UW researchers analyzed the checkout data from the last 20 years of the 93 authors included in the post-1945 volume of “The Norton Anthology of American Literature,” which is assigned in U.S. English classes more than any other anthology. Sci-fi was especially popular.
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 web-based method was shown to mitigate political polarization on X by nudging antidemocratic and extremely negative partisan posts lower in a user’s feed. The tool, which is independent of the platform, has the potential to give users more say over what they see on social media.
In a new UW study, 528 participants worked with simulated AI systems to select job candidates. The researchers simulated different levels of racial biases for resumes from white, Black, Hispanic and Asian men. Without suggestions, participants’ choices exhibited little bias. But when provided with recommendations, participants mirrored the AI’s biases.
UW researchers discuss their study which surveyed 166 gamers about how video games sparked meaningful changes in their lives.
Research by the University of Washington and the USPTO found that some simple interventions increased the probability that female inventors would get patents by 12%. For first-time applicants, that probability increased to 17%.
A University of Washington-led study of X found that posts with Community Notes attached were less prone to going viral and got less engagement. After getting a Community Note, on average, reposts dropped 46% and likes dropped 44%.
The goals of those developing AI systems for the climate and those working on the front lines of climate advocacy don’t necessarily align. To compare the two groups, UW researchers interviewed nine people who are developing AI for sustainability and 10 climate advocates.
University of Washington researchers developed the game AI Puzzlers to show kids an area where AI systems still typically and blatantly fail: solving certain reasoning puzzles. In the game, users get a chance to solve puzzles by completing patterns of colored blocks. They can then ask various AI chatbots to solve and have the systems explain their solutions — which they nearly always fail to do accurately.
The University of Washington’s graduate and professional degree programs were widely recognized as among the best in the nation, according to U.S. News & World Report’s 2026 Best Graduate Schools released late Monday.
The University of Washington is the best in the U.S. and No. 2 in the world for library and information management, according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject released Wednesday. Four other UW subject areas placed in the top 10.
A UW team studied how AI systems portray teens in English and Nepali, and found that in English language systems around 30% of the responses referenced societal problems such as violence, drug use and mental illness. The Nepali system produced fewer negative associations in responses, closer to 10% of all answers.
Chirag Shah, a UW professor in the Information School, discusses what AI agents are and what might impede a near future where people can simply get AI bots to shop for them.
UW News sat down with experts in public health and AI to discuss AI could enhance health care, what’s standing in the way, and whether there’s a downside to democratizing medical research.
University of Washington researchers developed a system for detecting subtle biases in AI models. They found seven of the eight popular AI models they tested in conversations around race and caste generated significant amounts of biased text in interactions — particularly when discussing caste. Open-source models fared far worse than two proprietary ChatGPT models.
University of Washington researchers found significant racial, gender and intersectional bias in how three state-of-the-art large language models ranked resumes. The models favored white-associated names 85% of the time, female-associated names only 11% of the time, and never favored Black male-associated names over white male-associated names.
University of Washington researchers investigated how iBuyers — companies that use automated algorithms to quickly buy and sell homes — have affected the well-documented racial bias against Black home sellers. Looking at Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, they found that on average iBuyers paid more equal prices to Black and white home sellers than individual buyers, largely because iBuyers paid white sellers significantly less on average than an individual buyer. They also discovered that iBuyers were significantly more likely to resell homes to institutions, such as large rental companies that’ve been tied to high eviction rates and rent-gouging.
Three new faculty books from the University of Washington cover the recipes and culture of the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous peoples and data science for neuroimaging researchers. UW News spoke with the authors to learn more. Documenting history and rituals of Syrian cuisine When Karen E. Fisher was invited to Zaatari, the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, she noticed that stories of the camp rarely included women’s voices. As she learned more about their…
New research from the University of Washington finds that teens open Instagram because they’re bored. Then they sift through largely irrelevant content, mostly feeling bored, while seeking interesting bits to share with their friends in direct messages. Then, eventually bored with what researchers call a “content soup,” they log off.
But in her new book “Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix,” Katherine Cross, a UW doctoral student in the Information School, argues that social media has limited political value.
“We asked one 11-year-old how he’d feel if his favorite book series was written by AI instead of an author, and he said it would ‘dismantle’ the joy of reading for him. We often don’t think about kids having these deep, existential questions about what it means to be an artist,” said Michele Newman, a University of Washington doctoral student in the Information School.
University of Washington researchers created and tested a prototype browser extension called Viblio, which lets viewers and creators add citations to the timelines of YouTube videos.
The University of Washington has been named one of the world’s top universities, according to the QS World University Rankings by Subject released Wednesday.
Sandy Littletree, a UW assistant professor in the Information School, discusses the importance of working Indigenous ways of knowing into libraries, archives and data repositories.
University of Washington researchers taught a group of high schoolers to code by combining cultural research into various embroidery traditions with “computational embroidery.” The method teaches kids to encode embroidery patterns on a computer through a coding language called Turtlestitch.
New research from the UW examines how three wellness Instagram influencers profited from anti-vaccine misinformation.
Mike Teodorescu, a University of Washington assistant professor in the Information School, proposes that private enterprise standards for fairer machine learning systems would inform governmental regulation.
University of Washington researchers found that when prompted to make pictures of “a person,” the AI image generator over-represented light-skinned men, failed to equitably represent Indigenous peoples and sexualized images of certain women of color.
This week, attend the UW Pandemic Project’s Radical Listening Session to honor each individual’s lived pandemics experiences, head to Meany Hall for Garrick Ohlsson’s piano performance, celebrate Diwali with the Burke Museum, and more. November 7, 4:30 – 6:00pm | Sharon Stein, “The University and Its Responsibility for Repair: Confronting Colonial Foundations and Enabling Different Futures” | A Worlds of Difference lecture, Communications Building This presentation by Sharon Stein asks how universities can navigate the complexity of confronting the colonial…
A team led by researchers at the University of Washington has created A11yBoard for Google Slides, a browser extension and phone or tablet app that allows blind users to navigate through complex slide layouts, objects, images and text.
The turmoil at large tech platforms has many people reconsidering what they want out of social media. Four researchers at the University of Washington are exploring different approaches to improve people’s experiences.
Katie Davis, a University of Washington associate professor in the Information School, discusses how generative AI might support learning, instead of detracting from it, if kids can keep their agency.
A new study from the University of Washington and Cornell University shows researchers more likely to write scientific papers with co-authors of the same gender, a pattern that can’t be explained by varying gender representations across scientific disciplines and time.
Jason Yip, a UW associate professor in the Information School, discusses how parents and schools can adapt to new technologies in ways that support children’s learning.
Researchers at the University of Washington created a new audio chatbot, Self-Talk with Superhero Zip, aimed to help children speak positively to themselves. This chatbot is “a ‘Sesame Street’ experience for a smart speaker.”
UW News sat down with Michele Newman, a University of Washington doctoral student in the Information School, to learn more about fans’ dedication to “Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.”
Three new faculty books from the University of Washington cover topics ranging from children’s use of technology to the life experiences of Black women to neuroscience and brain research.
The Homosaurus is a linked data controlled vocabulary used by libraries, museums and other cultural heritage institutions worldwide to describe LGBTQIA+ resources and aid in indexing and retrieving content. Marika Cifor, University of Washington assistant professor in the Information School, was awarded a 2023 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to develop a free-standing Spanish-language Homosaurus.
University of Washington alumnus Daniel Guorui Chen, Class of 2022, has been named a Marshall Scholar, one of the highest honors available to college graduates in the U.S. Chen plans to attend the University of Cambridge.
Eight University of Washington subjects ranked in the top 10 and Atmospheric Sciences moved to its position as No. 1 in the world on the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects list for 2022. The ranking, released Tuesday, was conducted by researchers at the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, a fully independent organization dedicating to research on higher education intelligence and consultation.