Imagine revolutionizing the renewable energy market with the silica gel packets you find in shoeboxes and snack bags. The research team behind Membrion is working to do just that. Developed by chemical engineering researchers Greg Newbloom (PhD ’14) and Weyerhaeuser Endowed Associate Professor Lilo Pozzo, the Membrion technology seeks to innovate battery storage with a lower cost, improved battery membrane that uses silica gel. And, the team says, they couldn’t be doing it without the support of partners on and off campus committed to advancing alternative energy research, innovation and commercialization.
News
July 19, 2017 | College of Engineering
Building a better battery
July 17, 2017 | UW Today
Material from shellfish delivers a boost to bioassays and medical tests
UW scientists have discovered a simple way to raise the accuracy of diagnostic tests for medicine and common assays for laboratory research. By adding polydopamine — a material that was first isolated from shellfish — to these tests at a key step, the team could increase the sensitivity of these common bioassays by as many as 100 to 1,000 times.
July 11, 2017 | UW Today
University of Washington researchers have developed new algorithms that solve a thorny challenge in the field of computer vision: turning audio clips into a realistic, lip-synced video of the person speaking those words.
July 6, 2017
UW CEE welcomes Laura Lowes, the William M. and Marilyn M. Conner Professor, as the new department chair. Lowes starts her new position in September.
July 5, 2017 | UW Today
UW engineers have designed the first battery-free cellphone that can send and receive calls using only a few microwatts of power.
June 27, 2017 | UW Today
Essential tremor, a movement disorder characterized by involuntary shaking during intentional movement, can be treated by implanting an electrode in the brain for deep brain stimulation (DBS). In the current method for DBS, the implanted electrode is constantly “on” even when a patient doesn’t need it, which wastes battery life. UW researchers at the Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering have developed a closed-loop system for DBS that is on only when the patient needs it. This system saves battery life and lengthens the amount of time a patient can go between surgical procedures to replace the battery.
June 26, 2017 | Department of Mechanical Engineering
The Engineering Innovation in Health (EIH) program is transforming education in health technology design and entrepreneurship by providing a framework for engineering students and faculty to partner with clinicians and develop affordable solutions to today’s pressing health needs. Highlighted are five projects that originated through EIH and are still building momentum.
June 26, 2017
Jihui Yang, the Kyocera Professor in MSE, will take on the position of Chair of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, starting September 1, 2017. Jihui has provided leadership in the department as chair of the undergraduate committee, and brings experience in both academia and industry that will position the department to grow and excel in the coming years.
June 26, 2017 | UW Today
A versatile light-sheet microscope, developed by a UW team including ME associate professor Jonathan Liu, can provide surgeons with real-time pathology data to guide cancer-removal surgeries and can also non-destructively examine tumor biopsies in 3-D. The microscope provides surgeons with proof that they have removed all cancerous tissue, preventing the need for further surgeries to remove cancerous cells that were missed during the initial procedure.
June 8, 2017 | UW Today
WideOpen is a new open-source tool to help advance open science by automatically detecting datasets that are overdue for publication. Its use on the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO) led to the dramatic drop of overdue datasets, with 400 datasets released within the first week.
June 7, 2017 | UW Today
A team led by Xiaodong Xu, a UW professor in MSE and a member of the UW's Clean Energy Institute, and researchers at MIT has for the first time discovered magnetism in the 2-D world of monolayers, or materials that are formed by a single atomic layer. The findings, published June 8 in the journal Nature, demonstrate that magnetic properties can exist even in the 2-D realm — opening a world of potential applications. Magnetic materials form the basis of technologies that include sensing and hard-disk data storage. Researchers are always seeking new magnetic materials that are more compact, more efficient and can be controlled using precise, reliable methods.
June 2, 2017 | UW Today
SeaGlass helps detect cell phone surveillance by modeling a city’s cellular landscape and identifying suspicious anomalies.
May 30, 2017 | College of Engineering
The STARS program is designed to increase the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds who graduate with engineering degrees. STARS students participate in a “redshirt” year their first year and typically spend five years at the UW; however, three students from the first cohort have completed the program and their engineering degrees in just four years.
May 30, 2017 | UW Today
A new study finds that drone deliveries emit less climate-warming carbon dioxide pollution than truck deliveries in some — but not all — scenarios.
May 26, 2017 | Foster School of Business
UW Engineering teams took 1st, 3rd and 4th place as well as a number of other awards in this year’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship Business Plan Competition! Congratulations to Membrion (ChemE) in 1st place, LC-Tourniquet (ME) in 3rd place and Epi4All (ME) in 4th place!
May 25, 2017 | UW Today
A team of UW synthetic biology researchers have demonstrated a new method for digital information processing in living cells, analogous to the logic gates used in electric circuits.
May 19, 2017
Undergraduates Celina Gunnarsson (BioE) and Alexis Harroun (A&A) received the 2017 Dean's Medal for Academic Excellence for a combination of their grades, academic rigor, research experience, extracurricular activities, and leadership. Celina helped develop a three-dimensional model of the blood-brain barrier to study cerebral malaria while Alexis has conducted experiments on thermal protection systems and hypervelocity launching technologies.
May 15, 2017 | Department of Mechanical Engineering
EcoCAR is multi-phase challenge in which students work to convert a Camaro into a hybrid-electric car. UW Engineering’s Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program supports multidisciplinary, long-term projects like EcoCAR that present real-world, experiential learning opportunities to students.
May 10, 2017 | UW Today
A recent UW study found that children who played with Wi-Fi-enable toys like Hello Barbie and CogniToys did not know their toys were recording their conversations, and some children were troubled by the idea of their conversations being recorded. Parents were worried about their children’s privacy when they played with the toys and desired more control over the toys’ connectivity.
May 8, 2017 | Department of Bioengineering
Bioengineering Professor Emeritus Allan Hoffman received two prestigious awards recognizing his contributions to the field of biomaterials. He received the 2017 Acta Biomaterialia Gold Medal as well as a Controlled Release Society Award in 2016.
May 2, 2017 | UW Today
A new study finds that smartphone apps to track menstrual cycles often disappoint users with a lack of accuracy, assumptions about sexual identity or partners, and an emphasis on pink and flowery form over function and customization.
April 26, 2017 | UW Today
A new study from University of Washington researchers describes how some people turn to posting photos on Instagram to track food intake or to be held accountable by followers in meeting healthy eating or weight loss goals.
April 24, 2017 | UW Today
A new scientific discovery game, Mozak, is allowing video gamers to significantly speed up reconstructing the intricate architecture of brain cells, a fundamental task in 21st century brain science.
April 19, 2017 | UW Today
CSE professor Tom Anderson was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies. This latest honor follows Anderson’s induction last year into the National Academy of Engineering.
April 14, 2017 | UW Today
The UW and Japan’s Tohoku University have agreed to create an Academic Open Space (AOS) to foster collaborations and academic exchanges between these two leading research institutions of the Pacific Rim. The AOS will build upon current collaborations in aerospace design and materials, as well as launch new science and engineering partnerships. Fumio Ohuchi, UW professor and MSE interim chair, will serve as director of the AOS and oversee UW-based efforts and activities.
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Mari Ostendorf
Joyce Yen
Linda Bushnell
Allan Hoffman
Alvin Cheung
Ali Farhadi
Katharina Reinecke
Franziska Roesner
Thomas Rothvoss
Emina Torlak
Gregory Miller
Sreeram Kannan
Cole DeForest
Cecilia Aragon
Anthony Waas
James Hermanson
Shwetak Patel
Kelly Stevens
Steve Shen