What Students Are Doing

"Investigations and prosecutions must happen but thats not how we keep todays undergraduates safe. The issue of sexual assault on campus will not be solved by outing and punishing a small set of bad men," writes Nicole McNichols, associate professor of psychology at the UW.

A University of Washington-led center for optoelectronics technologies that combine light and electronics brings researchers from 14 universities across the U.S. together with the mission to develop new materials to transform information technology with light. Founded in 2021, NSF IMOD has received a second round of funding from the NSF to continue its work for the next five years.

"While so many of us were focused on fictional superintelligent machines that we were told could hypothetically cause human extinction, however, there was a more serious story being reported. A series of events almost got us to armageddon, not caused by rogue, superintelligent AI, but by government reliance on error-prone systems that are marketed by their manufacturers as being close to superintelligent," write Emily M. Bender, professor of linguistics at the UW, and Timnit Gebru.

The University of Washington today broke ground on a $231.1-million Chemical Sciences Building. Once completed, the state-of-the-art facility will be a nexus for collaborative research and teaching that will help the UW define the next 100 years of science education and breakthroughs.

"I teach a class called Philosophy 118: The Ethics and Psychology of Persuasion. The students who sign up all want to become more persuasive, and some of them are headed for careers in marketing or commercial real estate. But most of them also want to persuade friends and family members, and they want to do that without being creepy. They want to avoid manipulative tricks and to preserve their moral integrity," writes Colin Marshall, professor of philosophy at the UW.

Is it possible that AI is or might one day become trulyintelligent? We put this question to five experts working in a variety of fields, including linguistics, computer science, cognitive science and psychology. Emily M. Bender, professor of linguistics at the UW, is quoted.

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

Astronomers at the University of Washington simulated four Milky Way-sized galaxies for five billion (virtual) years to test a leading theory about how dark matter might influence streams of orbiting stars. The results could help researchers separate true evidence of dark matter from false positives.

Dominic Muren, UW teaching professor of design, and Adrienne Russell, UW professor of communication, examine environmental problems from a perspective beyond the hard sciences. They spoke to UW News about what todays energy crises reveal about contemporary societies dependence on fossil fuels and how we can create a solar-powered system.

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!

After Iran intensified its demands over the weekend before it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump didnt threaten new strikes but instead indicated that he planned to choke Iran economically. Jamaal Muwwakkil, assistant professor of anthropology at the UW, is quoted.

Top leadership is shifting at the UWs Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, as Director Magdalena Balazinskas term concludes after nearly seven years. Dan Grossman, professor of computer science and engineering and vice director, will take over as interim director.

A new study using data from NASAs Hubble Space Telescope found that star formation in the nearby Andromeda galaxy has undergone a 500-million-year decline, with an even steeper drop in the last 40 million years.

Elias Plaster, Zahra Hassan and Leo Freedman are three graduates from the class of 2026 who have been honored for their contributions to the UW.

After nearly two years of engaging Black young adults through culturally grounded research and community conversations, the Black Adult Resilience Study has reached a major milestone. Priscilla Lui, associate professor of psychology at the UW, and Nia Jones, research coordinator and UW graduate, are quoted.