May 28, 2015
One of the best ways children learn is by copying what they see others do. Now new research shows that this learning strategy can be used even with things that cannot be seen, including invisible scientific concepts. Weight, for example, is a concept that cannot be seen directly, and it puzzles most preschool-aged children. While they can figure out other more obvious properties about objects, such as their shape, color, or the sound they make, weight trips them up. Researchers…
UW physicists have conducted the most precise and controlled measurements yet of the interaction between the atoms and molecules that comprise air and the type of carbon surface used in battery electrodes and air filters — key information for improving those technologies.
May 27, 2015
This week, head to the theater to enjoy the School of Drama’s production of the bitingly funny “Boy’s Life” or the Undergraduate Theater Society’s adventurous production of “On the Verge.” Also this week, the School of Music presents the UW Gospel Choir, UW Symphony, and more. 3D4M BFA Show May 27 – June 6 | Jacob Lawrence Gallery This graduation exhibition features pieces by students receiving a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the 3D4M: ceramics + glass + sculpture Program. More…
Using seawater collected in Seattle, Whidbey Island and other sites, UW oceanographers show that just as with plants on land, a common species of ocean diatom grows faster in the presence of helpful bacteria.
As a graduate student and food justice activist in Santa Barbara, California, Megan Carney became aware that many migrant women in the area struggled to feed their families. Her recently published book “The Unending Hunger: Tracing Women and Food Insecurity Across Borders,” examines the personal and political aspects of hunger and tells the stories of the women she met through her research. Carney, now a lecturer in the University of Washington’s anthropology department and the Latin American and Caribbean Studies…
May 26, 2015
Sylvie Troxel didn’t own a driver’s license when she joined the University of Washington’s EcoCAR team as a freshman four years ago. A lifelong bus rider, she knew virtually nothing about cars. She had never manufactured anything before she started working in the UW machine shop where students fabricate the components to turn an iconic muscle car into a high-performance electric hybrid. “I joined the team with no skills and sort of no confidence in my engineering ability,” said Troxel,…
How can a sushi bar eliminate some of its most popular fish from the menu and still be profitable? One local establishment accomplished this, claiming that sustainable seafood is more important than profits in the long term. Hajime Sato, owner of Mashiko Japanese restaurant in West Seattle, will speak about his experience converting his sushi bar into the first (and likely still the only) fully sustainable sushi restaurant in the city as part of a UW School of Marine and…
The University of Washington communication department will open its new Center for Communication, Difference and Equity with public events May 27 to 29, on campus and off. “The CCDE is a space — a physical space, intellectual space and community space — where we as a department and as a university are going to be able to center these issues of power, privilege and difference,” said Ralina Joseph, professor of communication and the center’s director. “And to think of how…
May 22, 2015
A look at the annual exhibit for students graduating with master’s degrees in art and design, at the Henry Art Gallery.
May 21, 2015
The National Center for Women & Information Technology awarded its inaugural grand prize for excellence in recruiting, engaging and supporting women undergraduates in computer science to the University of Washington’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering (CSE). The national nonprofit that works to increase women’s participation in computing and technology selected UW CSE as the recipient of its top prize, which comes with $100,000, as part of its NCWIT Extension Services Transformation (NEXT) Awards recognizing academic departments that have shown…
The School of Music offers a variety of events this week, highlighting jazz modern, percussion, and the music and instruments of 20th century composer Harry Partch. ArtsUW presents its final Arts Dawgs reception of the year, co-hosted by the School of Art + Art History + Design at the Henry Art Gallery, celebrating the opening of the MFA + MDes Thesis Exhibition; and if you’re looking for a comedy of manners, don’t miss the School of Drama’s production of “Boy’s Life,”…
Geography professor Sarah Elwood sits at the front of a University of Washington classroom on a recent afternoon, listening and making suggestions as students discuss the data challenges they’re having. Some are wondering how to put data in a particular format. Others are muddling through the process of mapping data, or figuring out where to source information. “Think about who has the data you need, and how do you shake it loose from them?” Elwood says. “There are many public…
May 20, 2015
More than two hundred high school students from four area high schools will visit the campus for a daylong seminar in the HUB May 27 as part of Teachers and Texts, which in turn is part of the UW in the High School program, sponsored by Professional and Continuing Education. The event is called the Northwest Collaborative Regional Symposium, with the subtitle “Student Voices Making Change.” About 240 students of a class called Margins and Centers at Eastlake, Roosevelt, Franklin…
Notice is hereby given that a public hearing will be held at Noon on Friday, May 29, 2015, in Room 142 of Gerberding Hall, on the UW Seattle campus. The purpose of the hearing is to allow all interested persons an opportunity to present their views, either orally or in writing, on the proposed amendments to Chapter 478-168 WAC, “Regulations for the University of Washington libraries.” Chapter 478-168 WAC establishes the loan code, access to and conditions for use of…
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture paleontologists have documented the first dinosaur fossil from Washington state. The fossil was collected by a Burke Museum research team along the shores of Sucia Island State Park in the San Juan Islands.
Two University of Washington geography professors are leading an effort with what might be considered a staggeringly ambitious goal — to reframe how poverty is perceived and studied around the world. Victoria Lawson and Sarah Elwood are the co-founders of the UW-based Relational Poverty Network, a coalition of academic institutions and organizations around the United States and as far away as Europe, Asia and Africa. The network seeks to recast perceptions of poverty from something impacting others — what Lawson…
May 19, 2015
Christine Gregoire, who served as Washington’s 22nd governor from 2005 to 2013, will be the featured speaker at the University of Washington’s Commencement exercises June 13. Gregoire, a 1969 graduate of the UW, was named director of the Washington Department of Ecology in 1988. Four years later, she became the first woman elected to the position of attorney general in the state of Washington and served in that post for three terms before being elected governor. During two terms as governor, Gregoire proposed…
Oceanographer Deborah Kelley is one of the lead authors of a first-of-its-kind atlas of the deep sea, titled “Discovering the Deep.”
May 18, 2015
“I Think You’re Totally Wrong: A Quarrel,” a film directed by James Franco based on UW English Professor David Shields‘ latest book, with former student Caleb Powell, will be shown at Seattle literary venue Hugo House at 7 p.m. May 30, 31 and June 1. The screenings will be U.S. premiere for the film, which made its world debut May 3 at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver, B.C. “Life is serious business,” Shields said recently. “We all have…
An interdisciplinary team of UW graduate students and its proposal for a 69-unit affordable housing development in Tacoma’s Wedge neighborhood has won the 24th annual Bank of America Low-Income Housing Challenge, held May 14 in San Francisco. The team was organized by the Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies, which is in the UW College of Built Environments. Members were Ben Broesamle and Sam Yimparsit of the Master of Science in Real Estate program, Zi Cai and Genevieve Hale-Case of…
A new University of Washington study finds that cell phone use at playgrounds is a significant source of parental guilt, and that caregivers absorbed in their phones were much less attentive to children’s requests.
May 15, 2015
A Washington Sea Grant staff scientist is sharing top honors for developing gear that nearly eliminates seabird bycatch in long-line fisheries from the West Coast to South Africa.
A chemical signature recorded on the ear bones of Chinook salmon from Alaska’s Bristol Bay region could tell scientists and resource managers where they are born and how they spend their first year of life.
Poet David Ferry will give the 52nd annual Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Reading at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 28, Kane Hall’s room 130, also known as the Roethke Auditorium. The event is free and the public is invited. Ferry is the author of eight books of poetry, including “Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations,” which won the 2012 National Book Award for Poetry and was praised by The New Yorker as “one of the great books of poetry of this young…
May 14, 2015
The University of Washington Board of Regents on Thursday voted to prohibit direct investment of endowment funds in publicly traded companies whose principal business is the mining of coal for use in energy generation. The Board also reaffirmed the importance of the University’s wide-ranging sustainability efforts. The vote is the culmination of a process that began in December 2012, when Divest UW, a student campaign representing more than 20 registered student organizations, sent a petition to then-President Michael K. Young…
The University of Washington Board of Regents took another critical step in selecting its next president Thursday by naming the members of its Presidential Search Advisory Committee and selecting a national search firm to assist in the process. Kenyon Chan, chancellor emeritus and professor at UW Bothell, will chair the committee comprising 27 additional members, including Regents, faculty, staff, students and members of the public. The Regents have also held open forums, one each in Seattle, Tacoma and Bothell, with…
The Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington has a new name following approval by the university’s Board of Regents during a meeting Thursday. Effective July 1, the university’s largest graduate degree program will be known as the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. “The Regents’ action is welcomed and an exciting development in our program’s history,” said Sandra O. Archibald, dean and professor. “The new name recognizes our intellectual and practical…
May 13, 2015
This week the MFA Dance Concert and Pilobolus take the lead. The School of Music also has a busy week, presenting the Voice Divisional Recital as well as Jazz Innovations and an evening of music from Zimbabwe with visiting artists Paul Mataruse and Clair Jones.
If you’re looking for an escape this weekend, hop a ferry to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island and check out UW marine science research ranging from invertebrates and plankton to quirky fish and ocean acidification. The UW’s Friday Harbor Laboratories will host its annual open house Saturday, May 16, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the campus in Friday Harbor, about a mile from the ferry terminal. The event is free and open to the public. Organizers expect more…
May 12, 2015
The lead-up to the 11th season of The Deadliest Catch, the hit reality TV show about crab fishing in Alaska, is “The Bait,” in which captains of crab boats discuss some of the elements featured on the program. Tonight a University of Washington oceanographer will talk to the captains about one of the main reasons that the show gets its name: big waves. Jim Thomson, an oceanographer with the UW Applied Physics Laboratory, will be on the segment that first…
Short clips ranging from Claymation and music videos to documentary and animated shorts that tell the story of what climate change means to local high school and college students will be shown in a first-ever video contest put on by the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences. Update: Watch the winning videos Ten of the top three-minute videos will be screened at Town Hall in Seattle at 7 p.m. Friday, May 15. A panel of judges that includes musical and…
Washington state’s housing market was strong in the first quarter of 2015, according to the UW’s Runstad Center for Real Estate Studies.
May 11, 2015
The Royal Meteorological Society has awarded Robert Houze, a UW professor of atmospheric sciences, the Symons Gold Medal. The London-based society awards this international honor every two years to recognize distinguished work in meteorology, and it is considered one of the most prestigious awards in the field. Houze will deliver the society’s Symons Gold Medal Lecture May 20 in London on “The many ways that mountains affect precipitation: A broader view of orographic precipitation.” Houze earned his undergraduate degree from…
Mention Santa Barbara, California, and many people might envision beaches, celebrities and ritzy homes in the so-called “American Riviera.” But Megan Carney saw a much different side of the area while attending graduate school at the University of California’s campus there. Through her work on food justice advocacy initiatives, Carney learned that the Santa Barbara region had one of the highest rates of poverty in the nation and some of the highest levels of food insecurity in California. “It’s a…
May 8, 2015
The metallic shapeshifting villain from “The Terminator” movies has inspired innovations in 3-D printing to be featured in UW Bioengineering’s annual Robert F. Rushmer Lecture on Tuesday, May 19, 4:30 p.m. Joseph M. DeSimone, a prolific inventor, serial entrepreneur, renowned scholar and CEO will discuss “Breakthroughs in Imprint Lithography and 3-D Additive Fabrication” that could pave the wave for efficient and scalable 3-D manufacturing. The lecture in the William H. Foege South Auditorium (Room S060) is free and open to…
Thaisa Way, associate professor of landscape architecture in the UW College of Built Environments, discusses her book, “The Landscape Architecture of Richard Haag: From Modern Space to Urban Ecological Design.”
From the popularity of farmers markets to greater awareness about obesity, Americans are more interested than ever in what they eat and where it comes from. Once simply a question of what’s for dinner, food has become a focal point for concerns about health, sustainability and the environment. Recognizing food’s increased importance in popular culture and academia, the University of Washington Press is launching a new book series called “Food, People, Planet” that aims to explore food from various social…
May 7, 2015
University of Washington researchers easily hacked a next generation teleoperated surgical robot — one used only for research purposes — to test how easily a malicious attack could hijack remotely-controlled operations in the future and to make those systems more secure.
Ruth Behar, professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan, will deliver the 40th annual Samuel and Althea Stroum Lectures at 7:30 p.m. May 18 and 20, in room 220 of Kane Hall. Together, the lectures are titled “Dreams of Sefarad: Explorations of Modern Sephardic Identity, from Istanbul to Havana and Seattle.” They are presented by the UW Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. The May 18 lecture will be titled “Places: Loss and Memory.” Advance notes say the talk will…
May 6, 2015
May starts strong, bursting with arts events for the community to enjoy. The School of Art + Art History + Design begins the month with the Painting + Drawing BFA graduation show, followed by the Kollar American Art Lecture featuring Kenneth Haltman. The School of Music starts its run of “The Magic Flute,” co-presented with Pacific MusicWorks, and the Burke Museum hosts the annual Artifact ID Day.