The latest news from the UW

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…