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The latest news from the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ

Student volunteers help expand Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµâ€™s outreach to homeless youth

The Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ’s Doorway Project has offered a cafe for homeless young adults each quarter, while students have helped add services, from preventive health care, to establishing a fundraising organization to designing a permanent café home. Its summer pop-up cafe event is Aug. 24.

August 14, 2018

Diving robots find Antarctic winter seas exhale surprising amounts of carbon dioxide

A new study led by the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ uses data gathered by floating drones in the Southern Ocean over past winters to learn how much carbon dioxide is transferred by the surrounding seas. Results show that in winter the open water nearest the sea ice surrounding Antarctica releases significantly more carbon dioxide than previously believed.

Information School’s Hans Scholl on promises, cautions of ‘digital government’

Hans Scholl, professor in the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Information School, discusses the challenges and opportunities of digital government. The website Apolitical has named him among the “Top 100 Most Influential People in digital government.”

August 10, 2018

Labor leader Frank Jenkins honored with Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ fellowship

Now, a new $250,000 fellowship at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies has been established in his name. The Jenkins Fellowship in Labor Studies will honor and preserve Jenkins’ lifelong commitment to the causes of social and economic justice through financial support for students at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ.

August 9, 2018

For Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ physicists, the 2-D form of tungsten ditelluride is full of surprises

In a paper published online July 23 in the journal Nature, a Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ-led research team reports that the 2-D form of tungsten ditelluride can undergo “ferroelectric switching.” Materials with ferroelectric properties can have applications in memory storage, capacitors, RFID card technologies and even medical sensors — and tungsten ditelluride is the first exfoliated 2-D material known to undergo ferroelectric switching.

August 7, 2018

NIH awards Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ, partner institutions $6.5M for reusable, reproducible biomedical modeling

The NIH has awarded a $6.5 million, five-year grant to the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ and partner institutions to establish the Center for Reproducible Biomedical Modeling. The center’s primary goal is to develop more effective predictive models of biological systems, which are used in research and medicine.

August 6, 2018

Alexa, be my friend: Children talk to technology, but how does it respond?

When young children talk to voice-activated technologies, the devices don’t always respond in a helpful way. A new Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ study suggests that these interfaces could be designed to be more responsive – repeating or prompting the user, for example – and be more useful to more people.

August 3, 2018

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ, PNNL to host energy research center focusing on bio-inspired design and assembly

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded an expected $10.75 million, four-year grant to the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and other partner institutions for a new interdisciplinary research center to define the enigmatic rules that govern how molecular-scale building blocks assemble into ordered structures and give rise to complex hierarchical materials.

August 2, 2018

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ books in brief: Urban diaries, battling Jim Crow on campus and more

Recent notable books by Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ authors tell of the struggle to break free of racism in higher education, taking an “urban diary” approach to documenting city life and more.

July 19, 2018

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Oceanography ranks No. 1 in global ranking; more than two dozen areas in top 40

The Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµâ€™s School of Oceanography is ranked No. 1 in the world on the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects list for 2018. The ranking, released this week, was conducted by researchers at the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Nurse Camp provides high school students with exposure to the promise of a nursing degree

As a middle school student, Srinya Sukrachan spent a lot of time in hospitals. She had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and her father was battling colon cancer.

When she was 17, her personal health care experience led her to participate in the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ School of Nursing’s first Nurse Camp. Now, a decade later, Sukrachan is one of the student leaders for the camp’s 10-year anniversary session and she’s become an advocate with a passion for teaching, equity and inclusion. The recent School of Nursing graduate already also has a job lined up at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.

July 13, 2018

Battling STEM stereotypes, Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµâ€™s Sapna Cheryan helps Barbie evolve

Sapna Cheryan, a Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ associate professor of psychology, has spent her career researching the stereotypes surrounding STEM. Now she’s serving on Mattel’s Barbie Global Advisory Council, lending her expertise as the company looks ahead to the toy’s future.

July 9, 2018

Oxygen levels on early Earth rose and fell several times before the successful Great Oxidation Event

Earth’s oxygen levels rose and fell more than once hundreds of millions of years before the planetwide success of the Great Oxidation Event about 2.4 billion years ago, new research from the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ shows.

Pucker up, baby! Lips take center stage in infants’ brains, study says

  A typically developing 2-month-old baby can make cooing sounds, suck on her hand to calm down and smile at people. At that age, the mouth is the primary focus: Such young infants aren’t yet reaching for objects with their hands or using their feet to get around, so the lips – for eating, pacifying and communicating – multitask. And at the same time, new research reveals a special neural signature associated with touching the baby’s lips, an indicator of…

July 2, 2018

Study identifies which marine mammals are most at risk from increased Arctic ship traffic

Regions of Arctic water are becoming ice-free in late summer and early fall. A new study is the first to consider potential impacts on the marine mammals that use this region and identify which populations will be the most vulnerable to ships.

Q&A: What can we learn from the hidden history of technology design?

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ assistant professor of human centered design and engineering Daniela Rosner explores some hidden histories in technology design in her new book “Critical Fabulations.” The book highlights the idea that design stories from the past can show today’s designers how to create more inclusive technology.

June 28, 2018

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ professor and Clean Energy Institute director Daniel Schwartz wins highest U.S. award for STEM mentors

Daniel Schwartz, a Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ professor of chemical engineering and director of the Clean Energy Institute, received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation this week.

Vintage editorial cartoons by Oregon’s Howard Fisher in Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Libraries exhibit ‘Captured in Ink’

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ Libraries Special Collections has a new exhibit called “Captured in Ink: Historical Cartoons and Caricatures.” The exhibit features the editorial cartoons of Howard Fisher, who worked and drew for decades for the Oregon Journal, a Portland newspaper that folded in 1982. Many other historical caricatures are included as well in the display, which stays up until October 19.

June 25, 2018

Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ part of NASA network coordinating search for life on exoplanets

Researchers with the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ-led Virtual Planetary Laboratory are central to a group of papers published by NASA researchers today in the journal Astrobiology outlining the history — and suggesting the future — of the search for life on exoplanets, or those orbiting stars other than the sun.

June 20, 2018

Why 9 to 5 isn’t the only shift that can work for busy families

    For the millions of Americans who work “nonstandardâ€� shifts – evenings, nights or with rotating days off – the schedule can be especially challenging with children at home. But a new study from the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ finds that consistent hours, at whatever time of day, can give families flexibility and in some cases, improve children’s behavior. The study, published in the June issue of the Journal of Family Issues, focuses on two-parent families in which one parent…