Three University of Washington experts have provided quotes in response to the magnitude 7.8 earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday morning.
February 9, 2023
The latest news from the UW
February 8, 2023
Prosocial CEOs increase company value, stakeholder satisfaction
New research from Weili Ge, professor of accounting at the University of Washington Foster School of Business, found that CEOs who engage in prosocial behavior — activities that primarily help others — are more likely to make decisions that benefit people and increase company value.
Q&A: UW researcher discusses future of quantum research
Scientists at the University of Washington are pursuing multiple quantum research projects spanning from creating materials with never-before-seen physical properties to studying the “quantum bits” — or qubits (pronounced “kyu-bits”) — that make quantum computing possible. UW News sat down with Professor Kai-Mei Fu, one of the leaders in quantum research on campus, to talk about the potential of quantum R&D, and why it’s so important.
February 6, 2023
UW project has uncovered thousands of racially discriminatory housing covenants in Washington state – and it’s not done yet
More than 40,000 property deeds containing racially discriminatory language have been uncovered in Western Washington by the Racial Restrictive Covenants Project. Director James Gregory, professor of history at the University of Washington, and his team aren’t finished yet.
February 3, 2023
ArtSci Roundup: LIVE from Space, History Lecture Series, Going Public Podcast Launch, and more!
Attend lectures, performances, and more! January 18 – February 15, 7:30 PM |History Lecture Series: Medieval Made Modern, Kane Hall The medieval period has always occupied a paradoxical position in our cultural memory. An age of fantasy unimaginably distant from historical reality, it is also an era onto which writers and artists—and now moviemakers and gamers—have long projected their fears and desires. Why do cultures remake certain figures from the past—but not others–in their own image? Join Professor Emerita Robin…
Q&A: The benefits and hazards of social media for teens
Lucía Magis-Weinberg, a University of Washington assistant professor of psychology, explains how social media use can affect youth mental health.
Ice cores show even dormant volcanoes leak abundant sulfur into the atmosphere
Non-erupting volcanoes leak a surprisingly high amount of sulfur-containing gases. A Greenland ice core shows that volcanoes quietly release at least three times as much sulfur into the Arctic atmosphere than estimated by current climate models. Aerosols are the most uncertain aspect of current climate models, so better estimates could improve the accuracy of long-term projections.
February 2, 2023
Hitting the snow with a new course on accessibility and disability justice
It’s ski season and cold sunny days fill outdoor enthusiasts with delight, but ski areas usually come with stairs, crowds and an infrastructure generally built for skiers and snowboarders who ride solo and on two legs.
Observing this winter activity through a lens of accessibility and disability justice is the point of a new class developed by UW Bothell associate teaching professor Jason Naranjo. His course, “Disability & Society — A Focus on Community and the Outdoors,” pairs UW students with skiers from Outdoors for All, an organization that provides adaptive outdoor activities for people who, for cognitive or physical reasons, can’t simply pop on skis and hit the slopes.
February 1, 2023
Q&A: UW historian explores how a Husky alum influenced postcolonial Sudan
Christopher Tounsel, associate professor of history at the University of Washington, found multiple connections between Sudan and Seattle while researching his upcoming book. The most prominent was the late Andrew Brimmer, a UW alum who in 1966 became the first Black member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.
January 31, 2023
Four UW researchers named AAAS Fellows in 2022
Four University of Washington researchers have been named AAAS Fellows, according to a Jan. 31 announcement by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They are among 506 new fellows from around the world elected in 2022, who are recognized for their “scientifically and socially distinguished achievements” in science and engineering.
January 27, 2023
ArtSci Roundup: Doce Sones para Doce Poetas / Twelve Songs for Twelve Poets, Thick as Mud exhibition opening, and more
Attend lectures, performances, and more! January 18 – February 15, 7:30 PM |History Lecture Series: Medieval Made Modern, Kane Hall The medieval period has always occupied a paradoxical position in our cultural memory. An age of fantasy unimaginably distant from historical reality, it is also an era onto which writers and artists—and now moviemakers and gamers—have long projected their fears and desires. Why do cultures remake certain figures from the past—but not others–in their own image? Join Professor Emerita Robin…
January 23, 2023
Q&A: How AI can help people be more empathetic about mental health
A team led by researchers at the University of Washington studied how artificial intelligence could help people on the platform TalkLife, where people give each other mental health support. The researchers developed an AI system that suggested changes to participants’ responses to make them more empathetic. The best responses resulted from a collaboration between AI and people.
January 19, 2023
ArtSci Roundup: Behzod Abduraimov, “Manzanar, Diverted” Screening and Director talk, and more
Start the new year with lectures, performances, and more! January 24, 7:30 PM |Behzod Abduraimov, Meany Hall Since winning the London International Piano Competition in 2009, Behzod Abduraimov’s passionate and virtuosic performances have dazzled audiences around the world. His “prodigious technique and rhapsodic flair” (The New York Times) have defined his career as a recording artist, recitalist, chamber musician and soloist with major orchestras worldwide. The Tashkent, Uzbekistan native presents a program specifically crafted for his Meany debut, featuring Uzbek…
January 18, 2023
The importance of the atmosphere and ocean in determining the fate of Antarctica
New research finds that ice-sheet-wide collapse in West Antarctica isn’t necessarily inevitable. The pace of ice loss varies according to regional differences in atmosphere and ocean circulation.
January 13, 2023
ArtSci Roundup: Democracy and the 2022 Midterm Elections, UW Dance Presents, Physics Slam, and more
Start the new year with lectures, performances, and more! January 18, 6:30 PM | Democracy and the 2022 Midterm Elections, Part II, Kane Hall Join UW Professor Jacob Grumbach for the second and final lecture on the 2022 midterm elections. In this talk, he will address the election results as well as ways we can protect and improve American democracy through reforming the Constitution, updating election laws, and revitalizing the labor movement. Free | More info. January 19, 3:30 PM…
January 12, 2023
How did the Butterfly Nebula get its wings? It’s complicated
Something is amiss in the Butterfly Nebula. When a team led by astronomers at the University of Washington compared two exposures of this planetary nebula that had been taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009 and 2020, they saw dramatic changes in the material within its “wings.” As the team will report on Jan. 12 at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, powerful winds are apparently driving complex alterations of material within the Butterfly Nebula, behavior not seen in planetary nebulae to date. The researchers want to understand how such activity is possible from what should be a “sputtering, largely moribund star with no remaining fuel.”
January 11, 2023
Old and new stars paint very different pictures of the Triangulum galaxy
On Jan. 11 at the 241st meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, a team led by scientists at the University of Washington and the Center for Computational Astrophysics reported something unexpected about the distinct populations of stars that make up the Triangulum galaxy: In this satellite galaxy, a close companion of the much larger Andromeda galaxy, old and new stars occur in separate parts of the galaxy’s structure, something not seen in galaxies like our own and so far not reporter for other satellite galaxies.
January 10, 2023
The seven-year photobomb: Distant star’s dimming was likely a ‘dusty’ companion getting in the way, astronomers say
University of Washington astronomers were on the lookout for “stars behaving strangely” when an automated alert from pointed them to Gaia17bpp, a star that had gradually brightened over a 2 1/2-year period. But follow-up analyses indicated that Gaia17bpp wasn’t changing. Instead, the star is likely part of a rare type of binary system. Its apparent brightening was the end of a years-long eclipse by an unusual, “dusty” stellar companion.
Plastic pollution in the oceans is an equity issue, says UW-led report
A recent report and upcoming virtual event looks at the unequal effect of marine plastics on different communities. The international report led by UW’s Yoshitaka Ota covers topics ranging from the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on plastic pollution to a critique of Coca-Cola’s waste initiative.
January 9, 2023
Climate ‘presses’ and ‘pulses’ impact Magellanic penguins — a marine predator — with guidance for conservationists
Climate change will reshape ecosystems through two types of events: short-term, extreme events — or “pulses” — and long-term changes, or “presses.” Understanding the effects of presses and pulses is essential as conservationists and policymakers try to preserve ecosystems and safeguard biodiversity. Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered how different presses and pulses impacted Magellanic penguins — a migratory marine predator — over nearly four decades and found that, though individual presses and pulses impacted penguins in a variety of ways, both were equally important for the future survival of the penguin population. They also found that these types of climate changes, taken together, are leading to an overall population decline at their historically largest breeding site.
Warming oceans have decimated marine parasites — but that’s not a good thing
Save the … parasites? Analyzing 140 years of parasite abundance in fish shows dramatic declines, especially in parasites that rely on three or more host species. The decline is linked to warming ocean temperatures. Parasitic species might be in real danger, researchers warn — and that means not just fewer worms, but losses for the entire ecosystem.
January 6, 2023
ArtSci Roundup
Start the new year with lectures, performances, and more! January 9, 7 PM |Feelin Book Event: Bettina Judd in Conversation with Dian Million, Elliott Bay Book Company University of Washington Professors Bettina Judd and Dr. Dian Million gather in support of the former’s new book Feelin: Creative Practice, Pleasure, and Black Feminist Thought (Northwestern University Press, December 2022). In the book, the poet, artist, and scholar Bettina Judd argues that Black women’s creative production is feminist knowledge production produced by…
January 4, 2023
Fredrick Nafukho named UW Vice Provost for the Office of Academic Personnel
University of Washington Provost Mark Richards announced the appointment of Fredrick Muyia Nafukho as the new Vice Provost for the Office of Academic Personnel beginning Feb. 1, pending approval by the Board of Regents. Nafukho also will hold a tenured faculty position in the Department of Management and Organization in the Foster School of Business.
December 15, 2022
UW welcomes Tent City 3 for winter quarter
The University of Washington will welcome back Tent City 3 — an organized tent-city community — to its Seattle campus for 90 days during winter quarter 2023. Move-in is scheduled to begin December 17, 2022.
ArtSci Roundup: January Preview
Start the new year with lectures, performances, exhibitions and more.
December 14, 2022
Video highlights: UW News in 2022
The year 2022 saw the UW community coming together again with in-person classes, events and fascinating research that make videographers excited to hit “record” and share these scenes with you.
December 13, 2022
New faculty books: Nightlife among Black queer women, hybrid warfare, and decolonizing climate justice
Three new faculty books from the University of Washington cover a variety of topics: nightlife among Black queer women, hybrid warfare and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and decolonizing climate justice.
December 12, 2022
Signals from the ionosphere could improve tsunami forecasts
An underwater volcanic eruption in January 2022 created ripple effects throughout the world’s atmosphere and oceans. University of Washington scientists analyzed that event to show how GPS signals could help monitor future volcanoes and tsunamis.
UW’s Daniel Chen, ’22, named prestigious Marshall Scholar
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.
Trouble falling asleep at night? Chase that daytime light, study shows
A study measuring the sleep patterns of students at the University of Washington found that students fell asleep later in the evening and woke up later in the morning during winter, when daylight hours on the UW’s Seattle campus are limited and the skies are notoriously overcast. Researchers believe the students’ natural circadian clocks were being “pushed back” or delayed in winter because they were not getting enough exposure during the day to natural light, and that getting more daytime light exposure can help reverse this.
December 8, 2022
UW brings field geology to students with ‘Virtual Field Geology’
UW’s Virtual Field Geology project has many goals: to make geology field experiences accessible to more people; to document geological field sites that may be at risk from erosion or development; to offer virtual “dry run” experiences; and to allow scientific collaborators to do virtual visits to a field site together. While the pandemic brought new urgency to the project, its developers believe it’s part of a “new normal” for geology research and education.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows how several stars ‘stirred up’ the Southern Ring Nebula
In a study published Dec. 8 in Nature Astronomy, an international research team, led by Orsola De Marco of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, analyzed 10 highly detailed exposures taken by the JWST of the Southern Ring Nebula. Their calculations show the central star that ejected the expanding nebula gas was originally three times the mass of the sun, and that unseen companions shaped the nebula’s intricate features.
December 5, 2022
New blood test can detect ‘toxic’ protein years before Alzheimer’s symptoms emerge, study shows
Researchers at the University of Washington have detected “toxic” small aggregates of a particular protein in the blood of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, as well as in individuals who showed no signs of cognitive impairment at the time the blood sample was taken, but who developed it at a later date. This blood test picks up oligomers — or small, misfolded aggregates — of the amyloid beta protein, which scientists believe triggers the development of Alzheimer’s.
December 2, 2022
ArtSci Roundup: How to Write a DEI Statement in Only 50 Years, Frankenstein Book Chat, School of Music concerts, and more
Connect with the UW community every week through public events and exhibitions, summarized in this ArtSci Roundup.
‘Good manners are good economics’: UW’s Anthony Gill on the value of giving
University of Washington political science professor Anthony Gill explains the social and economic value of gift-giving — and how even unwanted gifts help promote trust and build relationships.
November 29, 2022
UW names Jack Martin VP for Marketing and Communications
Jack Martin has been named Vice President for Marketing and Communications at the University of Washington, Senior Vice President for University Advancement Mary Gresch announced Tuesday. Martin’s appointment begins Dec. 1.
Strongest Arctic cyclone on record led to surprising loss of sea ice
The strongest Arctic cyclone ever observed struck in January 2022. A new analysis led by the University of Washington shows that while forecasts accurately predicted the massive storm, models seriously underestimated its impact on sea ice. Results suggest how forecast models for a changing Arctic Ocean could improve.
Dr. Gautham Reddy, Faculty Senate chair, outlines priorities for term
Improving faculty dispute resolution policies, promoting ways to improve terms of employment for clinical faculty, reenvisioning the merit and promotion process for faculty on all three University of Washington campuses, and continuing to promote diversity, equity and inclusion practices are top priorities for this year’s UW Faculty Senate Chair Dr. Gautham Reddy, a professor in Department of Radiology in the School of Medicine.
November 28, 2022
‘Everything that you need is already in you’: Supporting young women of color through the Sisterhood Initiative
The University of Washington’s new Sisterhood Initiative aims to support young women of color through a cohort-based program, building on the success of the UW’s Brotherhood Initiative, which focuses on young men of color.
November 22, 2022
ArtSci Roundup: Gender & Protests in Iran panel; Languages of Angels performance; Belonging, Queer Relationality, & Black Women’s Labor talk, and more
Connect with the UW community every week through public events and exhibitions, summarized in this ArtSci Roundup.