All Stories

Counterbalancing grief with wonder in works that heighten our awareness of the natural world and our connections to one another.

Ada Limón, the sitting U.S. poet laureate and UW School of Drama Alum, was among the 20 new recipients of the prestigious fellowships from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, known as “genius grants," announced on Wednesday, October 4.

"Find a sympathetic faculty member and start asking questions. How should you design your major?  How do you go about realizing your goals or what's the best way to clarify to yourself what your goals are?   You don't know what you don't know -- it's very, very easy to make mistakes that will have you miss out on opportunities without even realizing it!" - Stefan Steinerberger, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics 

"My family could not provide me with information on what it means to be a university student, so I had to figure it out myself. It is a huge change going from high school to university. In the end, I viewed my experience as something that gave me an edge. I learned to solve problems and figure out answers as I needed them and this gave me strength and self-confidence." - Sándor Kovács, Professor, Department of Mathematics

Astronomers with the International Astronomical Union are trying to understand how the brightness and transmissions of the BlueWalker3 satellite will interfere with Earth-based observations of the universe — and what can be done to minimize these effects as more of these satellites are launched.

"Mostly, it's just comforting to meet others who have navigated similar obstacles. In terms of professional norms, knowledge, and expectations, I feel like it's taken me a few decades to catch up with my colleagues for whom higher education, and professional identity in general, was modeled in the family. Just the mechanics of an academic career, like applying to grad school, or even knowing the difference between an MA and a PhD, were all things I had to learn as I did them." - Louisa Mackenzie, Associate Professor, Department of Comparative History of Ideas 

"I was 24 years old when I found support to apply for college. This support came from other first-generation college students who noticed my curiosity and inquisitiveness and sat with me while I applied. That support led me to graduate with a four-year degree and then be accepted to the University of Washington as a graduate student. Now that I am a professor, I want to continue to pass forward this support to first-generation students, to pursue paths deemed impossible or unlikely because of where we come from and who we are." - fabian romero, alum (Ph.D. Department of Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies)

A new satellite has become one of the brightest objects in the night sky, sparking concerns among scientists for the future of astronomy. Meredith Rawls, a research scientist of astronomy at the UW, is quoted.

FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried will stand trial on charges of overseeing fraud that sucked in high-profile investors and hundreds of thousands of clients. Why do smart people buy into bad companies? Margaret O'Mara, professor of history at the UW, is quoted.

Do fruit flies remember their larval lives? To find out, scientists made the neurons inside larvae glow, then tracked how they reshuffled as they formed adult brains. James Truman, professor emeritus of biology at the UW, is quoted. Lynn Riddiford, professor emerita of biology at the UW, is mentioned. [This story was originally published in Quanta Magazine]