Research

Burrowing shrimp dig into the sand and make tunnels underground. In doing so they kick up about a handful of sand up to the surface everyday, and bury clams and oysters.Thats a problem for shellfish farmers. Jennifer Ruesink, professor of biology at the UW, is interviewed.

Across the globe, human activities are changing the way our planet smells. Jeff Riffell, professor of biology at the UW, is quoted.

While the majority of the world just wants to swat mosquitoes, three University of Washington researchers find these insects fascinating. They told UW News what it's like to study mosquitoes and why these critters are actually really important.

Ron Krabill, a professor in UW Bothells School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and director of the Global Sport Lab in the UW Jackson School of International Studies, is co-leading this years UW Summer Institute in the Arts & Humanities Seattles World Cup: Storytelling Through Community Mapping. Krabill talked with UW News about his plans for participating students, his background in sports scholarship, what hell be watching during Seattles tournament games and more.

Every summer, UW researchers head to northern Botswana to study how large predators, such as lions and African wild dogs, are affected by climate change and other shifts in their environment. UW News asked a few team members to describe their plans for this summer.

Mary Brunkow graduated from UW with a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cellular biology in 1983 before pursuing a Ph.D. in the same field at Princeton University. 

Members of the UW Math AI Lab traveled to Rio de Janeiro for ICLR 2026, where undergraduates Luke Alexander, Evan Wang, Rohan Pandey, and Simon Chess joined Vasily Ilin, Math PhD student and Math AI Lab Director, to present five papers on AI for Math. The lab is also celebrating Vasily’s paper being accepted as an ICML 2026 main-conference spotlight paper (top 2.2%).

At the brand-new Quantum Technologies Training and Testbed lab, researchers from across the UW probe the spooky mysteries of quantum phenomena.

Fatal police violence against Indigenous people in the United States is significantly concentrated in and around reservations, a new study found.Theresa Rocha Beardall, associate professor of sociology at the UW, is quoted.

Thousands of asteroids including hundreds of distant worlds located out beyond the orbit of Neptune and dozens of previously unknown near-Earth objects have been detected by astronomers. Mario Juri, professor of astronomy at the UW, is quoted.

A simple act like drinking nectar can hide an unexpected scientific story. Sunbirds, small and colorful birds found in many parts of the world, have surprised researchers with a completely new way of feeding. This discovery shows that even well-known animals can still teach us something new about nature. Scientists continue to study such behaviors to better understand how animals adapt and survive. UW research is mentioned.

A neural network based on a nematode worms connectome can puppeteer a digital fruit flys body, a new preprint shows. The work comes just two weeks after Eon Systems, a neurotechnology company based in San Francisco, announced that it had uploaded a fly brain and released a video of that brain controlling a biomechanical fly model in a virtual world. Bing Wen Brunton, professor of biology at the UW, and John Tuthill, professor of neurobiology and biophysics at the UW, are quoted.

The threat of rare, butdeadly diseaseis rising alongside mosquito populations in the Northwest. In response, scientists areresearchinghow mosquitoes detect a common compound in natural repellents. Jeff Riffell, professor of biology at the UW, is quoted.

New research at the University of Washington could help scientists develop better mosquito repellents as mosquito season grows longer in parts of the Northwest. Jeff Riffell, professor of biology at the UW, is quoted. This story was republished in numerous outlets.

New research reports that sunbirds use suction from their tongue to sip nectar. The find is the first example of any vertebrate drinking through suction generated by the tongue alone, rather than by changing the shape of its mouth. A UW research project is mentioned.