Data Science & Spatial Analysis

News | July 1, 2019

‘Regional climate modeling’ provides clearer picture of climate change impacts in PNW

KNKX weather expert and UW professor of Atmospheric Sciences Cliff Mass has been working with a group of researchers within the Department of Atmospheric Sciences hoping to get a better idea of the impact climate change will have on the Pacific Northwest. The group has been conducting “regional climate modeling.” “Many people know about global…

News | August 22, 2019

‘Hidden’ data exacerbates rural public health inequities

Differences in the health of rural residents compared to their urban neighbors are startling. In Washington, for instance, rural residents are one-third more likely to die from intentional self-harm or 13 percent more likely to die from heart disease. However, while statistics like these help guide public health policy and spending, they can hide even…

News | July 24, 2015

1st International Workshop on Smart Cities & Urban Analytics (UrbanGIS)

Now Taking Submissions! CALL FOR PAPERS: The 1st International Workshop on Smart Cities and Urban Analytics (UrbanGIS) 2015 in conjunction with ACM SIGSPATIAL 2015 Seattle, WA, USA – November 3, 2015 http://engineering.nyu.edu/urbangis2015/ IMPORTANT DATES: Paper Submission: September 1, 2015 (midnight PT) Notification of Acceptance: September 19, 2015 Workshop date: November 3, 2015 Paper Submission Site:…

News | September 7, 2021

2021 Urban@UW Spark Grants awardees announced

Urban@UW is excited to announce awardees for the second round of funding through our Spark Grants program. The two projects selected address critical urban challenges, with a focus on transdisciplinary scholarship and engagement with vulnerable populations.    Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Among Vehicle Residents: A Case Study of the Seattle Public Utilities’ Recreational Vehicle Wastewater…

News | April 19, 2022

2022 PhD Symposium explores the digital dimensions of urban dynamics

Pathways toward the future: Assessing the digital dimensions of urban dynamics Who is building the cities of the future? For whom are they being built? Can big data, smart cities, and other emerging technologies contribute to a sustainable and equitable world? As we move deeper into the information age, technology has gained renewed relevance as…

News | October 18, 2018

4 fresh ideas to ease Seattle’s coming traffic nightmare

Seattle is doomed — at least in terms of its traffic for at least the next three years. Already, morning and evening gridlock seems to start earlier and end later. I-5 through downtown is nearly always jammed up. Overloaded buses wait through multiple light cycles attempting to inch through intersections at rush hour. And it’s…

News | July 31, 2019

4.6 earthquake shakes Seattle region, no damage reported

A magnitude 4.6 earthquake shook Seattle and the Puget Sound region at 2:51 a.m. Friday, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), rattling some people out of bed, while leaving other people blissfully dormant and unfazed. The earthquake emanated from Three Lakes, Snohomish County, about 9 miles east of downtown Everett. The temblor raises…

News | November 1, 2022

A new approach, not currently described by the Clean Air Act, could eliminate air pollution disparities

While air quality has improved dramatically over the past 50 years thanks in part to the Clean Air Act, people of color at every income level in the United States are still exposed to higher-than-average levels of air pollution. A team led by researchers at the University of Washington wanted to know if the Clean…

News | March 7, 2019

A new laser-toting disaster lab aims to save lives by saving data

Inside a small, rectangular room at the University of Washington is a series of shelves filled with more than 300 high-tech tools. There’s a collection of drones, cameras, and tablets, and even a mobile EEG kit, able to measure a brain’s electrical activity and detect stress levels in disaster victims. Each one has been meticulously…

News | October 29, 2021

A new tool suggests we’re underestimating the environmental cost of new roads

The infrastructure bill being hammered out in D.C. will fund a lot of road projects, including some in Washington State. But it’s difficult to reduce our carbon emissions when we keep building more highways. That’s what inspired a network of environmental groups to build a calculator that shows how much air pollution is caused by…

News | July 7, 2020

A/B Streets game lets you create the Seattle street grid of your dreams

It seems like a lifetime ago when we could just leave the house and go places, whether on foot or bike or (if we must) car. And as much as one might long for a return to normal-times, let’s not forget that normalcy also involved such headaches as congestion, traffic sewers, long waits for buses,…

Scholar

Abraham Flaxman

News | November 18, 2020

Accessible pedestrian routing tools expand to three Washington cities

Whether navigating urban spaces with different abilities, or simply seeking a walking or biking path that prioritizes specifications other than the quickest route and shortest distance, having access to standardized, comprehensive data about pedestrian pathways offers wide-ranging benefits. However, this information is often difficult to find due to local variations in data collection, inconsistencies and…

Map | New York

Accidental Skyline NYC

Too often, New Yorkers are caught off guard by new development in their neighborhoods. The Accidental Skyline offers tools to help demystify the city planning process and bring the public into the conversation.

Research Beyond UW | University of Pennsylvania

Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy

The principal aim of Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy (AISP) is to improve the quality of education, health and human service agencies’ policies and practices through the use of integrated data systems. Quality integrated data systems are designed to help executive leaders in municipal, county, and state government evaluate and establish effective programs for the…

News | August 6, 2020

After three decades, most polluted U.S. neighborhoods haven’t changed

If your neighborhood was among the most polluted in 1981, it probably still is. Likewise, the least polluted areas are still faring the best, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Science that analyzed concentrations of fine particulate matter over more than three decades in the United States. Overall, pollution from fine…

News | June 22, 2020

Air pollution ebbs during the pandemic in Washington state

Kristi Straus, a lecturer in the University of Washington’s College of Environmental Studies program, said reduced traffic and work commutes have likely lowered nitrogen dioxide pollution and improved people’s quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Certainly commuting is a big way we spend our time and burn fossil fuels,” she said. “The reduced traffic…

Scholar

Alan Borning

Scholar

Ali Modarres

Funding

Amazon Catalyst Grant

Amazon Catalyst’s goal is to help people develop solutions to key problems faced in the world today. Problems can be diverse, from computer security, to immigration, to climate change. Because issues like these are complex, solutions will come from many different fields and many different perspectives. Therefore, the grants are open to all disciplines, including…

News | September 23, 2019

Americans would rather drive themselves to work than have an autonomous vehicle drive them, study says

Many Americans use a ride-hailing service — like Uber or Lyft — to get to and from work. It provides the privacy of riding in a personal car and the convenience of catching up on emails or social media during traffic jams. In the future, self-driving vehicles could provide the same service, except without a…

News | April 21, 2020

Amid a pandemic, geography returns with a vengeance

The pandemic is redefining our relationship with space. Not outer space, but physical space. Hot spots, distance, spread, scale, proximity. In a word: geography. Suddenly, we can’t stop thinking about where. Over the past few centuries, new technologies in transportation and communication made geography feel less critical. The advent of railway and refrigerated train cars in the…

News | July 6, 2018

An interactive ‘storymap’ of trees in South King County

If a tree falls in the course of urban development and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? A new art project based in South King County aims to ensure the answer is yes — and the sound is a cacophony of arboreal anecdotes. “My goal is to create a…

News | February 15, 2022

An unexpected item is blocking cities’ climate change prep: obsolete rainfall records

American cities are poised to spend billions of dollars to improve their water systems under the federal infrastructure bill, the largest water investment in the nation’s history. Those new sewers and storm drains will need to withstand rainfall that’s becoming more intense in a changing climate. But as cities make plans to tear up streets and…

Scholar

Anat Caspi

Scholar

Anna Karlin

Scholar

Anne Vernez-Moudon

News | September 29, 2020

Applied Research Fellows develop tool to explore population changes in King County

The 2020 Population Health Applied Research Fellows concluded their 10-week program to produce small area population forecasts at the Census tract and Health Reporting Area levels by sex, race, ethnicity and five-year age groups for King County from 2020 to 2045. Their findings, which were presented to staff from a variety of King County departments,…

Scholar

Ariel Rokem

News | September 28, 2020

As wildfire smoke clears, King County’s airport communities continue fight for clean air

As massive clouds of smoke from wildfires throughout the region obscured the sky last week, SeaTac Deputy Mayor Peter Kwon filtered the air in his own home by attaching a furnace filter to a box fan and then duct-taping a triangular piece of cardboard over the gaps. When the air quality index (AQI) rose to…

Research Beyond UW | Columbia University

Asian Megacities Lab

Over the next 25 years, it is projected that China will account for 50% of the world’s new construction. The majority of this construction will occur in existing cities or newly formed urban areas. It is the mission of the Asia Megacities Lab to become actively engaged with this rapid urbanization and spatial production occurring…

News | September 2, 2016

August Sees New Grants, Project Launches, and Original Research and Writing

August was a busy month at the University of Washington and the Seattle region when it comes to urban research, writing, and project launches. Take a look at what’s been happening. Urban@UW will be running a half-day workshop as part of the Eighth International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2016.) Our workshop seeks to bring…

Degree Program

BA in Geography with Data Science Option

The B.A. in Geography with Data Science Option builds on geography coursework in data management, data visualization and the societal implications of data science while offering students additional opportunities to engage in coursework in programming, machine learning, and advanced statistics and probability. This series of coursework allows students to graduate with evidence of data science…

Scholar

Barb Ivanov

Scholar

Batya Friedman

Scholar

Behçet Açikmeşe

News | January 26, 2017

Big data and human services workshop resources

On January 17-18 Urban@UW, UW eScience Institute, the City of Seattle, and the MetroLab Network hosted a workshop on big data and human services. Check out the presentations and videos of our conversations at MetroLab’s workshop materials page.

News | January 9, 2017

Big Data and Human Services: A Brief Annotated Reading List

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…

News | January 14, 2017

Big data to help human services: Topic of UW, City of Seattle event Jan. 17

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…

News | May 21, 2020

Bike commuting accelerated when bike-share systems rolled into town

In the past couple of years, if you lived in a major, or even mid-sized city, you were likely familiar with bike-share bikes. Whether propped against a tree, strewn along the sidewalk or standing “docked” at a station, the often brightly colored bikes with whimsical company names promised a ready means to get from Point…

Scholar

Bill Howe

Center & Lab

Biodemography Laboratory

The Biodemography Laboratory, as the heart of the Biodemography Core at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE), conducts population level research in human ecology and biodemography. We specialize in developing, optimizing, and carrying out biomarker assays for large scale research projects. We merge methods and theory from biology, demography and anthropology to…

Scholar

Bo Zhao

Funding

Bridge Funding Program

The University of Washington Provost’s Office provides bridge funding to support faculty to span the gap in critical research programs. Applications from faculty should be submitted to the applicant’s department chair, who should prioritize requests before forwarding them to the dean of the college/school. In non-departmentalized colleges/schools, applications should be submitted to the dean or…

Scholar

Bryna Hazelton

News | January 23, 2024

Building community resilience: A $2 million NSF grant will transform disaster response

Amy Sprague January 16, 2024 “Our advantage of being an interdisciplinary project at the University of Washington is that we are drawing from an excellent corps of researchers with complementary expertise at a University whose mission includes working for the greater good across the state of Washington and has excellent ties into our communities.” Professor…

Funding

Bullitt Foundation Grants

The Foundation’s resources are modest when compared to the ambitious mission of promoting sustainable development over a huge region. So its role is mostly catalytic. The Foundation looks for high risk, high potential payoff opportunities to exert unusual leverage. It has a special interest in demonstrating innovative approaches that promise to solve multiple problems simultaneously.…

News | September 17, 2018

Bus battle: Do private shuttles affect the reliability of public transit?

While many Puget Sound residents have to choose between taking public transit or personal vehicles to work, Microsoft and Seattle Children’s Hospital employees have an additional option: private commuter buses. Last year, King County Metro and the Seattle Department of Transportation started a pilot program that allowed these shuttles to pick up employees at a few public bus…

News | August 21, 2019

Can Project Sidewalk use crowdsourcing to help Seattleites get around?

Jon Froehlich distinctly remembers the moment when Google first unveiled Street View in 2007. The computer scientist spent hours virtually wandering through distant city streets and immersing himself in parts of the world he had yet to visit in real life. Then Froehlich had a thought: “What else could we use this for?” Within a decade, he’d developed…

Center & Lab

Carbon Leadership Forum

The Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) is an industry-academic collaborative research effort. CLF is working to link the rigor of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) based carbon accounting to industry best practices in order to enable quantifiable reduction to the environmental impact of the built environment. Its research is focused on developing the data, analysis, and standards…

News | February 13, 2021

Carbon Leadership Forum among finalists selected for $10 million 2030 Climate Challenge

On February 9th, Lever for Change announced that the College of Built Environment’s Carbon Leadership Forum (CLF) and four other finalist teams will advance to the next stage of the 2030 Climate Challenge, a $10 million award launched last year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. by 2030. The Challenge, sponsored by an anonymous donor, will…

News | August 27, 2021

Cargo bikes hold promise for speedier, less polluting package delivery

As online shopping grows, so do the number of double-parked delivery vans blocking traffic in cities and adding carbon emissions into the air. To curb both pollution and street congestion, a new report suggests that logistics companies should be investing more in electric cargo bikes as an alternative. In city centers, the study found that…

Map | Berlin

Carsharing in Berlin

​Many thing carsharing is the future and this map gives us a glimpse of what that may look like in Berlin. with a great explanation of the whole project. This project uses a number of graphic representation styles fueled by CartoDB and Tableau.

News | February 8, 2018

Cascadia showcases how a coordinated corridor strategy can reinforce urban innovation

A central premise of Meeting of the Minds is that the flexibility, practicality, and focus of municipal governments make them ideal technological and social innovators. But can the ingenuity of U.S. cities be sufficiently amplified to effectively keep up with the pace of climate change, especially in the face of declining federal leadership? Answering this…

Center & Lab

Cascadia Urban Analytics Collaborative

Over 80% of the planet is affected by increased urbanization – a clarion call for evidence-based innovation to improve the resiliency, health,and well-being of cities and their inhabitants. To lead a focused response, the University of Washington (through a partnership between the UW eScience Institute and Urban@UW) and the University of British Columbia (through a…

Scholar

Catherine De Almeida

Scholar

Cecilia Aragon

News | July 16, 2020

CEE researchers develop first-ever map that quantifies landslide risk in Seattle

When it comes to safeguarding Seattle from landslide hazards, UW CEE Ph.D. student William Pollock has a plan mapped out – quite literally. He will soon be releasing a first-of-its-kind map that predicts landslide risk throughout the city. “As far as I know, this is the first map in the nation to quantify landslide risk…

Research Beyond UW | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Center for Advanced Urbanism

The Center for Advanced Urbanism is committed to fostering a rigorous design culture for the large scale; by focusing our disciplinary conversations about architecture, urban planning, landscape architecture, and systems thinking, not about the problems of yesterday, but of tomorrow. We are motivated by the radical changes in our environment, and the role that design…

Center & Lab

Center for Education Data and Research

The Center for Education Data and Research focuses on the relationship between education and social service policies and practices. Founded in 2010, CEDR examines questions of educational opportunity, access and success, examining them through a quantitative lens. Its researchers are particularly interested in examining policies and interventions that help disadvantaged groups. One of CEDR’s strengths…

Center & Lab

Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences

The Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences started in 1999, with funding from the University Initiatives Fund. It was the first center in the nation devoted to this interface, with the triple mission of galvanizing collaborative research between social scientists and statisticians, developing a menu of new graduate courses for social science students, and…

Center & Lab

Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE)

The Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) supports population research and training at the University of Washington. It also functions as a regional center that gives population scientists at affiliated institutions in the Pacific Northwest access to cutting-edge demographic infrastructure and services. The core of CSDE consists of a large group of productive…

Center & Lab

Center for Urban Waters

Research conducted by University of Washington Tacoma scientists at the Center for Urban Waters seeks to understand and quantify the sources, pathways and impacts of chemical pollutants in urban waterways.Highly sensitive analytical tools to measure contaminant levels are combined with sophisticated computer models to track pollutant sources and transport in the Puget Sound region. UW…

Research Beyond UW | University of Toronto

Centre for Urban & Community Studies

The Centre for Urban and Community Studies (CUCS) was established in 1964 to promote and disseminate multidisciplinary research and policy analysis on urban issues. The Centre's activities contributed to scholarship on questions relating to the social, economic and physical well-being of people who live and work in urban areas large and small, in Canada and…

Research Beyond UW | University of York

Centre for Urban Research and Innovations

The Centre for Urban Research seeks to be a critical observatory, tracking important changes and developments in urban and regional economies, societies and environments in order to identify and examine the issues likely to become key challenges in the near future. A program of frequent events provide forums for diverse communities, policy-makers and academic colleagues…

Scholar

Charles H. Lea III

Scholar

Chiwei Yan

Scholar

Cinnamon Hillyard

Research Beyond UW | York University

City Institute at York University (CITY)

The City Institute at York University (CITY) brings together over 60 of the university’s urban scholars and scores of graduate students from fields as diverse as planning, geography, environmental studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, education, law, transportation and the humanities. This interdisciplinary institute facilitates critical and collaborative research, providing new knowledge and innovative approaches to…

News | March 23, 2018

City of Bellevue selected as 2018-2019 UW Livable City Year partner

The University of Washington Livable City Year program has selected the City of Bellevue to be the community partner for the 2018-2019 academic year. The year-long partnership connects city staff with students and faculty who will collaborate on projects to advance the Bellevue City Council Vision Priorities, specifically around livability and sustainability. In the upcoming…

Map | Melbourne

City of Melbourne Maps

This site includes information, maps and images relating to properties, features and assets located within the City of Melbourne municipal area. Map data includes childcare and schools, community facilities, development activities, historic maps, mobility information, districts, walking tours and more.

News | August 5, 2019

City of Vancouver looks west to continue restoration of Burnt Bridge Creek greenway

For decades, Burnt Bridge Creek was little more than a polluted drainage ditch lined by invasive vegetation. The creek flows west for about 13 miles through the city, from its headwaters in east Vancouver, before emptying into a natural wetland near Northwest Lakeshore Avenue and flowing through two culverts into Vancouver Lake. It has a…

Research Beyond UW | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Civic Data Design Lab

The Civic Data Design Lab works with data to understand it for public good. We seek to develop alternative practices which can make the work we do with data and images richer, smarter, more relevant, and more responsive to the needs and interests of citizens traditionally on the margins of policy development. In this practice…

Degree Program

Civil and Environmental Engineering (PhD)

Students in the UW CEE Ph.D. program work closely with distinguished faculty on research and pursue their own innovative projects, preparing them to make a difference in the world. Students who pursue Ph.D. degrees often obtain high-level jobs in industry or go on to work in academia. Students focus their studies on one of the…

Degree Program

Civil Engineering (BS, MS)

At the University of Washington, civil engineering students are preparing to take on the challenges presented by aging national infrastructure and the pressing needs of both urban and developing communities around the globe. Civil engineers design, build, operate and maintain urban environments to improve people’s lives. From transportation to water quality to earthquake preparedness, resilient…

Research Beyond UW | Lousiana State University

Coastal Sustainability Studio

The LSU Coastal Sustainability Studio brings together academic disciplines that typically conduct research separately—such as designers, scientists, planners, and engineers—to intensively study and respond to critical issues of coastal settlement, restoration, flood protection, and economic development. Through its integrated design and systems thinking approach, programs, and projects, the CSS builds university capacity and transdisciplinary teams…

Center & Lab

Collaborative on Extreme Event Resilence (CEER)

CEER is a boundary breaking collaboration of researchers and scholars committed to policy relevant, community-driven research. We empower communities to use scientific methods to solve real world problems and build resilience to acute and chronic stressors. We are public health scholars committed to working with policy-makers, practitioners, and community-based organizations to collaboratively generate evidence, as…

News | June 8, 2022

College of Built Environments’ unique Inspire Fund aims to foster research momentum in underfunded pursuits college-wide. And it’s working.

“For a small college, CBE has a broad range of research paradigms, from history and arts, to social science and engineering.” — Carrie Sturts Dossick, Associate Dean of Research Upon taking on the role of Associate Dean of Research, Carrie Sturts Dossick, professor in the Department of Construction Management, undertook listening sessions to learn about…

News | June 5, 2024

Community broadband provides a local solution for a global problem

Written by Esther Jang, Postdoctoral Fellow, Computer Science, University of Washington; Katherine Gillieson, Associate Dean, Master of Design, Emily Carr University; and Michael Lithgow, Associate Professor, Media and Communication Studies, Athabasca University Published in The Conversation. According to a 2023 study by the International Telecommunications Union, approximately 2.6 billion people are unconnected to the internet….

News | March 17, 2022

Commuter study indicates pandemic patterns likely won’t change quickly in the Seattle metro area

In many ways, it feels like pre-pandemic commutes are back. Though the peaks have pretty much returned to normal, the commutes don’t last as long in the Seattle metro area. But between commutes? There’s actually more traffic. Those were some of the findings in an ongoing study of commute patterns. It’s a study that began…

Center & Lab

Computing for Development (C4D)

Research in information and communication technologies for development (ICTD) is a relatively new and important area in computing research. When deploying systems in highly resource-constrained environment (unsophisticated users, lack of reliable power, expensive or non-existent data connectivity, etc.) they must be designed to be much more robust than when designing for the developed world. This…

News | June 26, 2015

CoSSar presented by Scott Miles

​Presented at June 1st Urban@UW Launch Meeting

News | October 25, 2018

Could parcel lockers in transit stations reduce traffic congestion in Seattle?

UW researchers want to know if parcel lockers that aren’t owned by a specific company could alleviate traffic congestion in Seattle.Matt Hagen Seattle is one of the most congested cities in America. Delivery trucks take up space on already crowded roads and idle in parking spots and loading bays. And if no one is available…

News | November 26, 2024

Creating multi-sector teams to build cities where everyone thrives.

Research-to-Action Teams 2024-25 In April of 2024 two teams were selected for participation in the second cohort of the Research to Action Collaboratory. For 18 months Urban@UW will work with these teams to provide seed funds, dedicated time to building team cohesion and collaboration skills, and opportunities for peer support, shared resources, and learning. These…

Scholar

Crystal C. Hall

News | May 2, 2018

CSDE Affiliates Examine Equity Issues Associated with Tolled Roads

Last week, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan proposed instituting a toll on downtown roads to curb congestion. The Seattle Times examined the potential benefits and implications of the toll. In unpacking the possible equity issues, the Times turned to a 2009 study conducted by Affiliate Jennifer Romich, Associate Professor at the School of Social Work; Affiliate Robert Plotnick, Professor Emeritus at the Evans School of…

News | March 31, 2020

CUAC releases program report highlighting collaborative research across Cascadia

The Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative (CUAC) has released a comprehensive program report detailing collaborative research and training activities between the University of Washington (UW) and the University of British Columbia (UBC) over the last three years. CUAC supports interdisciplinary studies of large urban data sets that use the latest data science techniques to address policy-relevant issues affecting…

Scholar

Cynthia Pearson

Scholar

Dafeng Xu

Scholar

Daniel Kirschen

Scholar

Daniel Schindler

News | July 7, 2016

Data Science for Social Good 2016

This summer we are thrilled to be supporting the eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program. Modeled after similar programs at the University of Chicago and Georgia Tech, with elements from eScience’s own Data Science Incubator, sixteen DSSG Student Fellows have been working with academic researchers, data scientists, and public stakeholder groups on…

News | September 3, 2020

Data Science for Social Good fellows present their project results

This year, two interdisciplinary teams at the eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program tackled timely issues, conducting projects to identify disinformation articles about the coronavirus and detect minority vote dilution resulting from geographic boundary setting in state, city, county and school board districts. On August 19th, the DSSG student fellows presented the results of their projects, conducted with…

News | October 12, 2018

Data Science for Social Good shares its fourth year of partnership-based projects

The fourth annual Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program at the eScience Institute culminated on August 17th with final presentations from three interdisciplinary teams. The 15 DSSG Student Fellows – representing fields from public policy and sociology to biology, statistics and electrical engineering – presented their findings based on 10 weeks of full-time work with in-house data scientists…

News | September 23, 2019

Data Science for Social Good team analyzes equity of congestion pricing on Interstate 405

A team in the eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good (DSSG) program has partnered with the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) to study the usage patterns, price sensitivities and equity impacts of congestion pricing on Interstate 405. The project utilizes data on the more than 16 million trips taken in the high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes of I-405…

Center & Lab

DataLab

The DataLab is the nexus for research on Data Science and Analytics at the UW iSchool. We study large-scale, heterogeneous human data in an effort to understand why individuals, consumers, and societies behave the way they do. Our goal is to use data for the social good, in an ethical manner that can inform policy…

Scholar

David Hendry

Scholar

David Stokes

Scholar

Davon Woodard

News | December 31, 2016

December Recap – TC3, Urban Environmental Justice, Tech, and other Highlights

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…

News | May 1, 2021

Deepfake tech takes on satellite maps

While the concept of “deepfakes,” or AI-generated synthetic imagery, has been decried primarily in connection with involuntary depictions of people, the technology is dangerous (and interesting) in other ways as well. For instance, researchers have shown that it can be used to manipulate satellite imagery to produce real-looking — but totally fake — overhead maps…

News | December 17, 2019

Delivering the goods: Drones and robots are making their way to your door

The reality today is that delivery is a bigger business than ever. With online shopping, it’s estimated the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx and UPS will process, sort and deliver more than two billion packages between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. Amazon’s own fleet of delivery trucks is expected to handle 275 million holiday season shipments. And Amazon…

News | May 14, 2019

Delivery bots could make cities more accessible for everyone

Last week, Washington’s governor Jay Inslee signed a bill allowing robots to roll through the state, delivering goods and food orders. Washington joins seven other states that have legalized bot deliveries, and other cities and college campuses have allowed companies to pilot their services. Perhaps new tech could be what spurs more accessible city design, creating more navigable public spaces…

Funding

Department of Defense – National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Academic Research Program

The NGA mission is to provide timely, relevant, and accurate geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) in support of national security objectives. GEOINT is the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information to describe, assess, and visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth.

Center & Lab

Design Machine Group

Design Machine Group (DMG) is a collaborative research studio aimed at exploring, fostering, and developing ideas that will shape the future of design and information technology. The lab serves as the primary home of students in the MS in Architecture Program in Design Computing.

News | December 24, 2020

Did COVID lockdowns really clear the air?

The early days of the Covid-19 lockdowns were seen as an environmental marvel. With fewer commuters and empty highways, residents of cities from Los Angeles to New Delhi witnessed clear blue skies and mountain views that had long been obscured by smog. The dramatic atmospheric transformation was one of first of the “silver linings” that the coronavirus…

News | June 17, 2015

Digging into Data to Find Impact of Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage

Jacob Vigdor, a professor at the UW’s Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy and Governance and the city’s main researcher regarding impacts of Seattle’s $15 minimum wage.

Center & Lab

Disaster Data Science Lab

We are a group of data scientists and trainees who research how to leverage data to help others before, during, and after disasters. Globally, frequency and intensity of disasters are rising. We tackle pressing and challenging problems of disaster research by collecting and analyzing data to suggest evidence-based remedies.

News | February 23, 2018

Do you have questions about transportation in Seattle? Here are a few answers

Since The Seattle Times Traffic Lab launched a year ago, they’ve heard from scores of readers about getting around Here are a few: Q: Do Uber and Lyft worsen Seattle’s traffic congestion? A: A study in New York City said the growth of the app-based ride services could work against cities’ goals of unclogging streets…

News | July 2, 2018

Driving? Your phone is a distraction even if you aren’t looking at it

I was in the car with a friend recently when she pulled up to a stoplight, picked up her phone and replied to a text. I gave her the side eye. What? she glared back. “I only use my phone when we’re stopped.” “OK, fine,” I said. But, I wondered, is it? We all know that…

Center & Lab

EarthLab

As a Carnegie-classified Community Engagement University, the University of Washington (UW) aspires to be the #1 university in the world as measured by impact. EarthLab is a visionary institute at the UW that pushes boundaries to address our most pressing environmental challenges, with urgency and action on climate and its intersection with social justice. We…

Scholar

Ed Lazowska

Scholar

Elena A. Erosheva

Scholar

Emily Keller

Degree Program

Environmental Engineering (BS)

Environmental engineers work to both safeguard and improve the quality of the environment. By utilizing a combination of both scientific and engineering principles, environmental engineers work to protect the world and its people from negative environmental impacts caused by both natural and human activities. The work of environmental engineers is increasingly important, as healthy environments…

News | September 15, 2023

Environmental Protection Agency Delays New Ozone Pollution Standards Until After the 2024 Election

The Environmental Protection Agency is delaying plans to tighten air quality standards for ground-level ozone — better known as smog — despite a recommendation by a scientific advisory panel to lower air pollution limits to protect public health. The decision by EPA Administrator Michael Regan means that one of the agency’s most important air quality…

Center & Lab

eScience Institute

The eScience Institute empowers researchers and students in all fields to answer fundamental questions through the use of large, complex, and noisy data. As the hub of data-intensive discovery on campus, we lead a community of innovators in the techniques, technologies, and best practices of data science and the fields that depend on them.

News | June 17, 2015

eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good Projects Announced

eScience Institute’s Data Science for Social Good Projects Announced Bringing together data scientists to work on focused, collaborative projects designed to impact public policy. This Summer teams will be looking at: Assessing Community Well-Being Through Open Data and Social Media – providing neighborhood communities with a better understanding of the factors that impact their well-being….

Funding

Esri – Disaster Response Program

This program assists with disasters worldwide as part of our corporate citizenship. Esri supports response and relief efforts with GIS technology and expertise when capacity is exceeded. When you need help quickly, Esri can provide data, software, configurable applications, and technical support for your emergency GIS operations. We’re here to ensure you get the help…

Scholar

Esther Min

News | April 11, 2018

Everyone wants to know how Seattle’s dockless bike share experiment is going

City planners and researchers are eager to get feedback on Seattle’s novel dockless bike sharing pilot to determine whether it is a viable mobility solution or an oversaturated fad. The Seattle Department of Transportation launched a survey (first spotted by Curbed) to find out how riders feel about the three bike share services that arrived in their city…

Map

Eviction Lab

We're unpacking America's eviction crisis. The Eviction Lab at Princeton University has built the first nationwide database of evictions. Find out how many evictions happen in your community. Create custom maps, charts, and reports. Share facts with your neighbors and elected officials.

News | February 27, 2019

Evictions, rent spikes contribute to Washington’s homelessness crisis, study finds

With rent spikes and the decline of affordable housing, a team of University of Washington researchers are finding that evictions are contributing to the rise in homelessness across Washington state. Tim Thomas is the Principal Investigator of the study, and post-doctoral fellow at the UW eScience Institute. Now they’ve created a “living document” that shows eviction rates…

Scholar

Eyhab Al-Masri

News | June 22, 2020

Fighting climate change means fighting racial injustice

“You can’t let one segment of society become a sacrifice.” Michael Méndez, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, was on the phone talking about the protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd beneath a white police officer’s knee. But he was also talking about environmental justice and climate change. And he could…

News | March 16, 2017

First UW Livable City Year project reports delivered to the City of Auburn

Teams of University of Washington students have been working throughout this academic year on livability and sustainability projects in the City of Auburn. The yearlong Livable City Year partnership has given students a chance to work on real-world challenges identified by Auburn, while providing Auburn with tens of thousands of hours of study and student…

News | June 13, 2018

Forest loss in one part of US can harm trees on the opposite coast

Large swaths of U.S. forests are vulnerable to drought, forest fires and disease. Many local impacts of forest loss are well known: drier soils, stronger winds, increased erosion, loss of shade and habitat. But if a whole forest disappears, new research shows, this has ricocheting effects in the atmosphere that can affect vegetation on the…

News | August 2, 2016

Forget Pokemon Go. New tech incubator takes VR to the next level

If you’ve hung out by Lake Union, Westlake, or Green Lake at any point over the past three weeks, you’ve likely seen person after person point his or her phone toward the sidewalk or trees to try to catch that Bulbasaur, Blastoise, or Dratini. So it won’t be news to you that the digital and…

News | August 4, 2015

GeekWire Radio: Windows 10’s debut, Amazon’s new drone plan, and unlocking innovation at UW

This week on the GeekWire radio show: a discussion about the future of education, innovation and cities with Vikram Jandhyala, Vice Provost for Innovation at the University of Washington; and Thaisa Way, director of the new Urban@UW center. Topics include the planned Global Innovation Exchange (GIX) in Bellevue, Wash.; the latest from the UW’s CoMotion…

Degree Program

Geographic Information Systems (Cert)

Explore how geographic information systems have enhanced the efficiency and analytical power of traditional cartography. Examine the range of information sources that can be combined to build a GIS database – including raw data, scanned maps, GPS positions and aerial photography. Learn how to use the system to support research and decision making in a…

Degree Program

Geography (BA, minor, MA, PhD)

Geographers address some of the world’s most urgent challenges, including globalization, economic inequality, world hunger and agricultural development, global health and health care, the social control of public spaces, immigration, gender inequality, and what it means to be a citizen in the 21st century. Answers to such questions are complex and partial, and these issues…

Degree Program

Geospatial Technologies (MS)

The Urban Studies Program offers a Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies degree. Admission is open during autumn quarter only and will be comprised of a 20 student cohort. The degree will provide advanced training in GIS, training students to use and apply geospatial hardware, software, and data in urban and environmental planning scenarios. It…

News | September 28, 2018

Glacier melt likely to impact Pacific Northwest water supply

In light of global warming, more glaciers means more melting. And for the Pacific Northwest, which is home to the most glaciers in the contiguous 48 states, that also means increased vulnerability. For the first time, a team of researchers has evaluated the hydrological impact of receding glaciers in the region, which is expected to…

Research Beyond UW | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University

Global Cities Research Institute

The Global Cities Research Institute was inaugurated in 2006 to bring together key researchers at RMIT University, Australia, working on understanding the complexity of globalizing urban settings from provincial centres to mega-cities. Our research is highly collaborative, linking with institutions and people around the world in long-term partnerships, we are directly addressing the challenge through…

News | February 1, 2019

Got the flu? Seattle wants to swab your nose for a massive health data project

Calling all feverish, coughing, achy Seattleites: Your germs could help prevent the next big pandemic. At least, that’s the hope of a new project from the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine (BBI). The Seattle Flu Study will gather swabs from 10,000 resident schnozzes to better understand how contagious diseases spread in a community. Researchers have set…

Scholar

Greg Miller

Scholar

Gregory Lund

Scholar

H. Pike Oliver

Research Beyond UW | Harvard University

Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities

The Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities aims to transform the building industry through a commitment to design-centric strategy that directly links research outcomes to the development of new processes, systems, and products. By strongly emphasizing innovation and multidisciplinary collaboration, the Center will work to promote holistic change within the built environment, namely the…

Scholar

Hedwig E. Lee

News | October 15, 2019

How bike sharing in Seattle rose from the ashes of Pronto’s failure

In October 2014, Seattle launched Pronto, a docked bike-share program. But Pronto had problems shifting into a higher gear, and the city ended the program in 2017, making Seattle one of the few cities in the world to shut down a modern public bike sharing system. Then, four months later, Seattle became the first city…

News | January 7, 2022

How Crowds Run When Bulls Charge

People walking alone walk relatively quickly. A crowd walks slowly. But how does a crowd move when there is, say, a massive bull charging at them? To answer this, scientists analyzed the movement of a crowd of runners during the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, in 2019. The San Fermín festival in Pamplona,…

News | June 22, 2018

How do aliens solve climate change?

The universe does many things. It makes galaxies, comets, black holes, neutron stars, and a whole mess more. We’ve lately discovered that it makes a great deal of planets, but it’s not clear whether it regularly makes energy-hungry civilizations, nor is it clear whether such civilizations inevitably drive their planets into climate change. There’s lots…

News | April 7, 2022

How happy are Seattle, and WA as a whole, compared to other cities and states?

By some accounts, Seattle is among the most stressed and sleep-deprived metros in the nation, but let’s forget about that for a moment. New reports find Seattle, and Washington as a whole, rate high on the happiness scale. In fact, Seattle is the seventh-happiest city in the nation, according to WalletHub’s 2022’s Happiest Cities in America report. The personal finance website…

News | July 7, 2022

How many homeless people are in King County? Depends who you ask

Since the data-driven Marc Dones was hired to lead the new King County Regional Homelessness Authority, one of their main priorities has been to get an accurate count of the homeless population. Now, Dones and the Authority have two different counts: 13,368 and 40,800. Both are larger than the previous estimate of the homeless population conducted…

News | May 23, 2018

How Seattle’s appetite for construction is creating a growing waste problem

The sun has barely burned the fog off Lake Washington as Noel Stout, standing near the water’s edge, peers at a heavy wooden trellis suspended 20 feet above a concrete backyard patio. He’s rigged a system of ropes and pulleys to the cedar latticework, which just yesterday supported a deck with a sweeping view across…

News | August 29, 2019

How tech keeps Seattle’s transit system running — and why more innovation could be coming

Amid a sea of green rectangles on a computer monitor, one had turned red. A RapidRide bus — the red rectangle — was traveling a bit too rapidly. It was almost 11 a.m. on Friday, August 23 in the King County Metro Transit Control Center (TCC). Coordinators sat in front of large monitors, tracking the…

News | October 22, 2019

How the Urban Freight Lab seeks to fix the last 50 feet of shipping

The very last step of shipping packages in a city ⁠— not the end mile but the “final 50 feet” ⁠— bedevils delivery drivers. Every day, they face the task of driving and parking safely and legally in urban environments not built for the brick-and-asphalt end journeys of e-commerce. For these workers every hour is rush hour,…

News | November 5, 2019

How Washington’s toll lanes help low income communities

A recent study sought to discover how toll lanes like the ones implemented on Washington’s 405 freeway affect low-income communities. And while those communities are the ones who most often can’t afford the toll lanes, one expert argues that they benefit everyone. “(Drivers) are voluntarily choosing to subsidize the operation and the construction and the maintenance of…

News | January 17, 2019

How your online shopping snarls traffic on city streets

This past holiday season, to the delight of retailers, saw shopping records broken left and right. Amazon set a sales record over the long Thanksgiving weekend. Cyber Monday hit a record $7.9 billion in sales. Online holiday shopping, at a predicted $126 billion, would mark an all-time record. That also means a record number of online deliveries. The strong retail economy…

Center & Lab

Human Centered Data Science (HCDS) Laboratory

The Human Centered Data Science Lab, directed by Dr. Cecilia Aragon, conducts research on human-computer interaction in scientific collaborations, collaborative creativity, cyberinfrastructure, eScience, information visualization, and how social media and computer-mediated communication are changing scientific practice.

Center & Lab

Humanistic GIS Laboratory

Welcome to Humanistic GIS Laboratory (HGIS Lab)! This Lab is committed to exploring the Digital Earth as the home of humankind. Driven by this common interest, a group of UW scholars and student researchers have been working together (1) to explore innovative methodologies to improve geospatial technologies with the consideration of human experience, (2) to…

Funding

Humans, Disasters, and the Built Environment (HDBE)

The Humans, Disasters and the Built Environment (HDBE) program supports fundamental, multidisciplinary research on the interactions between humans and the built environment within and among communities exposed to natural, technological and other types of hazards and disasters. The program's context is provided by ongoing and emerging changes in three interwoven elements of a community: its…

Funding

IBM Center for the Business of Government – Connecting Research to Practice

The aim of the IBM Center for The Business of Government is to tap into the best minds in academe and the nonprofit sector who can use rigorous public management research and analytic techniques to help public sector executives and managers improve the effectiveness of government. We are looking for very practical findings and actionable…

News | October 17, 2017

In Seattle, cost of meeting basic needs up $30,000 in a decade

A Seattle family of four must bring in $75,000 annually to pay for basic housing, food, transportation and health and child care – an increase of 62 percent since 2006, based on a new report from the University of Washington. The city’s escalating cost of living may not be a surprise. But across the state,…

Scholar

Ines Jurcevic

Degree Program

Informatics (BS, minor)

Informatics is the study, design, and development of information technology for the good of people, organizations, and society. As an Informatics student at the UW iSchool, you'll drive innovation as you explore the intersection of technology and human values. Your passion for analyzing and solving problems is reflected in the creativity you bring to the…

Degree Program

Infrastructure Planning & Management

Well-planned infrastructure strengthens the sustainability and livability of our cities and communities. University of Washington's online Master of Infrastructure Planning & Management degree prepares you to lead the development of the next generation of critical infrastructure systems ­­— resilient, secure and accessible.

Center & Lab

Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) launched in July 2007 with the goal of providing an impartial, evidence-based picture of global health trends to inform the work of policymakers, researchers, and funders. Five guiding principles: Scientific Excellence Policy Relevance Impartiality Collaboration Knowledge Sharing

Center & Lab

Integrated Design Lab

The Integrated Design Lab (IDL) carries out research to advance knowledge and policies that support the healthiest and highest performing buildings and cities. Its performance research includes energy efficiency, daylighting, electric lighting, occupant energy use behavior, human health and productivity in buildings, and advanced building management systems. The IDL transfers findings of its research through…

Degree Program

Interdisciplinary Urban Design & Planning (PhD)

This program brings together faculty from disciplines ranging from Architecture to Sociology to focus on the interdisciplinary study of urban problems and interventions. Covering scales from neighborhoods to metropolitan areas, the program addresses interrelationships between the physical environment, the built environment, and the social, economic, and political institutions and processes that shape urban areas. The…

News | August 30, 2022

J-PAL North America Launches Two Partnership Opportunities to Research Social Programs

J-PAL North America, a research center in the MIT Department of Economics, has opened two Evaluation Incubators: the Housing Stability Evaluation Incubator and State and Local Evaluation Incubator. J-PAL North America’s Evaluation Incubators equip partners to use randomized evaluations — the most scientifically rigorous method used to study program impact — in order to generate…

Scholar

James Young

Scholar

Jan Whittington

Scholar

Janet Baseman

Scholar

Jeff Shulman

Scholar

Jen Davison

Scholar

Jim Thatcher

Scholar

Jin-Kyu Jung

Scholar

Joe Casola

Scholar

Joe Mienko

Scholar

John Stanton

Scholar

John Vidale

News | November 26, 2024

Join Urban@UW in creating innovative solutions for city dwellers, today and into the future.

Support Urban@UW Urban@UW extends the understanding of cities—from people, buildings, infrastructure, and energy to economics, policy, culture, art, and nature—beyond individual topics to dynamically interdependent systems, so that we can holistically design and steward vibrant and welcoming cities in which future generations will thrive. Urban@UW works with scholars, policymakers, and community stakeholders to develop cross-disciplinary…

Scholar

Julian Marshall

Scholar

Julian Yamaura

Scholar

Karen Fisher

Scholar

Kate Starbird

Scholar

Katharyne Mitchell

Map | Berlin

King County iMap

iMap is an application that allows you to view King County spatial information (GIS data and images) in an interactive map display. You can customize your map display to show just the information you want to see at the best scale for your chosen purpose. iMap is your window to a wealth of geographic information…

Map | Seattle

King County Lidar Swipe Viewer

Lidar is an aerial scanning method that can produce detailed representations of the earth’s surface. The Lidar Swipe map viewer is designed to provide users a simple means for viewing a shaded-relief image that was made from lidar data. The viewer shows a King County-maintained mosaic of lidar data that has been collected in various…

Map | Seattle

Lack of Sidewalks in Seattle

​This map from the Urbanist highlights the roughly 900 miles (28% of city blocks) without any sidewalks in Seattle.

Scholar

Larry Knopp

News | November 14, 2019

Latest science shows how the ‘biggest one’ will unfold in the Northwest

The shaking from a magnitude 9-plus earthquake felt in western Washington’s population centers will vary depending on the epicenter of the quake. “Where the earthquake starts really matters,” said Erin Wirth, an affiliate assistant professor of Earth and Space Sciences (ESS) and a research geophysicist  for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) based at the University of…

Scholar

Lillian J. Ratliff

Scholar

Lisa Hoffman

News | October 2, 2018

Livable City Year and Tacoma finalize partnership

Throughout the 2017-2018 academic year, 349 University of Washington students and 26 UW faculty members worked with staff and community members from the City of Tacoma on projects to advance livability and sustainability in the city. The year-long partnership between Tacoma and UW Livable City Year (LCY) provided the city with university resources to tackle…

News | December 13, 2016

Livable City Year releases RFP, invites cities to partner for 2017-8 academic year

The University of Washington’s Livable City Year initiative is now accepting proposals from cities, counties, special districts and regional partnerships to partner with during the 2017-2018 academic year. UW Livable City Year (UW LCY) connects University of Washington faculty and students with a municipal partner for a full academic year to work on projects fostering…

News | August 30, 2024

Living in tree-filled neighborhoods may reduce risk of heart disease, study shows

Written by Kaitlin Sullivan and Anne Thompson for NBC News Living in a tree-filled neighborhood may be as beneficial to the heart as regular exercise, new research shows. Researchers at the University of Louisville designed a clinical trial that followed hundreds of people living in six low- to middle-income neighborhoods in South Louisville, Kentucky. They…

News | March 13, 2024

Looking inward for pollution In his latest research, Dr. Dan Jaffe looks to the kitchen as a source for indoor pollution in the home.

Excerpted from the University of Washington- Bothell website.  For more than 30 years, Dr. Dan Jaffe has spent his career researching outdoor air pollution and its many sources — from wildfires to fossil fuels. In recent years, however, his curiosity has shifted inward as he looks to answer the question: “How clean is our indoor…

Scholar

LuAnne Thompson

News | October 12, 2021

Lynden has spent more than a year testing poop for COVID-19. Was it a good investment?

The poop doesn’t lie — at least in Lynden, where it has helped guide the city’s pandemic response for over a year. The Whatcom city has become home to one of the most thorough COVID-19 wastewater testing programs in the U.S., said Kent Oostra, owner of Ferndale-based Exact Scientific Services. His lab has tested Lynden’s…

Funding

MacArthur Foundation

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. In addition to selecting the MacArthur Fellows, the Foundation works to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and…

News | March 16, 2020

Making Transit More Transparent: Catching Up with Kona Farry

Kona Farry is an undergraduate student at UW studying Community, Environment, and Planning. Last year Farry created a website (https://www.pantographapp.com) showing the real-time locations of buses, ferries, and trains in the greater Seattle area that received a lot of interest. (Also, since the coronavirus outbreak he has created an app to help remind people to…

Map

Map Kibera

Kibera in Nairobi, Kenya, was a blank spot on the map until November 2009, when young Kiberans created the first free and open digital map of their own community. Map Kibera has now grown into a complete interactive community information project. We work in Kibera, Mathare and Mukuru, use all these tools. Get in touch!

Map | New York Seattle

Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America

The University of RIchmond’s Digital Scholarship Lab compiled historic maps and data of redlining practice in 150+ cities across the country in an interactive format.

Map | Seattle

Mapping Seattle’s Noise Complaints

Trulia used CartoDB and its spatial-temporal visualization tool to map police data on noise complaints from Seattle going back to 2010. Not surprisingly the U-District, Downtown and Capital Hill are the noise complaint winners…or losers depending on how you look at it.

Scholar

Marina Alberti

Scholar

Mark Ellis

Scholar

Mark Haselkorn

Scholar

Mary Roderick

Scholar

Matthew Kelley

News | May 21, 2020

Measuring traffic performance during COVID-19

It’s not a surprise that traffic, like many things, has been impacted by COVID-19. But by how much? Researchers in UW CEE’s STAR Lab now have an answer to that question after employing a new scoring algorithm they developed to measure fluctuations in traffic. “We felt a strong need and thus started to develop an…

Scholar

Mehlika Inanici

Scholar

Melanie Malone

Map | Melbourne

Melbourne Urban Forest

The City of Melbourne maintains more than 70,000 trees. This website enables you to explore this dataset and some of the challenges facing Melbourne’s Urban Forest.

News | February 5, 2016

Metrolab Project Library

MetroLab Network is now featuring several members’ projects online. Visit their site to explore the research, development & deployment projects being undertaken by some of our city-university members (Seattle & UW included). Check out projects that address transportation, energy, and climate issues. And stay tuned, they will be adding many more projects from their other…

Scholar

Michael Brown

News | September 16, 2017

Microsoft backs Seattle-Vancouver high-speed rail study as Cascadia conference aims to deepen ties

Pacific Northwest business and political leaders on both sides of the Canada-US border announced a series of agreements to strengthen relationships between Seattle, Portland, Vancouver B.C. and the surrounding areas. The new partnerships, made ahead of the second Cascadia Innovation Corridor conference in Seattle this week, focus on technology, economic development, education and transportation. Government…

News | August 1, 2016

Midsummer in Full Swing, A July Recap

While we are in the midst of a beautiful summer, things at the University of Washington and at Urban@UW are moving right along. We’ve seen some original writing, research, and even a podcast come out of community covering topics from marine noise pollution to data science and minimum wage to police reforms. The eScience Institute…

Scholar

Mike Gomez

Scholar

Miles Logsdon

Scholar

Ming-Yi Tsai

News | July 28, 2016

Minimum Wage Study: Effects of Seattle wage hike modest, may be overshadowed by strong economy

The lot of Seattle’s lowest-paid workers improved following the city’s minimum wage increase to $11 in 2015, but that was more due to the robust regional economy than the wage hike itself, according to a research team at the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Policy & Governance. Although the ordinance appears to have…

Center & Lab

Mixed Metro

Our intent is to create a classification system that will allow readers to easily comprehend (i.e., “see”) a broad range of neighborhoods on the basis of racial composition with an explicit eye towards the notion of diversity. The classification system emerged from detailed explorations of the impact of many configurations of census tract racial composition…

Center & Lab

Mobility Innovation Center

The University of Washington and Challenge Seattle — a private sector initiative of 17 of the Seattle region’s CEOs to address issues that will determine the region’s future — are committed to advancing our region’s economy and our quality of life by helping to build the transportation system of the future. Advancing our region’s goal…

Scholar

Monika Moskal

News | January 31, 2016

Monthly Wrap up January 2016

It’s been a great start to 2016. UW Alumni association and History Department put together a woderful history lecture series: Excavating Seattle’s histories: Peoples, politics, and place check out details and videos here> The CBE also hosted a number of great speakers and events including SUSTAINING JAPAN: 3.11 FIVE YEARS ON lecture and panel discussion…

Map | New York

Multilingual Tweets in NYC

This map visualizes the geography of about 8.5 million geo-located tweets collected between Jan 2010 and Feb 2013. Each tweet is marked by a slightly transparent dot coloured according to the language it was written in.

Scholar

Nancy Rivenburgh

Funding

National Science Foundation – Cyberinfrastructure Centers of Excellence

The Nation’s advanced research cyberinfrastructure (CI) ecosystem catalyzes discovery and innovation across all areas of science and engineering (S&E) research and education. The increasingly complex and rapidly evolving S&E landscape requires an agile, integrated, robust, trustworthy, and sustainable CI ecosystem that will drive new thinking and transformative discoveries in all areas of research and education.

Funding

National Science Foundation – Smart and Connected Health (SCH): Connecting Data, People, and Systems

This funding is directed at developing and integrating computer and information science approaches to transform health and medicine. Applications should include multidisciplinary teams that promote breakthrough ideas from existing and new research communities.

Funding

National Science Foundation: Science and Technology Studies

The Science and Technology Studies (STS) program supports research that uses historical, philosophical, and social scientific methods to investigate the intellectual, material, and social facets of the scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical (STEM) disciplines. It encompasses a broad spectrum of topics including interdisciplinary studies of ethics, equity, governance, and policy issues that are closely related…

News | March 15, 2024

Neighborhood Poverty May Impact Women’s Ovarian Reserves

Reported by Lori Solomon at Health Day News FRIDAY, March 15, 2024 — Living in a neighborhood with greater poverty in adulthood is tied to lower ovarian reserve, according to a study published online March 5 in Menopause. Anwesha Pan, from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues aimed to examine the association between…

News | November 21, 2019

New apps help builders reduce carbon footprint

Two new widgets out of the Pacific Northwest aim to address what their developers say is a pressing need to begin using less carbon-intensive building materials. They work like meal-tracking apps, only for new construction. Input: Materials used in the building. Output: The amount of carbon dioxide used to produce the materials, called embodied carbon….

News | October 13, 2016

New Seattle freight lab tackles urban delivery congestion

SEATTLE (AP) — In this city where residents can get practically anything delivered to their doorsteps — often within hours — trucks, bikes, cars and buses regularly jostle for space on Seattle’s streets. The rise in e-commerce and on-demand delivery has put increasing pressure on fast-growing cities like Seattle to rethink how they manage traffic…

News | May 7, 2019

New study finds Seattle is even less prepared for mega quakes than previously thought

Scientists have found that the shaking likely to be generated by a massive earthquake on the Cascadia subduction zone is worse than previously thought—and Seattle’s current building codes aren’t equipped to handle it. The study, which was presented at the 2019 Seismological Society of America Annual Meeting last month, is based on the work of…

News | August 11, 2021

New UW collaboratory to support equitable and just climate action

An interdisciplinary group of University of Washington researchers has teamed with Front and Centered to create an innovative Collaboratory to promote just and equitable climate action. The Collaboratory aims to respond to climate change impacts with attention to equitable mitigation and adaptation solutions. It will feature three linked platforms to achieve this goal through a…

News | October 10, 2019

New UW Data Collaborative seeks to bring latest computing tools and data to researchers

Imagine a researcher at work in a small, windowless “cold room” with an automatic locking door and a desktop computer with zero chance of connecting to the internet in order to protect highly restricted health and population datasets. Cold rooms offer a strict environment that keeps data safe. But in a highly collaborative institution such…

News | November 5, 2020

New UW study shows COVID-19 doesn’t spread evenly through Seattle neighborhoods

A new study published by researchers from the University of Washington and UC Irvine examines how COVID-19 spreads in different neighborhoods and it found the virus doesn’t spread evenly through a community. The study, published in September in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, factors in network exposure and demographics to simulate where and how quickly…

News | February 12, 2016

New! Urban Map Gallery

We’ve created a new urban map gallery to explore how other people and organizations are studying and visualizing data. The gallery features seven cities facing different social, economic, and geographic issues. This curation is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but rather provide insight and inspiration. Maps included track everything from sound to subway…

News | August 29, 2019

No minorities, no meat? Gig economy deepens cities’ divides

When an Indian customer of online food delivery service Zomato tweeted that he had canceled his order because it had been assigned to a non-Hindu worker, and his request for a Hindu denied, thousands weighed in. Last month’s incident was among a long series of allegations of discrimination related to religion, race, gender or sexual…

Center & Lab

Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center

The mission of the Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center is to deliver science to help fish, wildlife, water, land and people adapt to a changing climate. The goal of the center is to help safeguard the Northwest’s natural and cultural resources by providing managers and policy-makers across Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Western Montana with timely,…

News | January 19, 2024

Northwest innovators chase the dream of greener concrete

From The Seattle Times By Mike Lindblom PULLMAN — From a onetime speakeasy in North Seattle to a modern lab in the Palouse, inventors are testing recipes that make concrete less lethal to Earth’s climate. Most people understand that the world’s 1.4 billion fossil-fueled cars and trucks spew carbon dioxide, trapping heat in the atmosphere….

News | June 26, 2015

Northwest Institute for Advanced Computing: PNNL & UW presented by Thom Dunning

Presented at June 1st Urban@UW Launch Meeting

News | October 28, 2016

October Recap: Urban Transporation, Health, and Justice

October has seen a lot of research and engagement surrounding urban design, health, and transportation from University of Washington’s urban scholars and practitioners. Here at Urban@UW we’ve kicked off our Livable City Year program, reflected on our first full year of work and collaborations, and are planning for our symposium on Urban Environmental Justice in…

News | September 30, 2019

On the ground in disaster’s wake

From flood-damaged Houston to fire-ravaged Paradise, CA, Nicole Errett’s research takes her into the heart of communities trying to recover after catastrophe strikes. As a disaster researcher and lecturer in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, Errett works with communities struck by hurricanes, floods and other disasters to gather data on how disasters…

News | August 21, 2017

One-third of Seattle drivers ‘cruising’ for parking, rides, study finds

More than one-third of drivers in Seattle are either searching for parking or are ridesharing drivers waiting for ride assignments. That’s according to a study by a group of University of Washington students looking at traffic sensor data. The four students involved called this practice of searching for parking or rides “cruising.” The project used…

News | July 16, 2020

Opportunities to engage UW faculty and students to address COVID-19

In recognition of the intense needs of local governments around COVID-19 response and recovery, the LCY program has compiled a list of existing UW courses whose faculty and students are seeking to assist local communities in COVID-related projects. Most projects can start in Autumn 2020 — some as early as Summer 2020. The list of…

News | September 5, 2019

Over 4,100 earthquakes strike west of Puget Sound, but you can’t feel them

West of Puget Sound, the ground is trembling — but even if you live over there, you probably wouldn’t know it. An episodic tremor and slip (ETS) event appears to be underway, according to scientists at the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network. ETS tends to happen once every 14 months or so, when the Cascadia subduction zone gets a…

Research Beyond UW | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

P-REX

P-REX a research lab focused on environmental problems caused by urbanization, including the design, remediation, and reuse of waste landscapes worldwide. P-REX works to develop non-traditional design solutions to push the boundaries of conventional practice and incorporate resilient thinking into large-scale strategic planning & design.

News | January 7, 2020

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and UW creating app to make package delivery easier for drivers

The holidays may be over, but that means shipping and returns season has begun. Right now the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is developing a project that could potentially help us send and receive our packages sooner. The $1.5 million project is funded by the D.O.E’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s Vehicle Technologies and…

Center & Lab

Pacific Northwest Seismic Network

To monitor earthquake and volcanic activity across the Pacific Northwest, the University of Washington and the University of Oregon cooperatively operate the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN). The PNSN is sponsored by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the U.S. Department of Energy, the State of Washington, and the State of Oregon. Beginning in 1969 with…

Scholar

Paolo Calvi

Research Beyond UW | University of Pennsylvania

Penn Institute for Urban Research

The Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) is a university-wide, interdisciplinary institute at the University of Pennsylvania dedicated to urban research, education, and civic engagement. Affiliated with all 12 schools of the University of Pennsylvania and with the world of practice, Penn IUR fosters collaboration among scholars and policymakers across disciplines to address the…

Scholar

Peter Guttorp

Scholar

Phil Hurvitz

Scholar

Pierpaolo Mudu

News | July 21, 2020

Pioneering study uses traffic cameras and AI to predict future, promising to save lives and money

In an effort to prevent deaths and injuries caused by crashes between vehicles, bikes and pedestrians, the city of Bellevue, Wash., set out more than five years ago to foresee the future. The idea was to use machine learning to analyze thousands of hours of video collected by 360-degree traffic cameras already installed citywide to…

News | April 16, 2021

Planning the best route with multiple destinations is hard even for supercomputers – a new approach breaks a barrier that’s stood for nearly half a century

Originally written by Nathan Klein, PhD Student in Computer Science at the University of Washington.  Computers are good at answering questions. What’s the shortest route from my house to Area 51? Is 8,675,309 a prime number? How many teaspoons in a tablespoon? For questions like these, they’ve got you covered. There are certain innocent-sounding questions,…

News | July 24, 2015

PNNL Hosting 4th Workshop on Next-Generation Analytics for the Future Power Grid

News | October 17, 2019

Pop-up galleries and data: Visualizing the lives of homeless people and their animals

Sparked by a grant from the UW Population Health Initiative, the UW’s Center for One Health Research created a series of pop-up galleries featuring autobiographical photographs made by people experiencing homelessness with their animal companions. The first gallery was Oct. 4 in UW’s Red Square. Other pop-up gallery events took place in Occidental Square in Seattle’s Pioneer Square district; in Cal…

News | May 5, 2020

Population Health Initiative announces award of 21 COVID-19 rapid response grants

The University of Washington Population Health Initiative announced the award of approximately $350,000 in COVID-19 rapid response grants to 21 different faculty-led teams. These teams are composed of individuals representing 10 different schools and colleges. Funding was partially matched by additional school, college and departmental funds, bringing the total value of these awards to roughly $820,000. “A…

News | September 19, 2018

Poverty rates hold steady, average incomes continue to increase in Seattle area and Washington state

The share of Washingtonians living below the federal poverty threshold declined slightly from 11.3 percent to 11 percent between 2016 and 2017, according to new Census data released Thursday. While this change was not statistically significant, the 2017 poverty rate remains below the post-recession high of 14.1 percent in 2013. Washington was one of 28 states and…

Center & Lab

Program on Climate Change

The Program on Climate Change amplifies the University of Washington’s exceptional range of expertise in climate related fields. Interaction among faculty through PCC activities promotes the integration of existing observational and modeling efforts within and between individual departments, providing a powerful synthesis approach for addressing the problems of climate change. Through courses, events, and planning…

News | August 12, 2021

Project aims to better use of municipal open data, boost equity

In this month’s installment of the Innovation of the Month series, we highlight EquiTensors, a project that is reflecting on and raising awareness of applications, opportunities and potential misuses of data science and AI applied to mobility and transportation, specifically as it refers to race, equity and diversity. MetroLab’s Josh Schacht spoke with the leader of the…

News | April 25, 2019

Project Sidewalk helps users map accessibility around Seattle, other cities

About 3.6 million adults in the United States use a wheelchair to get around, according to census data. But unless you’re one of those people, you might not know how hard it is to get around your city. Now people can help map out accessibility here in Seattle. University of Washington researchers have led the development…

News | May 4, 2016

Quick Recap: A Busy April!

April saw a lot of wonderful developments here at the University of Washington, here’s a quick recap: Our first Office Hours interview with John Vidale (more coming of these soon!) UW researchers continued to explore the effects of a $15/hr minimum wage. PBS premiered their 10 Parks that Changed America program featuring our own Thaisa…

News | August 10, 2023

Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Are Pervasive in the US, Across Most Causes of Death and in Most Counties, New Study Shows

It’s been more than two years since the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared racism a public health threat, and a new study gives a stark look at just how pervasive racial and ethnic disparities are in the United States. Researchers tracked US mortality data across nearly two decades, breaking rates down by…

Scholar

Radha Poovendran

Scholar

Randy LeVeque

Center & Lab

RAPID Natural Hazards Reconnaissance Facility

The Natural Hazards Reconnaissance Facility, known as the RAPID, is part of the Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) network supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The RAPID Facility's mission is to enable transformative research by providing natural hazard and disaster researchers with the resources and support needed to collect, process, and analyze perishable…

News | January 5, 2016

Re-Imaging Urban Scholarship: Differencing the Data

Winter Quarter 2016 | HUM 597E | 1 credit, C/NC Instructor:Thaisa Way (Landscape Architecture) Meeting Dates: Friday, January 15, 12-1:20 pm (Startup Hall) Friday, January 29, 12-1:20 pm (Henry Art Gallery) Tuesday, February 2, and Wednesday, February 3 (Participation encouraged as feasible, Center for Urban Horticulture) Thursday, February 4, 9-10:20 am (eScience Institute, Physics/Astronomy Tower)…

News | May 7, 2016

Reading List for Patricia Romero Lankao Visit 5/11

In anticipation of Patricia Romero Lankao’s visit we thought you might enjoy these pieces to get a feel for her research and thinking. Water in Mexico City: What Will Climate Change Bring to Its History of Water-Related Hazards and Vulnerabilities?—This research paper delves into the history and evolution of water related risks and crises in…

News | August 31, 2021

Red-lining, race, and wealth continue to form borders between Seattle voters

There’s a lot we can glean from Seattle’s voting habits in each election, from how the city has skewed more and more progressive in the leaders it’s elected in recent years, to how conservative interests still remain present despite that fact. During the August mayoral primary, though, the candidates voters chose painted an even broader…

Center & Lab

Relational Poverty Network

The Relational Poverty Network convenes a community of scholars, working within and beyond academia, to develop conceptual frameworks, research methodologies, and pedagogies for the study of relational poverty. Launched at a historical moment of dramatic income inequality and enforced austerity in the global North, the RPN thinks across geographical boundaries to foster a transnational and…

News | April 17, 2016

Rethinking Data Science for the Social Sciences: Urban Sociology

On Wednesday, May 4th, an interdisciplinary panel will explore the intersections of data and cities. Rethinking Data Science for the Social Sciences: Urban Sociology will look at how the availability of new forms of data has transformed the way researchers may approach their work across disciplines. This panel will bring together experts from data science…

Scholar

Ricardo Gomez

Funding

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Pioneering Ideas and a Culture of Health

The goal of the Pioneering Ideas Brief Proposal funding opportunity is to explore; to look into the future and put health first as we design for changes in how we live, learn, work and play; to wade into uncharted territory in order to better understand what new trends, opportunities and breakthrough ideas can enable everyone…

Scholar

Sara Curran

Scholar

Sarah Elwood

Scholar

Sarah Stone

News | August 6, 2018

Sea-level rise report contains best projections yet for Washington’s coasts

One certainty under climate change is that global ocean levels are rising. A new report led by Washington Sea Grant and the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group provides the clearest picture yet of what to expect in Washington state. The report includes projections for more than 150 different sites along the Washington coastline, from…

News | July 30, 2020

Searching for climate and inequity hot spots, by car

Fifteen cars with blue snorkels jutting up from their passenger windows drove around King County on Monday, the hottest day the Seattle area has seen in 2020. Volunteer drivers crisscrossed roads from Shoreline to Enumclaw. Their odd window attachments were used to record temperature and humidity measurements every second. Shortly after sunrise, when the city’s…

News | January 25, 2019

Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project Launches Newly Designed Website

The Seattle Civil Rights & Labor History Project currently records slightly more than 31,000 page views every month, 372,000 in the past year. And now, thanks to a new, mobile-friendly design, pages are more readable and can be scaled to cell phones and smaller devices, which will help bring more traffic to the project and encourage users…

Funding

Seattle Foundation

Few regions in the world can match Seattle’s current growth and prosperity. But accompanying our good fortune are great challenges, including the widening disparities between rich and poor. Such inequities weaken the vibrancy of our community. Philanthropy can—and must—step in. Using our philanthropic expertise, deep roots in the community and network of partners, Seattle Foundation…

News | February 26, 2016

Seattle mayor signs new open data policy that makes city information more accessible

Seattle Mayor Ed Murray today signed an executive order that instructs city departments to make their data more accessible to the public. The new open data policy was developed by city IT staff with help from the University of Washington and the Sunlight Foundation to help make data about everything from homelessness to local parks…

News | August 2, 2018

Seattle pilot project planting trees that can adapt to global warming

Seattle City Light and the Mountains to Sound Greenway are planting native trees from warmer climates on 154 acres along Stossel Creek. If Western Washington’s climate warms up in the next half-century, could our trees stand it? As an experiment, Seattle City Light and the Mountains to Sound Greenway have embarked on a test to…

News | March 1, 2021

Seattle will use a UW-developed mapping tool to guide equitable vaccine distribution

As it strives to improve equitable vaccine distribution, the city of Seattle will use a new mapping tool to help it site future mobile and pop-up clinics and, eventually, mass vaccination sites. The map, developed by the University of Washington, lets the city compare, by ZIP code and census tract, communities’ COVID-19 positivity rates and…

Map | Seattle

Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development GIS

​This interactive GIS map published by Seattle’s Department of Planning and Development makes essential GIS layers easily accessible. A few of the base layers include: building outlines, contours, parcels, pavement edges, and tree canopy cover. Zoning and environmentally critical areas are also highlighted, including layers for areas that are: flood prone, susceptible liquefaction, wetlands, steep…

News | February 28, 2019

Seattle’s minimum-wage hikes increased childcare facilities’ labor costs but not supermarket prices, new UW studies find

Jennifer Otten, Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health Services, was lead author on a study that found that childcare facilities’ labor costs increased after the wage hikes. She looked at payroll data from 2014 and 2016 for about 200 businesses, surveyed 41 childcare directors three times, and interviewed 15 directors. Otten found that more than half…

News | November 7, 2019

Seattle’s next traffic challenge: Thousands of tunnel drivers will switch to city streets when tolls start Nov. 9

Whether you drive Highway 99 or not, the tunnel tolls starting Nov. 9 will disrupt your travel in downtown Seattle through higher costs, slower trips or more aggravation. That’s because thousands of toll-dodging motorists will crowd city streets, rather than pay for a 2-mile tunnel drive between Sodo and South Lake Union. State officials warn as…

Scholar

Seema Clifasefi

News | August 28, 2019

Seismic ‘slow-slip’ event happening now, but will it increase the chance of an earthquake?

Seismologists are monitoring a seismic event that they say is happening right now. It’s called a “slow-slip” event. According to the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network at the University of Washington, this event happens about every 14 months. PNSN has been tracking it for about two decades, ever since the Nisqually earthquake. Think of Earth as…

News | July 13, 2018

Self-driving bikes: Seattle’s next transit revolution?

What does your future commute look like? Will you be taking a self-driving car, a solo-wheel, the hyperloop? What about … a self-driving bike? In this episode of ReInventors, Crosscut looks at how Professor Tyler Folsom and his students at University of Washington Bothell are spearheading a grassroots effort to test and develop lighter, more affordable, personal…

News | May 28, 2019

Self-driving cars: Heaven or hell?

Self-driving vehicles are expected to significantly change the way people move between cities and suburban neighborhoods in Washington state, but it is yet to be seen whether those will be positive changes for congestion and the environment. Fully-automated vehicles could allow large fleets of company vehicles to whisk people around city centers where space for…

Research Beyond UW | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Senseable City Lab

The real-time city is real! As layers of networks and digital information blanket urban space, new approaches to the study of the built environment are emerging. The way we describe and understand cities is being radically transformed—as are the tools we use to design them. The mission of the Senseable City Laboratory—a research initiative at…

Scholar

Shawn Stankewich

Scholar

Shayan Oveis Gharan

News | September 13, 2024

Shhh! The orcas can’t hear their dinner

Reported by John Ryan for KUOW/NPR When an orca hunts salmon, it clicks and buzzes. It sends a beam of sounds from its nasal passages into the murky depths in hopes that the sound waves will bounce back and reveal the location of its next nutritious meal. Those hopes are often dashed when noise from…

News | July 16, 2024

SPARK Grant Recipients Win Big with a Social Justice Jacket

Reported by Kate Landis for Urban@UW What if a denim jacket could tell the stories of people impacted by housing inequality across the country? Resistive Threads, a project that was awarded a Urban@UW SPARK grant in 2023, was recently awarded a Honorable Mention at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference,…

News | October 25, 2022

Sparking Climate Connections – UW Lightning Talks on Climate Change

Addressing our climate crisis can’t be done alone; this all-hands-on-deck moment requires as many voices, disciplines and perspectives as possible to forge connections that will inspire collective action. Urban@UW and the EarthLab Advisory Board of Deans invite you to participate in an exciting two-part event bringing together the rich variety of climate change related research…

Scholar

Steve Tanimoto

Scholar

Steven Walters

News | March 26, 2021

Street smarts: University of Washington researchers develop new roadside device to improve traffic safety, mobility and infrastructure management

“Mobile Unit for Sensing Traffic” is a next generation Internet of Things device The rise in connected and autonomous vehicles and other transportation innovations have transformed municipalities into smart cities and improved the communication of roadway conditions to drivers. These cutting-edge technologies are part of a growing movement toward intelligent transportation systems (ITS), a transportation…

News | March 21, 2019

Study points to grocery store gap, inequity in access to healthy foods in the Seattle area

Seattle neighborhoods that are lower income or that have more Black or Hispanic residents have fewer options for healthy foods, more fast food and longer travel times to stores that sell produce, according to a new study by the University of Washington School of Public Health and Public Health – Seattle & King County, in Washington. The…

News | April 7, 2020

Study synthesizes what climate change means for Northwest wildfires

Recent years have brought unusually large and damaging wildfires to the Pacific Northwest – from the Carlton Complex Fire in 2014 that was the largest in Washington’s history, to the 2017 fire season in Oregon, to the 2018 Maple Fire, when normally sodden rainforests on the Olympic Peninsula were ablaze. Many people have wondered what this means for our…

Center & Lab

Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center

The Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center (SCTL) is headed by Anne Goodchild and Barb Ivanov and investigates the logistics and infrastructures for local and global supply chains critical to the economics and well-being of urban systems world-wide. The SCTL Center is a world leader in supply chain, transportation and logistics research and education serving…

Center & Lab

Sustainable Transportation Lab

In the Sustainable Transportation Lab, we study how to make our transportation system more economically viable, environmentally benign, while ensuring access to opportunities for all.

Scholar

Suzanne Davies Withers

News | August 17, 2020

Systemic racism has consequences for all life in cities

Social inequalities, specifically racism and classism, are impacting the biodiversity, evolutionary shifts, and ecological health of plants and animals in our cities. That’s the main finding of a review paper led by the University of Washington, with co-authors at the University of California, Berkeley, and University of Michigan, which examined more than 170 published studies and analyzed…

News | April 7, 2021

Taskar Center researchers offer a roadmap for more robust modeling of pedestrian mobility on a city-wide scale

Many approaches to measuring and supporting city-wide mobility lack the level of detail required to truly understand how pedestrians navigate the urban landscape, not to mention the quality of their journey. Transit apps can direct someone to the nearest bus stop, but they may not account for obstacles or terrain on the way to their…

Center & Lab

Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA)

The Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington Information School explores the design, use, and effects of information and communication technologies in communities facing social and economic challenges. With experience in over 50 countries, TASCHA brings together a multidisciplinary network of researchers, practitioners, and policy experts to advance knowledge, create public…

News | September 26, 2016

The Annie E. Casey Foundation to Support MetroLab Network’s Big Data + Human Services Lab

The Annie E. Casey Foundation, which aims to improve delivery of human services to children and families by focusing on big data solutions with cities, countries, and universities, will support MetroLab Network’s Big Data + Human Services Lab. MetroLab Network is pleased to announce that the Annie E. Casey Foundation will be supporting the formation…

Research Beyond UW | Case Western Reserve University

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development

The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development (the Poverty Center) works to inform public policy and program planning through data and analysis to address urban poverty, its causes, and its impact on communities and their residents. Since our founding in 1988, our mission has broadened to understand and address poverty by delving into its…

News | May 14, 2020

The cost of fast and free shipping

Would deliveries dropped off to everyone pollute less than all of us driving to stores? Yes, in principle, but probably not in practice. Anne Goodchild, founding director of the Supply Chain Transportation and Logistics Center at the University of Washington, has found that consolidating deliveries in one area produces fewer climate-harming emissions than the same people driving back…

News | October 24, 2019

The potential of green urban planning for mental health

Neighborhood architects, engineers, and policymakers look at all kinds of factors and needs when building a city, including transportation links, housing, aesthetics, amenities, and so forth. Natural spaces are also considered, for their aesthetic, recreational, and ecological benefits. A study published in July in Science Advances outlines a model that will let policymakers see nature’s impacts on…

Center & Lab

The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology

The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT) at the University of Washington Department of Computer Science & Engineering focuses on developing and deploying technologies that will increase independence and improve quality of life for individuals with motor and speech impairments. We aim to enhance access to everyday technologies through the development of user-focused novel interfaces,…

Research Beyond UW | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Urban Risk Lab

The Urban Risk Lab at MIT develops methods and technologies to embed risk reduction and preparedness into the design of cities and regions to increase the resilience of local communities. Operating at the intersection of ecology and infrastructure, rural and urban, research and action; the Urban Risk Lab is an interdisciplinary organization of researchers and…

Map

The Waterlines Project

We examine the history of Seattle through a focus on its shorelines: the natural and human forces that have shaped them, the ways they have been used and thought about by the people who have lived here, and how this historic understanding might influence urban-development decisions being made today.

News | July 18, 2017

There’s a map for that

If you own a cell phone or a mobile device you’re likely creating data that could be mapped. “When you add a Yelp review or geotag a tweet you’re actually volunteering geographic information, you are mapping,” said UW Tacoma Assistant Professor Britta Ricker. Most of us use maps to determine our location, to find out…

News | August 7, 2019

This startup wants to tame the chaos of city street parking

From the summer haze, and the cars and Ubers and bicycles and scooters and cement trucks and delivery vans and city buses that operate within it, emerges a white truck, the words “Belair Foods” and the image of a carrot plastered on its side. As a small crowd watches, the truck pulls into a parking spot….

Scholar

Tim Thomas

News | August 1, 2019

To help the environment, should you shop in-store or online?

Is cyber-shopping terrible for the environment?  Some say yes, with all those trucks heading out into suburbia to deliver your latest gadget, fashion garment or book. But online retailers insist theirs is the greener delivery route — much better than you driving to the store. So, who is right? And are there even better ways? This…

Scholar

Tomás Méndez Echenagucia

News | May 18, 2020

Traffic in Seattle area slowly returning

If you’ve left home, you’ve probably noticed. A few more people are on the roads. “We are seeing traffic slowly start to come back,” said Bob Pishue, transportation analyst for the traffic data company INRIX. Pishue said as the COVID-19 shutdown began, traffic in the Seattle area dropped 54%. It’s now rebounded a bit to…

Scholar

Tyler H. McCormick

News | May 25, 2022

U.S. cities are backing off banning facial recognition as crime rises

Facial recognition is making a comeback in the United States as bans to thwart the technology and curb racial bias in policing come under threat amid a surge in crime and increased lobbying from developers. Virginia in July will eliminate its prohibition on local police use of facial recognition a year after approving it, and…

Research Beyond UW | University of Chicago

UChicago Urban Labs

The University of Chicago's Urban Labs comprises 5 units: Crime Lab, Education Lab, Energy & Environment Lab, Health Lab, and Poverty Lab. Working in partnership with policy makers and practitioners worldwide, Urban Labs help evaluate and implement the most effective urban policies and solutions around the world, bringing improvements to people's lives in real time.…

News | August 5, 2016

Uneven: Mobility, Sidewalks, and Maps (including a map-a-thon!)

Much has been said about sidewalks as theaters of urban life. Productive democratic friction between strangers is one of the hallmarks of good city building, yet this vision of a grandly equitable platform for urban life is not without flaws. Sidewalks may appear to be benign slabs of concrete or brick, but as platforms for…

News | February 24, 2017

Universities establish joint center to use data for social good in Cascadia region

In an expansion of regional cooperation, the University of British Columbia and the University of Washington today announced the establishment of the Cascadia Urban Analytics Cooperative to use data to help cities and communities address challenges from traffic to homelessness. The largest industry-funded research partnership between UBC and the UW, the collaborative will bring faculty,…

Center & Lab

University of Washington Botanic Gardens

The University of Washington Botanic Gardens has two sites: the Washington Park Arboretum and the Center for Urban Horticulture. Our mission is sustaining managed to natural ecosystems and the human spirit through plant research, display, and education. The 230-acre Arboretum includes a vibrant collection of more than 40,000 plants from around the world with trails…

News | April 15, 2019

University of Washington researchers want to help Uber and Lyft protect data and share it with cities

Cities where Uber and Lyft operate have a data problem. The University of Washington wants to provide the solution. Companies such as Uber and Lyft are sitting on mounds of valuable data about where and when riders move around cities. Transportation officials are eager to get their hands on that information but the companies have…

News | October 7, 2020

University of Washington studies future of urban package delivery with lockers and street sensors

Fed up with porch pirates snatching your packages? Missed yet another delivery that requires a signature because you couldn’t hear the delivery person knock over your umpteenth video meeting of the day? Property manager at your apartment or condo building sending yet another nagging note to pick up packages because the mailroom is full? The…

News | June 26, 2015

Urban Data Science @ UW presented by Bill Howe

Presented at June 1st Urban@UW Launch Meeting

Map | São Paulo

Urban data visualization lab

We design interactive experiences, data analysis, visualization, maps, and cartography, focusing on Brazil and the Amazon.

Degree Program

Urban Design and Planning (Minor, Cert, MUP, dual MLA-MUP, PhD)

Our core mission is to develop a community of inquiry, learning, and practice that helps urban regions to become more livable, just, economically effective, and environmentally sound through a democratic process of urban design and planning.

News | December 12, 2018

Urban Ecologist/Superhero

UW Tacoma Assistant Professor Christopher Schell is a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as evidenced by the Black Panther coffee cup and Black Panther bobble head on his desk. Schell is a scientist, not a superhero; but if he were to assume a secret identity he might be dubbed, “Coyote.” Schell is an urban…

Center & Lab

Urban Ecology Research Lab

The Urban Ecology Research Laboratory (UERL) is an interdisciplinary team of UW researchers and Ph.D. students studying cities as urban ecosystems. The lab studies urban landscapes as hybrid phenomena that emerge from the interactions between human and ecological processes, and the interactions between urban development and ecosystem dynamics. Specific areas of research include: complexity and…

Center & Lab

Urban Freight Lab

The Urban Freight Lab (UFL) brings together transportation engineers, urban planners, retailers, freight carriers, technology companies supporting transportation logistics, and multifamily and commercial developers and operators. The UFL’s Final 50 Feet Research Program analyzes processes, develops potential solutions, and pilot tests operational improvements in the final leg of the urban goods delivery system. The final…

News | May 30, 2023

Urban Freight Lab Awarded $2M Federal Grant for Curb Digitization

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Strengthening Mobility and Revolutionizing Transportation (SMART) program has awarded a $2 million grant to a cross-sectoral team comprised of UW’s UPUrban Freight Lab and Open Mobility Foundation, and led by the Seattle Department of Transportation. The award will support implementing data-driven curb space management initiatives to improve access to curb…

News | November 21, 2018

Urban Freight Lab will help UPS evaluate its new e-bike delivery service in Seattle

Seattle is one of the most congested cities in America, in part due to delivery trucks taking up space on crowded streets. One solution could be for companies to make deliveries using bicycles instead. UPS announced today that it will be pilot-testing deliveries with cargo e-bikes in downtown Seattle. This test is expected to last a…

News | June 26, 2015

Urban Land Teleconnections by Luke Bergmann

Presented at June 1st Urban@UW Launch Meeting

Research Beyond UW | University of Illinois

Urban Research Lab

An ongoing Intelligent Cities project, URL: Urban Research Lab explores the implications of emerging technologies and distributed computing for urban infrastructure. While infrastructure supports many different human activities, the lab studies the potential of ubiquitous and context-aware computing, defined as “media of communication functionally bound to a location”---and, more specifically, of intelligent infrastructure---adaptive systems used…

News | March 28, 2018

Urban Scholar Highlight: Josephine Ensign

Josephine Ensign is a Professor in University of Washington’s School of Nursing and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies, Affiliate Faculty in UW’s Certificate Program in Public Scholarship, and coordinator of Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative’s Doorway Project—which is hosting a popup cafe in honor of Earth Day on April 22!…

News | April 23, 2018

Urban Scholar Highlight: Margaret O’Mara

Margaret O’Mara is a Professor in the Department of History and a founding member of Urban@UW. She writes and teaches about the urban, political, and economic history of the modern United States. What led you to your current research interests? I’ve always been interested in how politics and government work with business and economics, and…

News | August 28, 2017

Urban Scholar Highlight: Scott Allard

Scott W. Allard is a Professor of Public Affairs at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance. Allard is also on the executive committee of the West Coast Poverty Center and Urban@UW, and an affiliate of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology. We sat down with him to discuss his work at…

Research Beyond UW | Imperial College London

Urban Systems Lab

Cities are central to economic growth and social activity with a growing share of the global population. Increasingly, the need of cities to improve performance in services and infrastructure is creating not only technical, social, and business challenges, but also opportunities as new niches are opened on the basis of new technology and a better…

Research Beyond UW | Harvard University

Urban Theory Lab

In the early 1970s, Henri Lefebvre put forward the radical hypothesis of the complete urbanization of society. This required, in his view, a radical shift from the analysis of urban form to the investigation of urbanization processes. The Urban Theory Lab builds upon Lefebvre’s approach to investigate emergent sociospatial formations under early twenty-first century capitalism.…

Research Beyond UW | Durham University

Urban Worlds

Urban Worlds is a research cluster that was formed in 2009 to reflect the department’s international standing in cutting-edge urban research. Its purpose is to provide a forum that brings together existing urban research within the department and to generate new lines of inquiry. The urban geographical research in the department aims to understand the…

News | May 24, 2021

Urban@UW Announces Another Round of Funding Through Research Spark Grants

Urban@UW is excited to be able to provide another cycle of funding for small-scale, new or emergent projects in urban systems. Our Urban@UW Research Spark Grants RFP is intended to catalyze new ideas, connections, and next steps for UW faculty and research staff undertaking cross-disciplinary and community-engaged urban scholarship. The application window opens June 14,…

News | February 19, 2020

Urban@UW announces Research Spark Grants

UPDATE: In light of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on academic and research activities, Urban@UW has made the difficult decision to postpone our Spark Grants program. In addition to recognizing the varied strains and hardship our community is experiencing, we want to ensure that new collaborations launch in a context that promotes meeting and…

News | November 26, 2024

Urban@UW is working toward a future where cities are hubs of innovation, inclusivity, & sustainability.

Research-to-Action Teams 2023-2024 In April of 2023 the teams selected for the inaugural cohort of the Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC) were announced. These groups combine the research capabilities of University of Washington scholars with frontline leaders embedded in their communities and government officials who can codify change.  The Research-to-Action Collaboratory provides the teams with…

News | October 2, 2024

Urban@UW Presents at Climate Week NYC

Last week Urban@UW’s Director Rachel Berney and Program Manager Kate Landis presented on the Research to Action Collaboratory at Climate Week NYC, as a guest of the New York Climate Exchange. Leaders from all sectors met on Governors Island, just south of Manhattan, to discuss climate adaptations, potential partnerships, and new technology in carbon reduction….

News | November 26, 2024

Urban@UW unites research, community insight, and policy to drive innovation for resilient and equitable cities.

Inclusive Data-Driven Innovation for the Future of Cities Urban@UW extends the understanding of cities—from people, buildings, infrastructure, and energy to economics, policy, culture, art, and nature—beyond individual topics to dynamically interdependent systems, so that we can holistically design and steward vibrant and welcoming cities in which future generations will thrive. In partnership with the College…

News |

Urban@UW’s Research to Action Collaboratory provides funding, facilitation, & tools to empower cross-disciplinary teams to solve urban problems

About the RAC The Research to Action Collaboratory serves as a catalyst for research teams, building their transformational collaborative capacity to address today’s most pressing urban challenges. The RAC combines financial support, thought partnership, and skill-building to increase the capacity of scholars, community stakeholders, and the UW for impactful, collaborative research. Today’s most pressing problems—from…

News | January 26, 2017

Urbanalytics wants to use data to better your city

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…

News | March 2, 2016

UW aids city of Seattle on open data initiative

<allenges.< p=””></allenges.<>   If people find it easier to get data from the city of Seattle going forward, they can in part thank the University of Washington. A team of UW faculty members and doctoral students spent the past six months working with the city on a new open data policy unveiled last week by…

News | May 31, 2018

UW CoMotion program encourages entreprenurial activity in Spokane

In Seattle, startup companies and entrepreneurship are viewed as old hat. University of Washington medical researchers, for example, have long worked to turn ideas into products and services. In Spokane, that entrepreneurial spirit is still in the development phase. While Spokane does have some venture capital, this is not yet a place known as a…

News | October 25, 2016

UW EE Faculty to Tackle Urban Mobility

For urban roadways, traffic-choked streets have become synonymous with the weekday commute. Over the decades, strategic conversations between city officials, engineers and policy makers have sought to lessen congestion and provide increased transportation options. However, as cities continue to develop and populations increase, the results of years of conversation cannot materialize fast enough. On the…

News | October 27, 2015

UW initiative aims to tackle city, region’s most pressing urban issues

When Thaisa Way put a call out last spring to see if University of Washington faculty members working on urban issues wanted to join forces, she wasn’t sure what the response would be. “There were a lot of people who said, ‘You’re not going to get anyone to show up,‘” said Way, a UW associate…

Center & Lab

UW Mesoscale Analysis and Forecasting Group

Sponsored by the Northwest Modeling Consortium, we have run the MM5 and now WRF mesoscale models operationally at high resolution since 1995. Currently, the WRF is run at 36 km horizontal resolution over the eastern Pacific, 12 km over the Pacific Northwest, 4 km over Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and 1.3 km over Washington, northern…

News | September 14, 2015

UW Partners with Seattle for Smart Cities Initiative

UW Today is reporting that, as part of a new White House Smart Cities Initiative called The MetroLab Network, the University of Washington has partnered with the City of Seattle in joining “a new national network of university-city partnerships that will work on ‘smart city’ solutions.” “Great universities can’t succeed without great cities,” said UW…

News | June 3, 2022

UW Ph.D. students hold symposium on the role of technology in urban environments into the future

Originally written by Mingming Cai, Ana Costa, Kristin Potterton & Salman Rashdi.  On May 20th, students in University of Washington’s Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Urban Design and Planning and Ph.D. Program in the Built Environment hosted the virtual 2022 annual research symposium. Based on the theme, Pathways toward the future: Assessing the digital dimensions of…

Center & Lab

UW Remote Sensing & Geospatial Analysis Laboratory

RSGAL’s research goal is to understand multiscale and multidimensional dynamics of landscape change through the application of remote sensing, GIS and geospatial tools. The lab develops tools necessary to analyze hyper-resolution remotely sensed data by exploiting spatial, temporal and spectral capabilities of the data. RSGAL work focuses on the application of high spatial resolution remote…

News | May 26, 2020

UW research team seeks campus input with survey on coronavirus mobility impacts

Three professors are teaming up for a study of the mobility impacts of the coronavirus — and they are inviting UW faculty, staff and students to complete a short online survey to assist the research. The research is being conducted by Anne Vernez Moudon, professor emerita of urban design and planning in the College of Built Environments, with Jeff…

News | October 20, 2020

UW researchers drive around Seattle to document pandemic impact

So much has changed since the start of the pandemic, and University of Washington researchers are hoping to keep track of all of those changes by driving around and capturing snapshots of Seattle. “It’s a really unique dataset that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world,” said Joe Wartman, co-researcher and UW professor of civil…

News | October 6, 2020

UW researchers driving around Seattle to track COVID-19 response over time

As the city of Seattle shut down in March 2020 to try to slow the spread of COVID-19, a group of University of Washington researchers got to work. The team developed a project that scans the streets every few weeks to document what’s happening around the city — answering questions such as: Are people outside?…

News | August 29, 2017

UW student Jessica Hamilton receives 2017 ASLA student honor award

Jessica Hamilton, a recent graduate of UW Department of Landscape Architecture, received the prestigious American Society of Landscape Architects Student Honor Award in the Communications Category for the Tactile MapTile project: an innovative interdisciplinary work combining big data, additive manufacturing, and pedestrian-centric landscape architecture. The project is a collaboration between the Taskar Center for Accessible…

News | August 22, 2016

UW student project taps ORCA cards, unlocks data trove

Students in a UW summer fellowship program called Data Science for Social Good work to coax valuable information from overlooked data, and one potential upshot might be improved bus service. If you’re a regular bus rider, you might think that the area’s transit agencies use the information from your ORCA card to learn which buses…

News | June 17, 2015

UW Students put GIS Skills to Use on Social Justice Projects

Geography Students in Professor Sarah Elwood’s GIS Workshop course are applying lessons learned to projects with local nonprofits.

News | April 8, 2019

UW study on methane emissions offers clues to Cascadia Subduction Zone

A University of Washington study that mapped methane gas emissions off the Washington coast provides new clues as to how the Cascadia Subduction Zone works. The study, which was published last month in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, documented 1,778 methane bubble plumes grouped in 491 clusters off the Washington coast. The presence of…

News | June 17, 2015

UW team “Hackcessible” wins Hack The Commute Competition

UW team wins City of Seattle sponsored Hack the Commute with a web-based map that helps those Hackcessible Access Map (in beta) >

News | April 10, 2019

UW wins top team, individual prizes in national forecasting contest, now enters tournament round

The University of Washington has won a national competition in which colleges vie to deliver the most accurate daily forecast for cities across the country. A UW student also developed a machine-learning model that for the first time delivered a more accurate forecast than any human competitor. In results announced this week, the UW team…

News | November 28, 2016

UW, City of Seattle and MetroLab Network to host workshop on big data and human services

On January 17, 2017 the 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. Work will continue after the meeting as members focus on opportunities for collaborative research, and scalable projects. The workshop…

News | March 15, 2024

UW’s College of Built Environments Professor Faces an Electrifying Challenge

Reported by Jen Moss for the University of Washington’ College of Built Environments King County Metro (Metro), which serves a daily average of over 250,000 riders across more than 203 square miles of the county, has an emissions challenge. Their zero-carbon emissions target, set by the King County Council, must be met by 2035. This…

News | December 18, 2015

UW/Seattle MetroLab Partnership

Have you been wondering what exactly is going to happen with the Seattle / UW partnership under the MetroLab initiative? The three “named” projects from Seattle will be the Array of Things partnership with Chicago, Private data sharing with the Tech Policy Lab, and a smart grid study of the relationship between temperature and power…

News | October 4, 2022

WA Faces an Epidemic of Inaccessible Sidewalks

Across Washington lies a glut of impassable sidewalks for people with disabilities. At thousands of intersections, sidewalks end without a ramp to the street. Where there are ramps, a Seattle Times review of more than 30 cities’ and counties’ assessments of their roads and sidewalks found no jurisdiction where even 50% comply with the Americans with…

News | October 15, 2020

Washington Center for Real Estate Research develops new Housing Market Data Toolkit

During the 2019 legislative session, affordable housing and housing supply issues became a primary issue of concern. Inward population migration, economic growth and shortage of new housing supply had led to rapidly rising house prices and rents for the past few years. In that context, local governments were required to develop Housing Action Plans to…

Center & Lab

Washington Institute for the Study of Inequality and Race (WISIR)

The Washington Institute for the Study of Inequality and Race (WISIR) is an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to bringing the tools of critical theory and contemporary social science to the analysis of social, economic, and political inequality along lines of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class. The center seeks to enhance public understanding of these…

Center & Lab

Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC)

The Washington State Transportation Center (TRAC) is a cooperative, interdisciplinary transportation research agency. Its members, Washington State University (WSU), the University of Washington (UW), and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), formed TRAC in 1983 to coordinate transportation research efforts—both state and commercial, public and private—and to develop research opportunities both nationally and locally.…

News | December 4, 2015

Weekly Recap 11/30 – 12/4

In case you’ve been sleeping for the past week, here are some of the urban news highlights: #COP21 Kicked off in Paris and cities took center stage Newsweek Article > Environmental Historian Christof Mauch came to UW and gave a lecture: ‘How Vulnerable Is Our World? Environmental Sustainability and Lessons from the Past’ Seattle Times…

News | December 18, 2015

Weekly Recap 12/12-12/18

A few of the highlights in Urban news for the past week: 195 nations reached a landmark accord that will, for the first time, commit nearly every country to lowering planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions to help stave off the most drastic effects of climate change http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/13/world/europe/climate-change-accord-paris.html UW announces new Master of Science in Data Science…

News | August 7, 2017

What city ants can teach us about species evolution and climate change

Acorn ants are tiny. They’re not the ants you’d notice marching across your kitchen or swarming around sidewalk cracks, but the species is common across eastern North America. In particular, acorn ants live anywhere you find oak or hickory trees: both in forests and in the hearts of cities. That’s why they’re so interesting to…

News | May 12, 2020

What do the Airbnb, Lyft, and Uber layoffs mean for Seattle engineering outposts?

Silicon Valley engineering outposts have added an interesting dynamic to Seattle’s burgeoning tech community over the past 15 years. More than 125 of these centers now operate from Bellevue to Belltown, representing thousands of tech workers at companies such as Apple, eBay, HBO, Oracle and Sonos, according to GeekWire data. But in the era of COVID-19…

News | October 8, 2020

Where you live could influence your COVID-19 risk

King County neighborhoods that are poorer and have higher levels of air pollution also tend to have higher rates of COVID-19 cases, according to new research by the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences (DEOHS) and collaborators. These neighborhoods—mainly clustered in South King County—also have lower COVID-19 testing rates than the county average,…

News | August 24, 2017

Why Seattle is poised to be a leader in ‘smart city’ technology and regulations

New technology is helping local government create “smarter” cities in a variety of ways, from adaptive traffic lights to open data platforms to advanced utility meters. But with innovation comes complication. Privacy, security, and equality challenges are inevitable when the public sector tries to implement technology with the help of private companies. This was the…

News | June 25, 2024

Why social media rarely leads to constructive political action

Written by Stefan Milne for UW News. While social media platforms are rife with problems — from harassment to misinformation — many argue that the platforms also nurture political movements, such as the Arab Spring and #MeToo. But in her new book “Log Off: Why Posting and Politics (Almost) Never Mix,” Katherine Cross, a University…

News | May 7, 2020

Will coronavirus kill the electric scooter?

The electric scooter is, depending on your point of view, a dangerous blight of the sidewalk or a marvelous new species of transit that is perfect for the zero-emissions future city. So it’s a cause for celebration — or mourning — that the novel coronavirus is dealing the world’s networks of shared scooters a heavy…

News | July 14, 2020

Will the pandemic create a move back to the suburbs?

We’re starting to get an understanding of just how much tax revenue the state is losing because of the pandemic. The latest numbers from the state Department of Transportation are staggering. The pandemic has seen a cratering of traffic, not only on the roads, but on the ferries, at the Department of Licensing, and at…

News | July 26, 2024

With $50M infusion, UW to launch security center to fight research theft

Reported by Emerson Drewes for the Seattle Times The University of Washington will receive a $50 million investment over five years from the United States National Science Foundation to establish a national center for research security. Universities, including those in Washington, have been victims of cyberattacks and hacks in attempts to access, download, alter or…

News | April 14, 2020

With more people staying home, Washington skies are cleaner

Since the coronavirus pandemic sent Washingtonians indoors to help flatten the curve of infection, Seattleites who open a window or venture outside for socially distanced nature therapy swear something’s different in the air. “It’s for sure much cleaner,” says lifelong Seattle resident Cathryn Stenson, who has been walking through nearby parks more than normal to take…

News | February 1, 2017

Working with community to tackle homelessness

Seattle’s rapid rise in homelessness, coinciding with increasing costs in housing and living, have brought significant challenges to economically vulnerable populations in the Puget Sound. In spite of a sense of urgency regionally and in many areas of the country, sufficient resources, effective systemic fixes and broad support still have not come together to end…

Events

Working with Vulnerable Populations for Greater Community Resilience

Scholar

Xu Chen

Scholar

Xuegang (Jeff) Ban

Scholar

Yinhai Wang

News | March 27, 2019

You can now see all transit in Seattle on one map, at the same time

Ever wanted to see every bus, ferry, street car and light rail line operating in Seattle and throughout the greater Puget Sound region on one map at the same time? Kona Farry, a junior at the University of Washington originally from Marysville, did — so he did something about it. “It occurred to me that with all of…

Scholar

Youngjun Choe

Scholar

Zack W. Almquist

News | April 14, 2020

Zillow and Redfin’s guesswork has changed how we see prices

In 2016, Spencer Rascoff sold one of his homes, a Madison Park three-story, for $1.05 million. Days later, Seattle-based Zillow estimated the value of that house at $1.75 million. Here’s the real estate rub: Rascoff was Zillow’s CEO. If an extreme example of an errant “zestimate,” the PR debacle points to a curiosity. Zillow and Redfin…