Engineering
October 1, 2019
Engineering lecture series focuses on future of food
This fall the University of Washington’s annual engineering lecture series will feature three UW engineers and scientists who are working across disciplines to manage the quality and quantity of the food we eat and grow.
September 19, 2019
Plasma flow near sun’s surface explains sunspots, other solar phenomena
A new model for plasma flow within the sun provides novel explanations for sunspots, the 11-year sunspot cycle, solar magnetic reversals and other previously unexplained solar phenomena.
September 16, 2019
Americans would rather drive themselves to work than have an autonomous vehicle drive them, study says
Are you willing to ride in a driverless car? Researchers at the University of Washington studied how Americans’ perceived cost of commute time changes depending on who’s driving.
August 21, 2019
3 UW graduate students earn NASA fellowships, continue legacy of success
Three University of Washington graduate students are among this year’s recipients of a prestigious NASA fellowship that funds student research projects in the fields of Earth and planetary sciences and astrophysics.
August 20, 2019
New tools to minimize risks in shared, augmented-reality environments
UW security researchers have created ShareAR, a toolkit that lets developers build collaborative and interactive features into AR apps without sacrificing their users’ privacy and security.
August 19, 2019
How ergonomic is your warehouse job? Soon, an app might be able to tell you
Researchers at the UW have used machine learning to develop a new system that can monitor factory and warehouse workers and tell them how ergonomic their jobs are in real time.
August 13, 2019
Dr. Nancy Allbritton named dean of UW’s College of Engineering
Dr. Nancy Allbritton has been named the next Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of the College of Engineering, University of Washington Provost Mark Richards announced today. Allbritton’s appointment, set to begin Nov. 1, is subject to approval by the UW Board of Regents.
August 9, 2019
Artificial intelligence could yield more accurate breast cancer diagnoses
Researchers at UW and UCLA have developed an artificial intelligence system that could help pathologists read biopsies more accurately, and lead to better detection and diagnosis of breast cancer.
August 8, 2019
UW, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley receive $5M NSF award to simplify researcher access to public clouds
The National Science Foundation has awarded a five-year, $5 million grant to the University of California, San Diego, the University of Washington and the University of California, Berkeley to develop CloudBank, a suite of managed services to simplify public cloud access for computer science research and education.
July 29, 2019
Stressed at school? Art therapy reduces teenage girls’ headaches
In a pilot study led by the UW, researchers explored art-based mindfulness activities that schools could use to reduce headaches, a common side effect of stress in adolescent girls. After three weeks of twice-weekly mindfulness and art therapy sessions, eight teenage girls reported experiencing significantly fewer headaches.
July 17, 2019
UW hosts student robotics challenge Friday to mark 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 moon landing
This Friday, teams of 5th- through 12th-grade students from across Washington state will complete a challenge in Kane Hall to mimic the 1969 Apollo moon landing, using drones and Lego robots.
First-ever visualizations of electrical gating effects on electronic structure could lead to longer-lasting devices
Scientists have visualized the electronic structure in a microelectronic device for the first time, opening up opportunities for finely tuned, high-performance electronic devices. Physicists from the University of Washington and the University of Warwick developed a technique to measure the energy and momentum of electrons in operating microelectronic devices made of atomically thin — so-called 2D — materials.
July 16, 2019
8 UW professors elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences in 2019
Eight scientists and engineers from the University of Washington have been elected this year to the Washington State Academy of Sciences.
July 9, 2019
UW professors to receive 2019 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers
Six University of Washington professors are to receive a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, according to an announcement July 2 from the White House. The award, also known as the PECASE, is the highest honor given by the U.S. government to early-career scientists and engineers “who show exceptional promise for leadership in science and technology.”
July 1, 2019
How you and your friends can play a video game together using only your minds
UW researchers created a method for two people help a third person solve a task using only their minds.
June 19, 2019
Partnerships for Impact: NSF Awards an additional $4M to the West Big Data Innovation Hub co-led by the UW eScience Institute
The National Science Foundation is awarding a second round of funding for the Regional Big Data Innovation Hubs — organizations launched in 2015 to build and strengthen data science partnerships across industry, academia, nonprofits and government to address scientific and societal challenges. The University of Washington, in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Diego, will continue to coordinate the West Big Data Innovation Hub.
‘Alexa, monitor my heart’: Researchers develop first contactless cardiac arrest AI system for smart speakers
UW researchers have developed a new tool to monitor people for cardiac arrest while they’re asleep — all without touching them. The tool is essentially an app for a smart speaker or a smartphone that allows it to detect the signature sounds of cardiac arrest and call for help.
June 11, 2019
Behind the magic: Making moving photos a reality
UW researchers have figured out how to take a person from a 2D photo or a work of art and make them run, walk or jump out of the frame. The system also allows users to view the animation in three dimensions using augmented reality tools.
May 29, 2019
Video: Origami-inspired materials are designed to soften impact
University of Washington researchers have developed a novel solution to change the feeling of impact when one thing hits another. It has potential for use in spacecraft, cars and beyond — inspired by origami.
May 24, 2019
Origami-inspired materials could soften the blow for reusable spacecraft
University of Washington researchers used the paper folding art of origami to develop a novel solution to help reduce the forces associated with impact — like in car crashes, football helmets, landing spacecraft and more.
May 20, 2019
Scientists use molecular tethers and chemical ‘light sabers’ to construct platforms for tissue engineering
In a paper published May 20 in the journal Nature Materials, a team of researchers from the University of Washington unveiled a new strategy to keep proteins intact and functional in synthetic biomaterials for tissue engineering. Their approach modifies proteins at a specific point so that they can be chemically tethered to the scaffold using light. Since the tether can also be cut by laser light, this method can create evolving patterns of signal proteins throughout a biomaterial scaffold to grow tissues made up of different types of cells.
May 15, 2019
First smartphone app that can hear ear infections in children
Researchers at the UW have created a new smartphone app that can detect fluid behind the eardrum by simply using a piece of paper and the phone’s microphone and speaker.
May 9, 2019
Former cleantech executive leads development of University of Washington energy research and technology center
The University of Washington and its Clean Energy Institute named Kevin Klustner executive director of the Center for Advanced Materials and Clean Energy Technologies, or CAMCET. When complete, CAMCET will be a 340,000-square-foot building that will bring together UW scientists and engineers with industry, civic and nonprofit partners to accelerate clean energy solutions for a healthy planet.
May 3, 2019
Researchers take a bottom-up approach to synthesizing microscopic diamonds for bioimaging, quantum computing
Researchers at the University of Washington, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory discovered that they can use extremely high pressure and temperature to introduce other elements into nanodiamonds, making them potentially useful in cell and tissue imaging, as well as quantum computing.
April 26, 2019
Video: Kids have fun with science at Engineering Discovery Days
Engineering Discovery Days is a yearly event that invites Washington state fourth- through eighth-graders to have fun leaning about STEM with the College of Engineering.
April 18, 2019
Project Sidewalk helps users map accessibility around Seattle, other cities
UW researchers have led the development of Project Sidewalk, an online crowdsourcing game that lets anyone with an internet connection use Google Street View to virtually explore neighborhoods and label curb ramps, missing or rough sidewalks, obstacles and more.
April 15, 2019
Synthetic peptide can inhibit toxicity, aggregation of protein in Alzheimer’s disease, researchers show
A team led by researchers at the University of Washington has developed synthetic peptides that target and inhibit the small, toxic protein aggregates that are thought to trigger Alzheimer’s disease.
April 8, 2019
Water and wastewater disinfection can help prevent the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria, but what about their genes?
A UW team tested how well current water and wastewater disinfecting methods affect antibiotic resistance genes in bacterial DNA. While these methods work well to deter bacterial growth, they had varied success in either degrading or deactivating a representative antibiotic resistance gene.
March 21, 2019
UW, Microsoft, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory establish new Northwest Quantum Nexus for a quantum revolution in science, technology
The University of Washington, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Microsoft Quantum announced this week that they have joined forces in a new coalition, the Northwest Quantum Nexus, to bring about a revolution in quantum research and technology.
With a ‘hello,’ Microsoft and UW demonstrate first fully automated DNA data storage
UW and Microsoft researchers have demonstrated the first fully automated system to store and retrieve data in manufactured DNA — a key step in moving the technology out of the research lab and into commercial data centers.
March 13, 2019
New method to assess platelet health could help ER doctors
UW researchers have created a novel system that can measure platelet function within two minutes and can help doctors determine which trauma patients might need a blood transfusion upon being admitted to a hospital.
March 12, 2019
Eight postdoctoral researchers at the University of Washington receive awards from the Washington Research Foundation
Eight researchers at the University of Washington have been named 2019 Washington Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellows.
March 11, 2019
Black and Hispanic Americans bear a disproportionate burden from air pollution
Black and Hispanic Americans bear a disproportionate burden from air pollution generated mainly by non-Hispanic white Americans, according to new research from a team led by the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota.
How to train your robot (to feed you dinner)
Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a robotic system that can feed people who need someone to help them eat.
March 5, 2019
FASER detector at the Large Hadron Collider to seek clues about hidden matter in the universe
On March 5, the CERN research board approved a new experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva to search for evidence of fundamental dark matter particles. UW scientists are part of this endeavor, the Forward Search Experiment — or FASER — which seeks to answer one of the outstanding questions in particle physics: What is dark matter made of?
March 4, 2019
Fake faces: UWs ‘Calling BS’ duo opens new website asking ‘Which face is real?’
A new website from the UW’s Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom, the duo behind the popular “Calling BS” class, asks viewers to choose which of two realistic face photos is real and which is a complete fake.
February 25, 2019
It’s all in the twist: Physicists stack 2D materials at angles to trap particles on the nanoscale, creating a unique platform to study quantum optical physics
In a paper published Feb. 25 in the journal Nature, a University of Washington-led team of physicists report that it has developed a new system to trap individual excitons — bound pairs of electrons and their associated positive charges. Their system could form the basis of a novel experimental platform for monitoring excitons with precision and potentially developing new quantum technologies.
February 4, 2019
Early spring rain boosts methane from thawing permafrost by 30 percent
A UW-led team has found that early spring rainfall warms up a thawing permafrost bog in Alaska and promotes the growth of plants and methane-producing microbes.
January 23, 2019
First-of-its-kind center hosts tools to analyze the effects of natural disasters
A center housed at the University of Washington offers a new way for scientists to get their hands on state-of-the-art equipment to study the effects of natural disasters. The RAPID Facility, which is the first of its kind in the world, contains over 300 instruments that are available for researchers around the world to use.
January 16, 2019
Three awards from US Department of Energy to fuel UW solar cell research
Three teams led by University of Washington researchers — Scott Dunham, Hugh Hillhouse and Devin MacKenzie — have received competitive awards totaling more than $2.3 million from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office for projects that will advance research and development in photovoltaic materials, which are an essential component of solar cells and impact the amount of sunlight that is converted into electricity.
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