Wed, 07/19/2017 | College of Engineering

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.

Mon, 07/17/2017 | UW Today

Peter Pauzauskie, an assistant professor in MSE, leads a research team that has developed a fast, inexpensive method to make electrodes for supercapacitors, with applications in electric cars, wireless telecommunications and high-powered lasers. The team published a paper in the journal Nature Microsystems and Nanoengineering describing their supercapacitor electrode and their novel production method that starts with carbon-rich materials dried into a low-density matrix, or aerogel. This aerogel on its own can act as a crude electrode, but Pauzauskie’s team more than doubled its capacitance.

Mon, 07/17/2017 | UW Today

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.

Tue, 07/11/2017 | 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.

Thu, 07/06/2017

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.

Wed, 07/05/2017 | UW Today

UW engineers have designed the first battery-free cellphone that can send and receive calls using only a few microwatts of power.

Tue, 06/27/2017 | 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.

Mon, 06/26/2017

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.

Mon, 06/26/2017 | Department of Mechanical Engineering

The Engineering Innovation in Health (EIH) program partners engineering students and faculty with clinicians to develop affordable solutions to pressing health needs.

Mon, 06/26/2017 | 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.

Thu, 06/08/2017 | 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.

Wed, 06/07/2017 | 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.

Fri, 06/02/2017 | UW Today

SeaGlass helps detect cell phone surveillance by modeling a city’s cellular landscape and identifying suspicious anomalies.

Tue, 05/30/2017 | 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.

Tue, 05/30/2017 | College of Engineering

We congratulate 3 students from the STARS program's first cohort who completed the program — and their engineering degrees — in four years instead of the expected 5.

Fri, 05/26/2017 | 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!

Thu, 05/25/2017 | 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.

Fri, 05/19/2017

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.

Mon, 05/15/2017 | Department of Mechanical Engineering

EcoCAR students are converting a Camaro into a hybrid-electric car. The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) program supports long-term, experiential projects like EcoCAR that present real-world learning opportunities.

Wed, 05/10/2017 | 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.

Mon, 05/08/2017 | 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.

Tue, 05/02/2017 | 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.

Wed, 04/26/2017 | 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.

Mon, 04/24/2017 | 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.

Wed, 04/19/2017 | 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.