Natural Sciences Division

Speech & Hearing Sciences faculty and students help incarcerated mothers in a residential parenting program build a strong communication foundation with their child.

Attend lectures, performances, and more!

Lucía Magis-Weinberg, a University of Washington assistant professor of psychology, explains how social media use can affect youth mental health.

Briana Abrahms, Assistant Professor and Boersma Endowed Chair in Natural History and Conservation, UW Department of Biology, uses data to help people and animals coexist with climate change in Botswana.

Start the new year with lectures, performances, and more.

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 241^st 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.

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.

Sama Ahmed, Assistant Professor of Psychology, discusses his research and what he looks forward to at the University of Washington.

Gabriel Cher, Assistant Professor in the Department of Speech & Hearing Sciences, discusses their research and what they look forward to at the University of Washington.

Gabriel Cher discusses their research and what they look forward to at the University of Washington.

Z Yan Wang, Assistant Professor in Psychology and Biology, discusses her research and what she looks forward to at the University of Washington.

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.

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.

Jeff Lin (2012), obsessed with video games as a child, now leads teams of game developers at Horizon Metaverse — with the help of his UW PhD in psychology.

The College of Engineering and the College of Arts & Sciences researchers are helping to establish the UW as a global leader of the coming quantum age.