UW News
The latest news from the UW
October 21, 2013
Native American longhouse breaks ground Oct. 25
A public, groundbreaking ceremony for the University of Washington Native American longhouse-style facility, Wǝɫǝbʔaltxʷ (Intellectual House), will take place Friday, Oct. 25, 3-5:30 p.m.
Tag(s): Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity
‘Pushback’: Resisting the life of constant connectivity
Researchers at the University of Washington have studied and named a trend lots of people can identify with: the desire to resist constant connectivity and step back from the online world.
Tag(s): Information School • Ricardo Gomez
Three UW faculty members elected to Institute of Medicine
Blood disease specialist Dr. Janis Abkowitz and drug safety expert Dr, Bruce Psaty today were named new members of the prestigious Institute of Medicine, an honorary and national advisory group.
Tag(s): Bruce Psaty • Institute of Medicine • Janis AbkowitzOctober 20, 2013
Global ocean currents explain why Northern Hemisphere is the soggier one
A new study in Nature Geoscience explains a major feature of global precipitation, and shows how a current originating from the poles influences tropical rainfall in Africa and southern India.
Tag(s): climate • climate change • College of the Environment • Dargan Frierson • Department of Atmospheric SciencesOctober 18, 2013
Expectant mother stays hopeful through breast cancer
Sarah Lien and her mother Barbara Hawkins were both diagnosed with breast cancer as young women. Sarah is modeling her mother’s optimistic approach to the disease while awaiting the birth of her own daughter, Elizabeth.
Tag(s): cancer
UW receives grant from attorney general’s office for pain management
The University of Washington has received an 18-month grant of $110,299 from the state Attorney General’s Office to provide training and education for health professionals and the general public on the subject of chronic pain management and cannabis use.
Tag(s): Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute • Beatriz CarliniOctober 17, 2013
Project aims to make mall walking more accessible
A new project by the UW School of Nursing will evaluate whether mall-walking programs are effective and whether they can lead to larger-scale increases in walking.
Campus sustainability, climate change focus of Sustainability Summit Oct. 23
Learn how to be more involved with campus sustainability during UW Sustainability Summit activities Oct. 23.
Tag(s): UW Sustainability
Yoga accessible for the blind with new Microsoft Kinect-based program
A team of University of Washington computer scientists has created a software program that watches a user’s movements and gives spoken feedback using a Microsoft Kinect on what to change to accurately complete a yoga pose.
Tag(s): College of Engineering • Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering • Julie Kientz • Kyle Rector • Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & EngineeringOctober 16, 2013
Arts Roundup: Birds at the Burke, exhibit openings — and Music of Today featuring Garth Knox
The UW School of Music leads this busy week in the arts with performances by the Steve Korn Group, UW Symphony and Music of Today featuring violist Garth Knox.
Tag(s): Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture • Henry Art Gallery • Meany Center for the Performing Arts • School of Drama • School of Music • Undergraduate Theater Society
Lost and Found Films: Building the Space Needle, 1961
We travel back in time 52 years for the latest installment of Lost and Found Films, to the 1961 construction of the Space Needle and the Monorail in downtown Seattle.
Tag(s): Lost and Found Films • UW LibrariesOctober 15, 2013
Study: Nearly 500,000 perished in Iraq war
A new study estimates nearly a half-million people died from causes attributable to the war in Iraq from 2003 through 2011. The results come from the first population-based survey since 2006 to estimate war-related deaths in Iraq, and the first study covering the conflict’s full timespan.
Tag(s): Global Citizens
UW female professors building a culture for engineering
Initiative draws faculty, students into collaborative health care
The UW schools of health sciences have formed a new initiative to teach and deliver health care across disciplines, a team-based approach that is gaining recognition nationally and is expected to make health care more efficient and effective.
Nanopore sequencing technology lands licensing deal
A San Diego company has licensed UW-developed technology capable of reading the sequence of a single DNA molecule.
Local infrastructure focus of College of Engineering’s fall lecture series
The University of Washington College of Engineering fall lecture series will feature faculty researchers and industry leaders who work to maintain and improve our region’s critical infrastructure. The lectures are at 7 p.m. on Oct. 23, Oct. 30 and Nov. 14.
Tag(s): College of Engineering • Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering • Greg Miller • John StantonOctober 14, 2013
UW Fall 2013 enrollment: Largest freshman class ever
The University of Washington in Seattle reports its largest freshman class in history at 6,255 students, according to the Office of Admissions.
Federal shutdown could hamper quake response
October 10, 2013
Arts Roundup: Music, film, drama, lectures — and Chamber Dance Company
This week, the Chamber Dance Company’s 2013 concert is the icing on the cake in a busy week of arts events that also includes the School of Drama’s opening of “The Real Inspector Hound” and the Emerson String Quartet performing with School of Music Professor Craig Sheppard.
Tag(s): Burke Museum of Natural History & Culture • College of Arts & Sciences • Henry Art Gallery • Meany Center for the Performing Arts • School of Drama • School of Music
UW Combined Fund Drive’s Charity Fair and Silent Auction Oct. 16
The UW Combined Fund Drive, part of the state’s workplace giving campaign, kicks off with a Charity Fair & Silent Auction on Wednesday, Oct. 16, from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. in the HUB north ballroom.
October 9, 2013
News Digest: New employee housing, Carlos Pellegrini installed as president, Math Across Campus kicks off, Honor: Gerry Philipsen, health and safety nominations open
Ground broken for employee housing || Carlos Pellegrini installed as president || Math Across Campus considers challenge of sustainability || Gerry Philipsen honored by communication association || UW Health and Safety Committee nominations close Nov. 1
New strategy lets cochlear implant users hear music
University of Washington scientists have developed a new way of processing the signals in cochlear implants to help users hear music better. The technique lets users perceive differences between musical instruments, a significant improvement from what standard cochlear implants can offer.
Tag(s): College of Engineering • Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering • Jay Rubinstein • Les AtlasOctober 8, 2013
Profile: Brian Wansink, Slim By Design author and 2013 Hogness Lecturer
Wansink explores mindless eating and how cues in our environment lead us to eat too much of the wrong foods.
Tag(s): diet
Major funding awarded for research on drugs taken during pregnancy
Pharmacists and physicians will be looking at prescription and illicit drugs taken during pregnancy to evaluate risks to mothers and their fetuses.
Tag(s): Department of Pharmaceutics • drug use • School of Pharmacy
UW, local company building innovative deep-sea manned submarine
The UW, Boeing and an Everett company are building a carbon-fiber submersible that will carry five passengers almost 2 miles deep.
Tag(s): Applied Physics Laboratory • oceanography • Robert MiyamotoOctober 7, 2013
Rheba de Tornyay, dean emeritus of School of Nursing, dies at 87
The distinguished career of a nursing pioneer and UW faculty member came to a close on Sept. 27 with the death of Dean Emeritus Rheba de Tornyay.
October 3, 2013
Pioneering MOOC instructors remain enthusiastic
The first reports from the pioneers of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, at the UW contain a mixture of humility and abiding enthusiasm for this new education platform.
My HeartMap Seattle Challenge enlists the public to locate city’s life-saving devices
If you witness a heart attack, would you know where the nearest AED is? A Seattle contest will help pre-hospital emergency care leaders locate the city’s automatic external defibrillators, which can help restore normal heart rhythms and coach in CPR.
Tag(s): Graham Nichol • heart disease
Arts Roundup: Exhibits, lectures — and Axis Dance Company
In what is a quiet week for many arts units on campus, the UW World Series presents Axis Dance Company in a contemporary and physically integrated performance. Activities also include exhibit openings and lectures from the School of Art and the Burke Museum.
October 2, 2013
UW ranked 25th best university in world
The University of Washington was ranked 25th best university in the world according to The Times Higher Education Rankings for 2013-14.
UW Medicine helps first patients sign up for Health Benefit Exchange
Yesterday was a historic day for health care coverage in the United States. UW Medicine was ready to assist patients in signing up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, signed into law March 23, 2010.
October 1, 2013
Should we care if companies use data for advertising?
Estrogen pills for menopause symptoms vary in blood clot risk
A recent observational study comparing the safety of estradiol and conjugated equine estrogen associated estradiol with a lower risk of leg vein and lung clots.
Tag(s): School of MedicineSeptember 30, 2013
3 UW professors honored by NIH for innovative biomedical research
Three University of Washington faculty members are among those honored with a grant from the National Institutes of Health’s High Risk-High Reward program.
Tag(s): College of Engineering • Department of Bioengineering • Department of Genome Sciences • Department of Microbiology • Houra Merrikh • Jay Shendure • School of Medicine • Ying Zheng
UW researchers helped draft international assessment of climate change
UW faculty members were among international researchers who compiled the fifth climate-change assessment report. The UW will host a seminar Tuesday, Oct. 1 with some of the Seattle-area authors.
Tag(s): Chris Bretherton • climate change • College of the Environment • Dennis Hartmann • Department of Atmospheric Sciences • Global Citizens • School of Oceanography
UW engineers invent programming language to build synthetic DNA
A team led by the University of Washington has developed a programming language for chemistry that it hopes will streamline efforts to design a network that can guide the behavior of chemical-reaction mixtures in the same way that embedded electronic controllers guide cars, robots and other devices.
Tag(s): College of Engineering • Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering • Georg Seelig • Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & EngineeringSeptember 26, 2013
History lecture series to explore slavery in making of America
The UW history department will review America’s history of slavery from four different angles in its annual lecture series, which begins on Oct. 23.
Tag(s): College of Arts & Sciences • Department of History • Global Citizens • Lynn Thomas • Moon-Ho Jung • Stephanie Camp • Stephanie Smallwood
Arts Roundup: Exhibits, lectures — and Chris Thile performs at Meany
School has started and this week provides an array of arts events on campus and off, including a performance by mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile and the first lecture in the School of Drama’s performing art lecture series.
September 25, 2013
Shiny new Odegaard library greets students
UW students are being greeted by a spiffy new version of the Odegaard Undergraduate Library following a nearly $17 million makeover, the first in the library’s 41-year history.
