College of Arts and Sciences

Connect, explore, get involved! Dawg Daze will take place from September 23 to October 2, 2026. It is a great way to discover resources, familiarize yourself with important campus landmarks, and connect with staff and other students at the University of Washington.

A UW-led research team has discovered the best-preserved fossil feathers from the Mesozoic era in fossilized dinosaur poop. Some of these feathers have features that look like modern birds feathers. This finding can help researchers better understand why and how some birds survived the catastrophic event 66 million years ago that killed 75% of life on the planet.

Professor Emerita Merrill Hille (Dept of Biology) played an instrumental role in establishing the Burke-Gilman Trail, which connects so many of us to the UW community. It’s remarkable that this resource began as a grassroots effort led in part by a UW professor.

On Oct. 8, David Baker was already an accomplished biochemistry professor in the University of Washington School of Medicine: a computational biologist with more than 640 peer-reviewed research papers, 100 secured patents, and 21 biotech start-ups. But none of that prepared him for the 2 a.m. phone call from Sweden, when Baker learned he’d joined the upper echelon of prestigious international honorees as a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Baker is now the eighth UW faculty Nobel laureate.

At the UW's Friday Harbor Labs, scientists learn great lessons from armored and obscure life under the sea.

Explore recent research from the University of Washington: nectar-stealing Hawaiian honeycreepers, ChatGPT and anxious attachment, the cost of nursing for marine mammals, new magnetic nanomaterials, and a new strategy to subdue finicky plasma.

UW Communication graduate (and Tacoma restaurateur) Reginald Jacob Howell, ’16, has been taking his passion for barbecue to a national audience on “Pitmasters” from the Food Network. Can he and his best friend, Denzel Johnson, take home the $50,000 prize? Only one way to find out. UW Magazine profiles Howell, from his time at Cultivate, the UW’s campus-adjacent restaurant, to the opening of GRANN, his restaurant on 6th Ave in Tacoma, and more. Check it out!

UW alumni and renowned poets Derek Sheffield and Erin Malone have been recognized for their work in poetry.

Kara Patajo, Communication and Political Science ’19, is a travel blogger and author of “52 Weekends in the Pacific Northwest,” a collection of year-round travel destinations.

An unusual raccoon in Seattle has become a global internet sensation. Jimothy, the raccoon with short spine syndrome, rocketed to fame after a woman in Ballard posted a video of him on Instagram in mid-July. Stephen Groening, associate professor of cinema and media studies at the UW, is interviewed.

After decades of refining her own artistic voice while navigating ever-shifting cultural, economic and aesthetic tides, Valerie Curtis-Newton is embracing her role as an elder states-artist, retiring from her UW role and looking toward the future.

Christopher Nolan's latest film, The Odyssey, has everyone talking, including classicists. UW Classics professor Olga Levaniouk, who has long studied Homer and the Odyssey, shares her thoughts about the movie in general and in particular what she liked about the figure of Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway.

Researchers at the University of Washington are investigating how genetic changes impact the severity of schizophrenia symptoms. A new study supports the idea that deletions in genes that regulate early brain and neuron development are associated with more severe features of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, particularly lower cognitive abilities.

We've curated a few of our favorite recent media releases—plus recommendations for this summer's Book Bingo!

"Artificial intelligence can increasingly perform a white-collar employees tasks. What it cannot do is vouch for the result. Yet a new slasher genre, the jobs apocalypse, threatens that AI will displace the regular nine-to-five and claims to be scarier than your grandfathers zombie flick," writes Victor Menaldo, professor of political science at the UW.