactions that release small organic molecules. Those small molecules could be…
Join some of the world’s leading experts on the Southern Ocean for a webinar on Thursday, Dec. 4, from 11 a.m. to noon Seattle time. Viewers can log on here with a Google account, or watch on YouTube. “UW-built sensors to probe Antarctica’s Southern Ocean” UW Today | Sept. 11, 2014 The Southern Ocean Carbon and Climate Observations and Modeling project, based at Princeton University, is a six-year collaborative effort to improve understanding of the Southern Ocean’s role in climate….
Four University of Washington researchers have received the Allen Distinguished Investigator award for their work in artificial intelligence research. The awards, totaling about $2.7 million to the UW from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, will fund early stage research in several areas of artificial intelligence. The recipients from the UW are Jeffrey Heer, an associate professor of computer science and engineering; Ali Farhadi, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering; Hannaneh Hajishirzi, a research scientist in electrical engineering;…
Seattle-based criminal defense attorney Jeff Robinson will join the University of Washington School of Law in a discussion of factual, ethical and legal issues relating to the use of deadly force by law enforcement officers in communities of color. He will be joined by Washington Supreme Court Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud. The event is titled “‘You Can Observe a Lot Just by Watching’ — The Killing of Michael Brown and the Transparent Grand Jury Investigation” and will take place from…
The Green Seed Fund – a grant fund for campus environmental research projects – is accepting proposals through Dec. 11 for the next round of grants. The Green Seed Fund aims to promote and fund research projects that advance sustainable research while contributing to the university’s sustainability goals. The fund was launched in 2013, and in its inaugural year 15 proposals totaling nearly $1 million were submitted. From that pool, proposals were selected and awarded nearly $279,000 in funding. A…
Influential educator and former University of Washington professor John Goodlad died Nov. 29 at his Seattle home. He was 94. Goodlad came to the UW in 1984 after serving as dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of California at Los Angeles. He created the Center for Educational Renewal at the UW to conduct research on teacher education and school renewal. Additionally, he established the independent Seattle-based Institute for Educational Inquiry to apply research findings to school…
The University of Washington Evans School of Public Affairs will host its namesake, former Washington governor and senator Daniel J. Evans, for a conversation from noon to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3, in the Parrington Hall Forum. Evans served as governor from 1965 to 1977, then moved on to the presidency of Evergreen State College. When Senator Henry M. Jackson died in 1983, Evans was appointed in his place, and served in the senate until 1989. In 1993, then-Gov. Mike…
“Militarized Policing and Public Protest: From the WTO Protests to Ferguson” is the topic of a documentary video screening and panel discussion at the University of Washington on Tuesday, Dec. 2. The event, from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center, starts with a screening of “This Is What Democracy Looks Like.” The 72-minute documentary was made from footage shot by more than 100 “media activists” during the 1999 World Trade Organization protests in Seattle….
University of Washington historian Michael Honey learned about folk singer and union organizer John Handcox through a mutual friend whose name might be familiar: Pete Seeger. Honey tells of the 1985 meeting, and of “Sharecropper’s Troubadour,” the book he came to write about Handcox (with Seeger penning the foreword), in an article in Smithsonian Folkways Magazine. UW Today wrote about Honey’s book in January, 2014. In 1940, Woody Guthrie joined Seeger and folklorist Alan Lomax in collecting Handcox’s work into…
Disintegrating sea stars – a process described as melting, with the arms detaching and crawling away from each other – is being caused by a virus that’s been detected in West Coast waters for more than 70 years. That’s according to new findings published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by 24 co-authors including the University of Washington’s Carolyn Friedman, a professor of aquatic and fishery sciences, and Colleen Burge, who earned her bachelor’s and…
Three University of Washington professors will join a congressman, a mountain climber, inventors, architects, advocates, an astronaut and even a barista at this year’s TEDxRainier event, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22, at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall at Seattle Center. The independently run, one-day event is in its fifth year in Seattle, modeled after the popular TED Talks. The 2014 local event brings together Seattle-area thinkers and innovators to share ideas on the theme “The Known and the…
Do you know an outstanding University of Washington employee, alumnus, student or retiree who contributes to the richness and diversity of the university community? Honor that person with an Awards of Excellence nomination. Nominations are due beginning in November and continuing in succeeding months for the 2015 University of Washington Awards of Excellence categories. Details of awards and nomination procedures follow. Alumnus Summa Laude Dignatus Award The highest honor bestowed upon a UW graduate recognizes an outstanding alumnus or alumna, distinguished for service…
We Homo sapiens and our energy-gobbling technologies are changing the very ecology of the Earth. But even as these human-caused changes unfold, some wonder whether we have doomed ourselves to extinction. In a new paper in the journal Anthropocene, University of Washington astronomer Woodruff Sullivan and co-author Adam Frank, a University of Rochester astrophysicist and a UW alumnus, suggest this might not be the first time “where the primary agent of causation is knowingly watching it all happen and pondering…
As you might guess from the name, dark matter is quite elusive. Its particles make up about one-quarter of the mass of the universe and as much as 85 percent of all matter. But it apparently does not interact with light or other matter and so it’s never been directly observed. In a webcast Thursday, Nov. 20, three scientists including University of Washington physicist Gray Rybka will discuss how close we are to actually identifying dark matter. They will talk…
The latest in the Seattle Arts & Lectures SAL U series will look at technologies that could help repair a person’s cognitive or sensory-motor functions. “Brain-Computer Interfaces: Building the Bionic Man” is at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Kane Hall room 110. The speaker is Rajesh Rao, a UW professor of computer science and engineering and director of the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering. Rao’s research involves understanding computational principles in the brain’s ability to learn, process and store information, then…
Daniel Schindler, a University of Washington fisheries ecologist who explores aquatic ecosystem dynamics, has been named the 2015 Frank Rigler Award recipient. The award is the highest honor given by the Society of Canadian Limnologists and recognizes major achievements in the field of limnology by Canadians or those working in Canada, the society says. Schindler, born in Ontario, holds dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship. His father David Schindler won the Rigler award in 1984, the first year it was given…
The Spokane City Council on Monday night formally approved the lease of the former Spokane Visitor Information Center to the University of Washington, which will use the space for many purposes, including business outreach, alumni activities and student admissions. The site will also help support the UW’s efforts to expand its existing medical school in Spokane. The city of Spokane sought tenants for the roughly 2,550-square-foot space and the UW submitted its lease proposal on Oct. 2, 2014. The space…
In the wake of a 2011 study that found black applicants for National Institutes of Health grants were significantly less likely to receive funding than their equally qualified white counterparts, the health agency began to look at ways to uncover and address bias in how it awards research funding. The agency launched a contest last spring to detect bias and boost fairness in how it reviews grant applications. The “Most Creative Idea for Detection of Bias in Peer Review,” went…
The University of Washington Sephardic Studies Program and the Stroum Center for Jewish Studies will host the second annual celebration of International Ladino Day with an event at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, in Kane Hall room 130. The event is free and open to the public but advance registration is recommended. International Ladino Day was begun Dec. 5, 2013, by Israel’s National Authority for Ladino to celebrate Ladino as a living language for the first time since 1492. Also…
The November issue of Seattle Magazine includes a list of 51 local people who made 2014 what it was. Along with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and the Seahawks team’s “12th man” fans, it includes UW glaciologist Ian Joughin, whom the magazine dubs the “ice breaker.” The magazine notes: “In the face of global warming, it’s people like Ian Joughin—a glaciologist and affiliate professor of earth and space sciences at University of Washington, researching the surface motion and topography of ice…
The UW and other Washington schools hog half the spots on a new list of the West Coast’s 10 best-landscaped colleges, with the UW coming in at No. 4. The amount of green space, unique landscaping and attention to lawns earned the UW its ranking. The list was created by inspecting hundreds of photos, interviewing students, alumni and faculty, and scanning message boards. The accompanying website shows an image of the Quad and says: “University of Washington, a ‘public ivy’…
The University of Washington landed in a three-way tie for No. 14 in U.S. News & World Report’s first ranking of Best Global Universities – a new ranking that is separate from its annual Best Colleges list. The publication released world rankings, it said, in recognition of the fact that more students are looking beyond their own borders for higher education options and universities are competing worldwide for the best students. The new U.S. News rankings, released last week, were…
Classroom décor may seem relatively unimportant, but it can play a surprisingly big role in influencing student learning and achievement. That’s among the key findings in a new paper co-authored by University of Washington researchers. Published this week in the inaugural issue of Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, the paper finds that classroom features such as light, temperature and décor can profoundly influence learning. Students exposed to more natural light perform better, the analysis found, but research…
The University of Washington School of Law is introducing two new programs to expand its degree offerings and provide more options for students. Beginning in January 2015, the school will offer an accelerated Juris Doctor/Master’s in Business Administration program that will enable students to earn degrees from the school the Foster School of Business in four years. Students will be encouraged to start the master’s courses in their first year and their doctorate curriculum in the second year. In the…
The latest KCTS-9 Washington Poll has found strong support for the background checks on gun sales promoted by Initiative 594 and the reduced classroom sizes sought by Initiative 1351, and slightly less support for Initiative 591, which seeks to prohibit background checks for gun sales minus a national standard. The poll, directed by Matt Barreto, a University of Washington professor of political science, interviewed 602 registered voters statewide. Of these, 64 percent expressed support for the expanded gun sales background…