April 8, 2020
With an in-person commencement ceremony on campus not possible due to the COVID-19 outbreak, The University of Washington’s graduating seniors, graduate and professional students will be honored in two ways, President Ana Mari Cauce announced Wednesday.
During this time of uncertainty and isolation, find solace in digital opportunities to connect, share, and engage. Each week, we will share upcoming events that bring the UW, and greater community, together online. Many of these online opportunities are streamed through Zoom. All UW faculty, staff, and students have access to Zoom Pro via UW-IT. Earth Day 50th Anniversary: Gaia Has a Fever April 22, 2:00 PM | Livestream Join the Department of History, College of the Environment and UW Earth Day in celebrating…
April 7, 2020
A talk with James Banks, UW professor emeritus of education, about his new book of essays, and three other education books are also noted.
April 6, 2020
The University of Washington today announced a $1 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to advance shared conservation services among the UW Libraries, the Henry Art Gallery and the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture.
April 3, 2020
On a typical day, Julianne Dalcanton is an astrophysicist, studying the far reaches of the universe.
These aren’t typical days. Across the University of Washington, faculty, staff, clinicians and students are stepping forward in a variety of ways to support the COVID-19 response, particularly efforts to help front-line medical personnel.
A UW study abroad program empowers students from all disciplines to apply their skills to real-life problems.
April 1, 2020
A University of Washington study, published this winter in Fire Ecology, takes a big-picture look at what climate change could mean for wildfires in the Northwest, considering Washington, Oregon, Idaho and western Montana.
UW Notebook visits with the producer of “Crossing North,” a podcast by the Scandinavian Studies Department, and notes other podcasts on campus and an appearance by David Montgomery on the podcast “Undark.”
Jodi Sandfort has been named the next dean of the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington, Provost Mark Richards announced April 1.
March 31, 2020
New research by the University of Washington examines factors that contributed to decision-making by governors in all 50 states to combat the novel coronavirus.
UW researchers are developing an app that will allow health organizations to monitor coughs from self-quarantined COVID-19 patients from home.
March 30, 2020
Three undergraduate students at the University of Washington are among 396 around the country who have been named Goldwater Scholars for 2020.
Recent honors to University of Washington faculty and staff have come from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the World Register of Marine Species.
March 27, 2020
With the university’s spring quarter beginning Monday, UW staff and student workers in the Student Technology Loan Program spent the week-long spring break gathering, checking and cleaning some 300 laptops and tablets for distribution – and, for the first time, shipping many of those devices to the homes of UW students across the country.
March 26, 2020
Only about 25% of the U.S. workforce — some 35.6 million people — are in jobs that can easily be done at home, a University of Washington researcher has determined, as these are the positions in which using a computer is important but interacting with the public is not. These jobs are typically in highly-paid occupational sectors such finance, administration, management, computers, engineering and technology. Consequently — with orders to close businesses and demands that employees work from home growing…
March 24, 2020
University of Washington researchers have launched the King County COVID-19 Community Study — or KC3S — to gather data through April 19 on how individuals and communities throughout King County are coping with the measures put in place to combat the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
Years of cloud data over a shipping route between Europe and South Africa shows that pollution from ships has significantly increased the reflectivity of the clouds. More generally, the results suggest that industrial pollution’s effect on clouds has masked about a third of the warming due to fossil fuel burning since the late 1800s.
March 23, 2020
Any old fish can swim. But what fish can walk, scoot, clamber over rocks, change color and even fight to the death? That would be the frogfish. A talk with Ted Pietsch, UW professor of emeritus of aquatic and fishery sciences, about his latest book, “Frogfishes: Biodiversity, Zoogeography, and Behavioral Ecology”
When the UW moved to online instruction March 9, UW Facilities Services developed a three-week disinfection plan. Custodial staff are now working through more than 500 classrooms, lecture halls, libraries, auditoriums and shared spaces, with similar efforts under way in Bothell and Tacoma.
UW law professor Hugh Spitzer speaks to the power of state and local governments as officials consider measures to restrict movement to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
March 19, 2020
A new study led by the University of Washington finds dramatic increases in the abundance of a worm that can be transmitted to humans who eat raw or undercooked seafood. Its 283-fold increase in abundance since the 1970s could have implications for the health of humans and marine mammals, which both can inadvertently eat the worm.
March 18, 2020
UW researchers watched 25 participants scroll through their Facebook or Twitter feeds while, unbeknownst to them, a Google Chrome extension randomly added debunked content on top of some of the real posts.
University of Washington researchers have discovered that large predators play a key yet unexpected role in keeping smaller predators and deer in check. Their “fatal attraction” theory finds that smaller predators are drawn to the kill sites of large predators by the promise of leftover scraps, but the scavengers may be killed themselves if their larger kin return for seconds.
March 17, 2020
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 2021 Best Graduate School rankings released March 17.
This wasn’t how LaShawnDa Pittman expected to give her final exam review: At her kitchen table, laptop open, coffee cup at the ready, her 12-year-old Chihuahua named Espresso by her side. But as the first week of the University of Washington’s shift to online classes drew to a close, Pittman, an assistant professor of American Ethnic Studies, was talking with her students over the conferencing platform Zoom, first to answer logistical questions about the upcoming exam, then to provide a…
UW researchers are inviting the public to share their experiences on their regular commutes in a survey.
March 16, 2020
Recent honors to UW faculty and staff have come from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the Republic of Lithuania and Google.
March 15, 2020
The idea of building herd immunity – increasing the number of infected to such a degree that naturally occurring immunity would outstrip the coronavirus, while isolating the elderly and others at greatest risk of the disease – has been tossed around in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere. This week, however, U.K. officials appear to be backing away from that approach. But the kind of “herd immunity” strategy being discussed in the U.K. does not acknowledge a critical…
March 12, 2020
The UW Advisory Committee on Communicable Diseases (ACCD) announced Thursday that a UW Seattle campus graduate student has tested positive for COVID-19. The student is recovering at home, out of state, and we wish them well.
It’s important to maintain human connection, even during a time of social distancing, UW psychology researchers say.
Researchers from the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences have discovered that ocean acidification impacts the ability of some oysters to pass down “memories” of environmental trauma to their offspring.
March 11, 2020
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee issued on Wednesday, March 11, an emergency proclamation that limits large events to minimize risks to public health during the COVID-19 outbreak. Here are how two UW experts responded to questions about the order.
Rick Mohler, associate professor of architecture, meets with his Research Design Studio students online. Normally a hands-on class with poster-size drawings and tabletop scale models, Mohler’s design studio has shifted to the small screen.
March 10, 2020
A documentary series produced and released this winter by YouTube features UW computer scientist Pedro Domingos and members of the UW-based Pacific Northwest Seismic Network.
KUOW’s That’s Debatable on Wednesday will feature two University of Washington faculty members: Dan Schwartz, professor of chemical engineering and director of the Clean Energy Institute, and Kate Simonen, upcoming chair of the Department of Architecture and director of the Carbon Leadership Forum.
March 9, 2020
Rick Mohler, associate professor of architecture in the College of Built Environments, is now teaching his classes using Zoom. His architecture classes usually meet in person, but were conducted entirely online Monday.
A University of Washington researcher calculates that 14.4 million workers face exposure to infection once a week and 26.7 million at least once a month in the workplace, pointing to an important population needing protection.
Students from different backgrounds in the United States enter college with equal interest in STEM fields — science, technology, engineering and mathematics. But that equal interest does not result in equal outcomes. Six years after starting an undergraduate STEM degree, roughly twice as many white students finished it compared to African American students. A new study by researchers at the University of Washington shows that teaching techniques in undergraduate STEM courses can significantly narrow gaps in course performance between students…
A talk with UW architecture professor Tyler Sprague about his book “Sculpture on a Grand Scale: Jack Christiansen’s Thin Shell Modernism.” Plus books from Rick Bonus and Yong-Chool Ha.
The wildflowers of Mount Rainier’s subalpine meadows, which bloom once the winter snowpack melts, are a major draw for the more than 1 million visitors to this national park in Washington state each spring and summer. But by the end of this century, scientists expect that snow will melt months earlier due to climate change. New research led by the University of Washington shows that, under those conditions, many visitors would miss the flowers altogether.