News

With a growing trend of rapid urbanization over the past few decades, analysis of the urban sphere has become paramount to advancing many people’s quality of life. Urbanalytics is a program designed to make a greater investment in the urban data science field. Bill Howe, associate professor at the UW Information School, initially saw the…

Nearly every drug you ingest eventually ends up back in the water supply via your excrement. The fish love it—well, maybe not the ones mutating from it. But apparently crabs and trout aren’t the only ones sifting through your waste. Across the globe, researchers at wastewater treatment plants are testing for psychoactive substances passed by…

“Anybody need socks? Medical? Band-aids? Hand sanitizer?” Lois Thetford, a University of Washington faculty member, called out in a low voice as she and three UW students made their way through closely spaced, tarp-covered tents that make up Tent City 3 — the long-running tent encampment that recently moved to the UW campus. The temperature…

Using big data to address human services ― including health, foster care and the challenges of homelessness ― will be the focus of a workshop next week at Seattle City Hall hosted by the University of Washington and City of Seattle along with MetroLab Network, a recent White House initiative to improve cities through university-city…

On January 17-18th 2017, the Metrolab workshop on Big Data and Human Services hosted by City of Seattle, MetroLab Network, and the University of Washington will convene experts from local government and universities to discuss common challenges and propose collaborative, data-driven solutions to human service issues. Urban@UW has compiled a brief reading list to help…

Suburban development is forcing some songbirds to divorce, pack up and leave and miss their best chances for successful reproduction. As forested areas increasingly are converted to suburbs, birds that live on the edge of our urban footprint must find new places to build their nests, breed and raise fledglings. New research published Dec. 28…

It has long been suspected that humans and the urban areas we create are having an important — and surprisingly current and ongoing — effect on evolution, which may have significant implications for the sustainability of global ecosystems. A new multi-institution study led by the University of Washington that examines 1,600 global instances of phenotypic…

John Redfield watches with pride as his son moves a laser-guided precision saw the size of a semi-truck wheel into place over a massive panel of wood. Redfield’s fingers are scarred from a lifetime of cutting wood and now, after decades of decline in the logging business, he has new hope that his son, too,…

Imagine a transportation system that could move you from place to place faster than a jet plane, without ever leaving the ground — a system that could take you from Seattle to Portland in just 15 minutes. In a chilly warehouse near Lake Union, a group of University of Washington students is trying to solve…

December concludes a complicated year. The past month has seen a variety of changes, new research, and reflections on life in Seattle, the tech world, urban environmental justice, and our campus. Urban@UW and Climate Impacts Group collaborated on the Urban Environmental Justice in a Time of Climate Change symposium. Urban@UW published a reflection on the…