Recent news about AI safety is fueling a new wave of political and societal fear. Five UW AI researchers discuss the real risks of AI and what to do about them.
Tag: College of Engineering
American public health agencies don’t routinely test wastewater for sexually transmitted infections, but new research led by the University of Washington and the Washington State Department of Health found that such methods could be used to effectively identify Chlamydia trachomatis, the bacteria that causes chlamydia.
University of Washington researchers are leading and collaborating on four research projects as part of Phase 1 in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Genesis Mission, a national initiative to build an AI-for-science ecosystem which accelerates breakthroughs in energy, discovery science and national security.
University of Washington researchers gathered eight kids on campus to explore how they played with AI toys. The kids initially were curious, asking introductory questions, such as “What is your name?” But after communication breakdowns, the kids turned to antagonizing the toys, calling them “ugly” and “evil” and joking about throwing them in the ocean.
Explore recent research from the University of Washington: nectar-stealing Hawaiian honeycreepers, ChatGPT and anxious attachment, the cost of nursing for marine mammals, new magnetic nanomaterials, and a new strategy to subdue finicky plasma.
Hossein Naghavi, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the UW, explores new applications for an underused segment of the electromagnetic spectrum known as the “terahertz band.” Naghavi recently received a grant from the Department of Energy to create powerful yet lightweight sensors using terahertz waves, which could aid emergency responders, autonomous vehicles, security systems and more.
Eleven faculty members at the University of Washington have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences while another was elected to the WSAS Board of Directors.
Explore recent research from the University of Washington: a new AI framework for developing advanced materials, a test of climate models’ ability to predict temperature trends, and the role of paternal body odor in brain-to-brain synchrony with infants.
University of Washington researchers created the Landslide Exposure Database, the first resource that maps per-building landslide vulnerability across the United States. The study estimates that roughly 6.5 million U.S. residents are highly vulnerable to landslides, and overturns the conventional picture of landslide risk in the U.S. by identifying high concentrations of exposure in Appalachia as well as a surprising urban-rural divide.
Eight University of Washington researchers have been selected as Fulbright Scholars for 2026-2027 and will pursue studies around the world. Fulbright Scholars are college and university faculty, administrators and researchers, as well as artists and professionals, who build their skills and connections, gain valuable international insights and return home to share their experiences with their students and colleagues. This year’s UW cohort represents a variety of disciplines, including sciences, engineering, business, environmental sciences, electrical and computer engineering, and computer science….
Explore recent research from the University of Washington: low-income communities and communities of color disproportionately impacted by air pollution, an unfathomably fast chemical reaction, ups and downs in the methane record, and the cigar galaxy pictured at high resolution.
A UW team studied seven popular agentic AI browsers and found that four create ways for malicious actors to bypass a fundamental cybersecurity protocol called the “same-origin policy,” which makes websites open in a browser unable to interact with each other’s information. Researchers ran a successful proof-of-concept cyberattack on one browser.
A UW team built an AI tool that helps users turn research papers into 45-second videos. A researcher uploads a paper to the tool, which uses Google Gemini to write a short script explaining the paper. The researcher can then iteratively edit the transcript and resulting video clip.
University of Washington researchers developed an artificial intelligence system that automatically estimates the environmental impacts of making different electronic devices. The system takes only a minute to run and achieves estimates with accuracy similar to human experts’.
New computing techniques — including AI and quantum computing — are enabling UW researchers to design unique and complex quantum materials.
Explore recent research from the University of Washington: how climate change is redirecting rivers, what bean plants use to protect themselves from pests, where the water in an atmospheric river comes from and how researchers are making tensegrities tiny.
University of Washington researchers launched a pilot app that maps ‘little free pantries’ throughout the Seattle area and gives pantry users and donors new tools to communicate with and help one another.
Discovery Days gives K-12 students from across Washington state a chance to experience science and engineering concepts for themselves at the University of Washington’s Seattle campus.
University of Washington researchers created BikeButler, a demo web app that lets users find personalized bike routes in Seattle. Cyclists plug in their destination and origin — just like in other mapping apps — and can then toggle sliders for eight attributes to create personalized route options.
UW News spoke with Paul Wiggins, a University of Washington associate professor of both physics and bioengineering, to learn about a surprisingly relatable behavior prompting bacteria to stockpile huge reserves of essential proteins.
University of Washington researchers developed a system called VueBuds that uses tiny cameras in off-the-shelf wireless earbuds to allow users to talk with an AI model about the scene in front of them. For instance, a user might look at a Korean food package and say, “Hey VueBuds, translate this for me.” They’d then hear an AI voice say, “The visible text translates to ‘Cold Noodles’ in English.
At the brand-new Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed lab, researchers from across the UW probe the “spooky” mysteries of quantum phenomena.
The University of Washington’s graduate and professional degree programs again were recognized as among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best Graduate Schools released late Monday.
New research shows that as winters get warmer, more icy crusts may form within snowpacks in much of the Pacific Northwest, increasing the risk of avalanche in some areas and changing the behavior of wildlife across the region.
Researchers at UW and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory are simulating something in the lab that they hope will rarely happen in the wild: a collision between underwater turbines and marine animals.
Forest managers in the eastern Cascades selectively thin forests to promote wildfire resilience. New research from the UW shows that the same process can also increase seasonal snowpack, providing some relief to drought-prone areas throughout central Washington.
Tohoku University and the University of Washington, two leading academic research institutions of the Pacific Rim, announced “Q-DREAM,” a significant expansion of their decades-long collaboration.
A team led by University of Washington researchers has created DopFone, a system that uses an off-the-shelf smartphone’s existing speaker and microphone to accurately estimate fetal heart rate. The phone mimics a Doppler ultrasound, emitting a tone and listening for the subtle variations in its echo caused by fetal heart beats. A machine learning model then estimates the heart rate.
The University of Washington and Microsoft have announced the expansion of their long‑standing partnership uniting world-class academic research with world-leading technology. UW and Microsoft aim to accelerate AI discovery, prepare students and workers for an AI-driven economy, and help communities understand and use AI responsibly.
Five University of Washington faculty members have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
The University of Washington was awarded $2.5 million from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to fund 16 postdoctoral fellows in a number of fields across the College of Arts & Sciences, the College of Engineering and the College of the Environment.
A UW and Ai2 research team built OpenScholar, an open-source AI model designed specifically to synthesize current scientific research. In tests, OpenScholar cited sources as accurately as human experts, and 16 scientists preferred its response to those written by subject experts 51% of the time.
A new smart glove from the UW Wearable Intelligence Lab could help physical therapy patients track progress and train robotic hands to grasp.
Lucas Meza, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Washington, started his lab to build a new generation of tough and light nanomaterials inspired by natural materials like wood, shell and bone. Instead, he discovered “big gaps” in our basic understanding of what makes a material tough or brittle. Meza spoke to UW News about his strange and surprising journey into the nano realm.
New research from the UW and the Toyota Research Institute explores how drivers trade off between cognitive tasks, driving and using the vehicle’s touch screen. Researchers placed participants in a driving simulator and had them complete memory tests while interacting with the simulator’s touch screen.
A new University of Washington study suggests that AI could learn cultural values by observing human behavior, similar to how children learn by watching and interacting with adults. Researchers had AI systems observe two cultural groups playing a video game. The AI systems were able to learn each group’s degree of altruism and apply this to a new situation.
Researchers at the UW have developed AI-powered headphones that automatically isolate conversation partners in a noisy soundscape. The system employs AI models that listen for the back-and-forth pattern of conversation and mute voices that aren’t following the established rhythm.
The University of Washington is proud to announce that 56 faculty and researchers who completed their work while at UW have been named on the Highly Cited Researchers 2025 list from Clarivate.
The University of Washington today announced a foundational $10 million gift from philanthropists Charles and Lisa Simonyi to support groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence and emerging technologies.
The public-private partnership led by Washington State University with support from the UW targets a global health problem: the lack of whole grains in people’s diets, which contributes to widespread health problems.