�������� researchers are leading and collaborating on four research projects as part of Phase 1 in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) , a national initiative to build an AI-for-science ecosystem which accelerates breakthroughs in energy, discovery science and national security.��

The DOE awarded a total of 278 Genesis Mission awards for projects that involve more than 300 participating institutions, including DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration national laboratories, universities and companies. As part of the Genesis Mission, awardees will have access to the Genesis Mission Platform, which includes AI frameworks, advanced AI models from industry partners, and high-performance computing resources across DOE’s National Laboratories and partner facilities.��

“The Genesis Mission represents the kind of bold, collaborative approach needed to accelerate the complex scientific and technological breakthroughs required in our rapidly changing world,” said UW Vice Provost for Research . “Its emphasis on bringing together diverse expertise and cutting-edge technology with strategic partnerships highlights the important role universities play in driving innovation for the nation.”��

The UW-supported Genesis projects span disciplines including advanced sensing technologies, protein design for microelectronic applications, and astronomy data infrastructure, demonstrating the broad potential of AI to accelerate scientific discovery.��

, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, received a Genesis award to develop neuromorphic terahertz imaging technology for next-generation augmented reality systems. ��

“Neuromorphic terahertz imagers, or brain-inspired imaging in the terahertz band, give us superhuman vision to see through optically obscured media in real time by combining sensing and computation in a single piece of hardware. The Genesis Mission award supports our research in developing the hardware for the neuromorphic terahertz imager, as well as creating a digital twin of the entire system to train imaging models before implementing them on the actual hardware. This is an important step for future terahertz imaging systems on augmented reality hardware,” Naghavi said. ��

Building on research conducted in UW’s , the project brings together collaborators at Texas A&M University, the University of Utah, ChipNexus and NVIDIA to integrate sensing and computation directly within imaging hardware. By reducing the amount of data that must be transferred between sensors and processors, the technology could enable lightweight, low-cost augmented reality headsets capable of seeing through visually obscured materials in real time while operating with far lower power consumption than conventional systems.����

, director of the , and his colleagues are contributing to two Phase I Genesis Mission projects that apply advances in protein design and artificial intelligence to challenges beyond traditional biomedical applications.��

One project, BIND (Biophysics-Informed Learning of Coordination for Metalloprotein Design), led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, seeks to develop an AI framework for designing selective metal-binding proteins. The project leverages quantum chemistry, structural biology, machine learning and high-throughput experimentation to advance the computational design strategies of next-generation rare earth element binders. ��These advancements will catalyze change in critical mineral recovery, radionuclide management and environmental monitoring, while advancing DOE priorities in predictive biosystems design. ��

The second project, led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will develop an AI-guided loop for the design, fabrication and evaluation of microelectronic devices. The team will leverage proteins designed to assemble on van der Waals substrates to modulate their properties and organize charge carriers within the synthesized hybrid materials, integrating deep-learning protein models with AI-guided material synthesis and characterization, device fabrication and measurements, and circuit-level performance evaluation to create an iterative design process that improves molecules, materials, and device design. ��

Both IPD projects demonstrate how UW-developed protein design technologies are expanding into new areas of chemistry, materials science, and advanced manufacturing. “The Genesis Mission award provides necessary support to develop data that will vastly improve our models, an essential next step in delivering advances for key global challenges,” Baker said.����

, director of the and founding director of the and , a researcher at DiRAC, are partnering with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University to help develop infrastructure that will make it easier for astronomers to combine and analyze data from a wide range of observatories and scientific instruments. ��

Their project will expand data formats and analysis platforms to support images, spectra, data cubes and other forms of astronomical data while enabling seamless access to information distributed across cloud and high-performance computing systems. The goal is to remove technical barriers that often slow scientific discovery and make large, multimodal datasets more accessible for AI research. ��

“We want the plumbing to be boring so the astronomy can be spectacular,” Caplar said.��

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Drug development is among the slowest, most failure-prone processes in modern science, with . Today, artificial intelligence methods have accelerated the first step — plucking promising molecules out of endless possibilities — but countless challenges remain. A successful drug must be not only safe and effective, but also able to bypass the body’s defenses and reach the right target.

Most drug candidates fail such optimizations. That’s where a new research institute at the �������� has focused its attention. Housed in the UW School of Pharmacy, the brings together experts in artificial intelligence, drug discovery, pharmacology, data science and biotechnology to ease the bottleneck between promising molecules and successful drugs.��

The Institute opened in July 2026 and is led by three UW faculty members: , an associate professor of medicinal chemistry who oversees the Institute’s AI-enabled molecular design; , the Milo Gibaldi Chair of Pharmaceutics and expert in drug metabolism and disposition; and , a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science in the UW School of Medicine, who leads drug discovery, translation and commercialization efforts.

UW News spoke with the three co-directors about why drug candidates fail, how AI is speeding drug development and how I2D3 hopes to help get drugs to market more quickly.

What separates a promising molecule from a full-fledged drug? What properties need to be considered, and how can a developer work toward them?

Gaurav Bhardwaj: It really depends on the disease indication you are targeting and the therapeutic modality. Let’s say you have a promising molecule that interacts with the disease-causing protein. Delivery becomes equally important — do we need an orally delivered drug? Do we need to cross the blood-brain barrier? If the disease requires daily dosing, then injectable or IV methods aren’t optimal. If it’s delivered orally, then the molecule needs to be able to get across the gut barrier, and also needs to be stable enough that it doesn’t get chewed up by the body. It also needs to stay in the body for a reasonable time. A successful drug molecule has to meet all these and more criteria, and ultimately all these criteria are encoded by the sequence and structure of the molecule.

The Institute is devoted to aspects of drug development that are often overlooked. What problem do you see the Institute being able to help solve?��

GB: Traditional drug discovery and development is a trial-and-error-based process. Either you find a useful molecule in nature and spend years optimizing it for human use, or you create many random combinations of molecules and hope that one of them has the function you need. Both of these approaches are highly unsuccessful, which has created a bottleneck.

Now the field is also focusing on an idea called rational drug design. It started long before AI but is now becoming even more common. People are using AI methods to design new molecules. However, a lot of that work has focused on the first step — finding a molecule that binds to a specific protein, or has a specific function in the body. That’s still not a drug, it’s just more candidates.

The bottleneck has now shifted. It’s no longer finding that first molecule, but now, how do you add all the other drug-like properties? That’s what the Institute is trying to do. Let’s build the models that ultimately make molecules that are going to be successful all the way through the drug development pipeline.��

Marco Pravetoni: I see our work also as accelerating discovery. I work on substance use disorders, and my lab develops vaccines, antibodies and next-generation antibody-like molecules that target drugs in the body. With these new tools, instead of working to design 10 antibody candidates in a lab, we could design 1,000 or more, and then we can accumulate enough data to reduce any risks, so that what we bring to clinical trials is more likely to be successful. AI can do a lot of that.

How can you make it more likely that a drug candidate succeeds in trials?��

Nina Isoherranen: Part of it is predicting what’s going to happen to a drug in humans before it’s ever given to humans. That should increase the success rate and eliminate the waste of doing a lot of unsuccessful trials.��

We can also build machine learning and AI approaches to predict drug disposition in an individual person. What we talk about today are ‘digital twins,’ which refers to a computational model of the individual patient and their characteristics. For example, how does your kidney function? What is your body mass index? And so forth. Then we generate a digital version of you. We can then predict how a certain drug would behave in your body and build the best strategy.��

There’s also an access-to-treatment question here. Pregnancy is a great example — we often don’t know how drugs work in pregnant women because we’ve never done trials. To be safe, we say that pregnant people shouldn’t take those drugs, but that means they don’t have access to a potentially hugely beneficial medication. If we can use AI and machine learning to predict how pregnant people respond to medications and how their bodies handle drugs differently from nonpregnant people we can make more medications accessible

Now with AI and machine learning, I think we can get to a place where we can truly sample the full space of possibilities.��

How can the methods you’re building help with these individualized treatments?��

NI: We know that drugs behave differently in different people. Even if we give them the exact same drugs and concentrations, people may still have different responses because of factors inherent to our bodies.

During drug development the candidate drug needs to be studied to see responses in different populations. Before you get a drug approved, you need to understand how liver disease, for example, is going to change exposure to that drug and whether you need to change the dosing. There’s a lot of guidance on drug interactions. Pharmacists manage drug interactions all the time, but it gets very complicated when you combine multiple patient factors. Now, if we have good predictive tools, we can predict what’s going to happen without having to do trials.��

The ultimate goal here is to be able to predict, using model computational tools, what’s going to happen in individual humans before you ever give them a drug. What’s the right dose? The right timing?��

UW has established itself as a leader in these fields already. I’m thinking especially of the UW Medicine , whose director, , recently won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. How does I2D3 fit into the broader UW ecosystem?��

MP: IPD is a world leader in designing novel proteins, and the UW also has outstanding capabilities in clinical testing and implementation through the . However, there remains a critical translational space between discovery and clinical application —�� one that focuses on the pharmaceutical development needed to turn promising innovations into viable therapeutic products. That’s where I2D3 can play a leading role.

For example, when researchers at IPD develop a new protein, I2D3 can partner with them early to address formulation, manufacturability, stability, delivery, and other key pharmaceutical considerations that are essential for advancing a discovery toward the clinic and ultimately the marketplace. I2D3 would serve as a core translational partner, helping bridge the gap between innovation and implementation.

IPD brings unmatched strengths in protein design, ITHS provides expertise in clinical translation, and I2D3 contributes the drug development and pharmaceutical sciences capabilities needed to move discoveries across the translational continuum. Together, these organizations can create a powerful and highly integrated ecosystem.

For more information, visit . To reach the researchers, contact Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.

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Four �������� researchers have been named AAAS Fellows, according to . They are among 449 newly elected fellows from around the world, who are recognized for their “scientifically and socially distinguished achievements” in science and engineering. New Fellows will receive an official certificate and a gold and blue rosette pin — representing science and engineering, respectively — to commemorate their election.

A tradition dating back to 1874, election as an AAAS Fellow is a lifetime honor. AAAS Fellows play a crucial role in shaping public policy, advancing scientific research and influencing national and global perspectives on critical issues. Becoming a AAAS Fellow is among the most distinct honors within the scientific community, and those elevated to the rank have made distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. All fellows are expected to meet the commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity.

This year’s UW AAAS fellows are:

, professor of biochemistry at the UW School of Medicine and the director of the UW Medicine Institute for Protein Design, was recognized for his groundbreaking work in computational protein design. Baker’s early work was in predicting how chains of chemicals fold into molecular structures that determine protein functions. He went on to design new proteins from scratch to carry out tasks in medicine, technology and sustainability. His team is developing vaccines, targeted drug delivery for cancer, enzymes to break down environmental pollutants and innovative biomaterials, among other endeavors. Baker received the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his scientific achievements to benefit humankind. He has also been awarded the Overton Prize in computational biology, Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences.

, professor and chair of neurobiology and biophysics at the UW School of Medicine, was honored for her distinguished contributions to cognitive and systems neuroscience. Buffalo, who is the Wayne E. Crill Endowed Professor, is particularly noted for her pioneering research on the neural basis of remembering and learning, and for advancing translational research into broader insights on human brain function. She studies the relationship between eye movements and activity in the hippocampus and other nearby brain regions involved in forming memories, navigating and recalling the emotional context of past events. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, which presented her with the Troland Award for innovative, multidisciplinary studies. She also helps train postdoctoral scholars at the UW Medicine Institute for Translational Immunology.

, professor and chair of genome sciences at the UW School of Medicine, was noted for her distinguished contributions to the fields of genetics and genomics. She is known for advancing knowledge of the mechanisms underlying molecular evolution and genetic variation in yeasts and in humans. Her lab develops new tools to study mutations and their consequences, genome structure, gene interactions, and the evolution of gene expression. She has a longstanding interest in how copy number variations — how many times a particular segment of DNA repeats — affect adaptation, and how these variations arise. Dunham applies her genomics methods to diverse topics, including the biology of aging and the emergence of multi-drug antibiotic resistance. Dunham is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty Scholar.

, UW professor of chemistry, was honored for distinguished contributions to the theoretical understanding of nanoscale light-matter interactions, particularly for the design and interpretation of advanced spectroscopies that use electrons and light to probe material excitations. Masiello is an applied physicist whose research focuses on creating simple-yet-rich theoretical models that bring insight and understanding to observations spanning from quantum materials to nanophotonics. Masiello was hired as an assistant professor at the UW in 2010. He is a faculty member in both the Molecular & Engineering Sciences Institute and the Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems, and is also an adjunct professor of applied mathematics and of materials science and engineering. Masiello’s honors include receiving an NSF CAREER Award and a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, called PECASE, awarded by President Obama at the White House.

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The �������� is proud to announce that 56 faculty and researchers who completed their work while at UW have been named on the list from Clarivate.

The annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the .

Highly Cited Researchers demonstrate significant and broad influence in their fields of research. The total list includes 7,131 awards from more than 1,300 institutions in 60 countries and regions. This small fraction of the global researcher population contributes disproportionately to extending the frontiers of knowledge and contributing to innovations that make the world healthier, more sustainable and which drive societal impact, according to Clarivate.

The that determines the “who’s who” of influential researchers is drawn from data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate.

The list below includes faculty and researchers whose primary affiliation is with the UW, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Please note: Some of the people on the list are no longer with the UW and their current affiliation is noted. This list reflects initial data from Clarivate and may be updated.

Ivan Anishchenko (Vilya)

David Baker

William A. Banks

Gregory N. Bratman

Steven L. Brunton

Guozhong Cao

Ting Cao

Lauren Carter (Gates Medical Research Institute)

Helen Chu

David H. Cobden

Katharine H. D. Crawford

Riza M. Daza

Frank DiMaio

Kristie L. Ebi

Evan E. Eichler

Emmanuela Gakidou

David Ginger

Raphael Gottardo (CHUV)

Alexander L. Greninger

Simon I. Hay

Andrew Hill (Infinimmune)

Eric Huang

Michael C. Jensen (BrainChild)

Neil P.�� King

C. Dirk Keene

J. Nathan Kutz

Eric H. Larson

Aaron Lyon

Michael J. MacCoss

Brendan MacLean

C. M. Marcus

Julian D. Marshall

Ali Mokdad

Thomas J. Montine (Stanford)

Mohsen Naghavi

Marian L. Neuhouser

Julian D. Olden

Robert W. Palmatier

David Pigott

Hannah A. Pliner (Bristol Myers Squibb)

Ganesh Raghu

Stanley Riddell

Andrea Schietinger (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)

Jay Shendure

M. Alejandra Tortorici

Troy R. Torgerson (Allen Institute)

Cole Trapnell

Katherine R. Tuttle

David Veesler

Theo Vos

Alexandra C. Walls (BioNTech SE)

Bryan J. Weiner

Di Xiao

Jie Xiao

Xiaodong Xu

Jihui Yang

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Come curious. Leave inspired.

We welcome you to connect with us this autumn quarter through an incredible lineup of more than 30 events, exhibitions, podcasts, and more. From thought-provoking talks on monsters to boundary-pushing performances by Grammy-nominated Mariachi ensembles, it’s a celebration of bold ideas and creative energy.

ArtSci On Your Own Time

Exhibition: (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Journey through the seasonal cycle of weaving, from gathering materials and spinning wool to dyeing with natural ingredients and weaving intricate designs. Along the way, learn firsthand from weavers and gain insight into the deep cultural and scientific knowledge embedded in every strand. Free entry for UW faculty, staff, and students.

Closing September 28 | (Henry Art Gallery)
This focused exhibition features works from Passing On (2022), a series of collaged newspaper obituaries of influential feminist activists and organizers. The clippings, presented with Winant’s handwritten annotations, reflect on a lineage of non-biological inheritance and how language shapes memory and history. Free.

Closing October 4 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
The Jacob Lawrence Gallery presents Crossings, featuring new bricolage sculptures by Rob Rhee inspired by inosculated trees and experimental grafting processes. The exhibit includes work from his studio and ongoing developments at the UW Farm. Free.

Exhibitions: (�������� Magazine)
Find art by UW alumni and faculty in solo exhibitions, group shows and art fairs across Seattle and beyond. Free.

Podcast: Ways of Knowing, Season 2
Faculty in the College of Arts & Sciences are facilitating critical conversations in the classroom and the sound booth! The second season of “Ways of Knowing,” a podcast collaboration with The World According to Sound, spotlights eight Arts & Sciences faculty members whose research shapes our knowledge of the world in real time—from digital humanities to mathematics to AI. Free.

Video: (Astronomy)
What will Rubin Observatory discover that no one’s expecting? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice learn and answer cosmic queries about the Vera Rubin Observatory, the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), and our next big tool to uncover more about the universe with Zeljko Ivezic, Director of Rubin Observatory Construction. Free.

Book Club: “The Four Winds” by Kristin Hannah��(UW Alumni)
Readers’ Choice! Author (and UW alum – BA, Communication, ’83 ) Kristin Hannah highlights the struggles of the working poor during the Great Depression in this novel. Elsa is an awkward wallflower who is raising her two children on the family farm. As the Dust Bowl hits, she must choose between weathering the climate catastrophe in Texas or moving her family west to follow rumors of jobs in California. Free.

Week of September 22

September 25 | (Department of Chemistry)
A seminar featuring Professor Matt Golder. Free.

September 25 | (Henry Art Gallery)
A two-part series of readings by local authors exploring ghosts, familial histories, and the porousness between life and death. Free.

September 26 | ��
From the best-selling author of These Truths comes We the People, a stunning new history of the U.S. Constitution, for a troubling new era.

Week of September 29

October 1 | (School of Music)
Students of the UW School of Music perform in this lunchtime concert series co-hosted by UW Music and UW Libraries. Free.

October 3 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Celebrate fall at the Henry with an evening of bold, boundary‑pushing art and vibrant community, featuring exhibitions like Rodney McMillian: Neighbors, Kameelah Janan Rasheed: we leak, we exceed, Spirit House, and Sculpture Court Mural – Charlene Liu: Scallion. Meet the artists, enjoy a no‑host bar, and a curated playlist. Free.

October 3 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Award-winning pianist and cultural ambassador Mahani Teave is a pioneering artist who bridges the creative world with education and environmental activism.

October 3 | (School of Music)
A performance featuring special guests Stomu Takeishi (bass), Lucia Pulido (voice), Cuong Vu (trumpet), and Ted Poor (drums), performing the music of Chilean composer Violeta Parra. Free.

October 4 | (Henry Art Gallery)
An in-depth conversation between artist Rodney McMillian and curator Anthony Elms about the artistic process, themes, and the

Week of October 6

October 7 | (Department of Economics)
Distinguished economist and 2024 Nobel Laureate James Robinson delivers the Milliman Lecture. Free.

October 8 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
A literary conversation between novelist and artist Gerardo Sámano Córdova and UW professors María Elena García (CHID) and Vanessa Freije (JSIS/History), centered around Sámano Córdova’s recent novel, Monstrilio, exploring the major themes of the book, including queerness, monstrosity, and grief. Free.

October 9 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & UW Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 (). Free.

October 10 | (School of Music)
A performance featuring UW Jazz Studies students Jai Kobi Kaleo ‘Okalani, Coen Rios, and Ethan Horn. Free.

October 10 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
The South Asia Center and Tasveer Film Festival host a screening and discussion of Farming the Revolution (1hr 45min, India, 2024, Nishtha Jain). Free.

October 12 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
KEXP broadcasts live from the Burke Museum with music from Indigenous artists all day long! Visit the new special exhibition, Woven in Wool: Resilience in Coast Salish Weaving. While you’re here, say hello to Sammy the Sounder and celebrate the team’s new Salish Sea Kit, co-designed by local Coast Salish weavers. Enjoy free admission for all—plus, kids wearing any Sounders gear will receive a free soccer ball! Free.

Week of October 13

October 14 | (School of Music)
New UW strings faculty John Popham (cello) and Pala Garcia (violin) are joined by Mika Sasaki (piano) in a concert of contemporary works by their trio Longleash, including Nossas Mãos (Our Hands) by Igor Santos.

Online Option – October 14 | (Classics)
For three decades, the Centre d’Études Alexandrines has reshaped our understanding of Alexandria, moving its history from ancient texts to a tangible reality. Terrestrial digs reveal the city’s daily life, while underwater excavations at the site of the legendary Lighthouse have yielded spectacular monumental discoveries. These integrated findings present a multi-layered city, allowing us to write a new history of Alexandria grounded in its material culture of adaptation and reuse. Free.

October 15 |��
President Jones will share his vision for advancing the UW’s public mission: expanding access to an excellent education for all students; strengthening connections with our communities; and accelerating research, discovery and innovation for the public good. Free.

October 15 | ��(Department of Mathematics)
Mathematics has its own language, which is used by all other sciences to describe our world. It is very important to use it correctly, and to appreciate how it changes with time. This importance is growing rapidly with the ever wider use of large language models. There is great potential here, but also many pitfalls, as discussed in this lecture. Free.

October 15 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
This Fall MFA exhibition at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery showcases emerging artists’ work. On view through November 8. Free.

October 16 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & UW Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 (). Free.

October 16 | (Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies)
Connect with local legislators. John Traynor, the Government Affairs Director from the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, will facilitate the forum.

October 16 | (Simpson Center for the Humanities) Free.

October 17 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
The Grammy-nominated ensemble puts their unique spin on traditional mariachi, creating an explosion of colors and sounds all their own.

October 17 | (Department of Political Science)
UC Berkeley’s David Vogel joins the UW Center for Environmental Politics for a special guest lecture. Free.

October 18 | (Henry Art Gallery)
A curated selection of works explore the significance of branded products, examining how their ubiquity shapes perception, influences identity, and reflects broader cultural values. On view through January 28, 2026. Free.

October 18 | (School of Music)
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Fritts-Richards organ with a concert featuring UW students and faculty. A reception follows. Free.

Week of October 20

Online Option – October 21 |�� The AI Con (Book Talk) with Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna (Office of Public Lectures)
Emily Bender (Linguistics) and Alex Hanna expose corporate-driven AI hype and provide essential tools to identify it, break it down, and expose the underlying power plays it seeks to conceal. Pay what you will.

October 21 | (Meany Center for the Performing Arts)
Internationally acclaimed for their rich tone and precision, the Jerusalem Quartet brings a dynamic program featuring works by Haydn and Beethoven, plus Janáček’s dramatic “Kreutzer Sonata.

October 21 | (College of Arts & Sciences)
Staley is the author of Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education, which argues that too many innovations in education focus on delivery rather than transformative experience. Free.

October 22 | (Department of Chemistry)
Professor Wilfred van der Donk delivers this annual lecture in memory of Prof. Dauben, who helped shape modern organic chemistry. Free.

October 22 | (Jackson School of International Studies)
A forum discussing recent developments, diplomacy, and policy issues on the Korean Peninsula. Free.

October 23 | Samuel E. Kelly Distinguished Faculty Lecture – Beyond Status: Living Undocumented in Disruptive Times (Office of Minority Affairs & Diversity)
Dr. Carolyn Pinedo-Turnovsky is a sociologist in the Department of American Ethnic Studies at the ��������, where she also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Sociology. Annual lecture honoring UW faculty focused on diversity and social justice. Free.

October 23 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & UW Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 (). Free.

October 23 | ��(Education)
Filmmakers and College of Education (CoE) community members Dr. Edmundo Aguilar, Assistant Teaching Professor, and Tianna Mae Andresen, ECO alum and instructor of Filipinx American US History in SPS, bring us the story of “the students, teachers, and community members in their fight to preserve cross community liberatory ethnic studies and watch them reclaim their humanity along the way.” Free.

Online Option – October 24 | The Art of Refuge, Resistance and Regeneration with Peter Sellars (Office of Public Lectures)
Director Peter Sellars will share real-world examples drawn from a lifetime of cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary artistic collaborations around the globe—demonstrating how art responds to crisis and catalyzes social transformation in an era of profound stakes.��Pay what you will.

October 24 | (Department of Political Science)
Jessica Weeks joins the UW International Security Colloquium to present current research in global politics and international relations. Free.

October 24 |�� (Department of Political Science)
This event is jointly hosted by the UW Political Theory Colloquium and the Washington Institute for the Study of Inequality and Race (WISIR). Free.

October 25 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Explore new exhibitions, catch captivating performances, get hands-on with an all-ages art-making workshop and museum bingo, and discover rarely seen works from the Henry’s collection. Free.

October 26 | (School of Music)
Chamber winds from the UW Wind Ensemble perform works by Caroline Shaw, Richard Strauss, and more, under the direction of Erin Bodnar. Free.

Week of October 27

October 28 | (Department of Physics)
Nobel laureate David Baker discusses advanced protein design software and its use in developing molecules to address challenges in medicine, technology, and sustainability. Free.

October 28 | (School of Music)
Renowned pianist Santiago Rodriguez, from the Frost School of Music (Miami University), performs a solo recital presented by the keyboard program. Free.

October 30 | (American Indian Studies)
A series to prepare for the Film Screening & UW Symphony Performance: Healing Heart of the First People of This Land on February 6, 2026 (). Free.

October 31 | (Political Science)
Lecture by Egor Lazarev, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Yale University. Sponsored by the Severyns Ravenholt endowment and The �������� International Security Colloquium (UWISC).

October 31 | (School of Music)
Dr. Stephen Price, UW Organ Studies students, and guests perform spooky organ works and Halloween-themed favorites in this festive concert. Free.

Curious about what’s ahead? Check out the November ArtSci Roundup.

ArtSci Roundup goes monthly!

The ArtSci Roundup is your guide to connecting with the UW—whether in person, on campus, or on your couch.

Previously shared on a quarterly basis, those who sign up for the Roundup email will receive them monthly, delivering timely updates and engaging content wherever you are. Check the roundup regularly, as events are added throughout the month. Make sure to check out the ArtSci On Your Own Time section for everything from podcasts to videos to exhibitions that can be enjoyed when it works for you!

In addition, if you like the ArtSci Roundup, sign up to receive a monthly notice when it’s been published.

Do you have an event that you would like to see featured in the ArtSci Roundup? Connect with Lauren Zondag (zondagld@uw.edu).

Source

When researchers want to study how COVID makes us sick, or what diseases such as Alzheimer’s do to the body, one approach is to look at what’s happening inside individual cells.

Researchers sometimes grow the cells in a 3D scaffold called a “hydrogel.” This network of proteins or molecules mimics the environment the cells would live in inside the body.

New research led by the �������� demonstrates a new class of hydrogels that can form not just outside cells, but also inside of them. The team created these hydrogels from protein building blocks designed using a computer to form a specific structure. These hydrogels exhibited similar mechanical properties both inside and outside of cells, providing researchers with a new tool to group proteins together inside of cells.

The team Jan. 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“In the past 10 years, there’s been a shift in the world of cell biology,” said co-senior author , a UW associate professor of chemical engineering and of bioengineering. “Classically, folks have attributed much of the cell’s interior organization to membrane-bound organelles, such as mitochondria or the nucleus. But now scientists are realizing that the cell actually has other ways to locally concentrate certain molecules or proteins without using membranes, for example, by protein-protein interactions. This concentrating allows the cell to turn on or off specific functions that can be helpful or ultimately lead to disease.”

DeForest continued: “What I think is pretty exciting here is that we have good mechanical control of our hydrogels — even when they are made inside human cells. This means we can tune them to essentially function as a synthetic version of whatever sequestering phenomenon we want to study, such as how protein aggregation can lead to Alzheimer’s.”

One key element of this research was that the protein building blocks were designed from scratch — they don’t exist anywhere in nature — using computers.

“You can imagine a protein as a string of subunits called amino acids. That string folds up to form a three-dimensional structure. There are 20 different amino acids, and a typical protein is made up of 100 to 200 of them. That makes the system very complex, because how do you know how it’s going to fold?” said co-lead author , who completed this research as a UW postdoctoral researcher at the and is now a research fellow at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital. “That’s where the computer comes into play — it does calculations to estimate the most likely three-dimensional shape. And similarly, you can tell it what shape you want and it tells you what sequence you need to build the protein.”

To make a variety of hydrogels with different properties, the team used computational design to control how floppy or rigid the protein building blocks were and how the building blocks organized and connected to create the hydrogel. The researchers also used two different methods to link the building blocks together: One linked them irreversibly and the other allowed the proteins to disconnect and reconnect.

“Irreversibly crosslinked systems are going to be intrinsically more stable, making them better for long-term cell culture and functional tissue engineering,” said DeForest, who is also a faculty member with the UW and the UW . “But the reversibly crosslinked systems are more fluid, which may be better for driving specific protein-protein interactions within living cells.”

To determine if the hydrogels in cells had similar characteristics compared to their extracellular counterparts, the researchers examined whether building blocks within the hydrogels could move around. A stiffer hydrogel would be more likely to trap the proteins in one position compared to a more fluid gel. The mechanical properties of each type of hydrogel remained even when inside a cell.

The team plans to further explore this system, including being able to better control how hydrogels form and localize within cells.

The most crucial part of this project, the researchers said, was the collaboration between protein designers and chemical and biological engineers.

“Our cross-disciplinary collaboration with Cole’s group has been very exciting, and has opened up routes to new classes of biomaterials with a wide range of applications,” said co-senior author , the director of the Institute for Protein Design and a professor of biochemistry in the UW School of Medicine.

, a UW doctoral student in bioengineering, is co-lead author on this paper. Additional co-authors are , a UW research scientist in the Institute for Protein Design; , an assistant professor at Pohang University of Science and Technology who completed this research as a UW postdoc at the Institute for Protein Design; , a UW doctoral student in bioengineering; , a UW doctoral student in molecular and cellular biology; , a UW doctoral student in biological physics, structure and design; , a UW research scientist at the Institute for Protein Design; , a group leader at the Hubrecht Institute who completed this research as a postdoc at the Institute for Protein Design; , an acting instructor at the Institute for Protein Design; Alee Sharma, an undergraduate student at Northeastern University; and , an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Engineering. Mout and Sahtoe were part of the . This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Audacious Project, the Open Philanthropy Project, the Wu Tsai Translational Investigator Fund, the Center for the Science of Synthesis Across Scales and the National Institutes of Health.

For more information, contact DeForest at profcole@uw.edu, Mout at rubul.mout@childrens.harvard.edu and Baker at dabaker@uw.edu.

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The �������� is proud to announce that more than 40 faculty and researchers who completed their work while at UW have been named on the annual list from Clarivate.

The annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science citation index.

The list of faculty and researchers whose primary affiliation is with the UW or with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation who were acknowledged for their work includes:

David Baker

William A. Banks

Gregory N. Bratman

Steven L. Brunton

Guozhong Cao

William A. Catterall

Helen Chu

David H. Cobden

Katharine H.D. Crawford

Riza M. Daza

Frank DiMaio

Evan E. Eichler

Michael Gale Jr.

Raphael Gottardo

Allison J. Greaney

Alexander L. Greninger

Simon I. Hay

Celestia S. Higano

Neil P. King

James B. Leverenz

Charles M. Marcus

Philip Mease

Ali Mokdad

Thomas J. Montine*

Christopher J. L. Murray

Mohsen Naghavi

William S. Noble

Young-Jun Park

David M. Pigott

Stanley Riddell

Andrea Schietinger **

Jay Shendure

M. Alejandra Tortorici

Troy R. Torgerson***

Cole Trapnell

David Veesler

Theo Vos

Alexandra C. Walls****

Bryan J. Weiner

Spencer A. Wood

Sanfeng Wu

Di Xiao

Xiaodong Xu

The that determines the “who’s who” of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to identify the countries and research institutions where these scientific elite are based.

The full 2023 Highly Cited Researchers list and executive summary can be found online .

* now is at Stanford University.

** now is at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

*** now is at the Allen Institute.

**** now is at BoiNTech SE.

now is at Princeton University.

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The �������� is proud to announce that 47 faculty and researchers who completed their work while at UW have been named on the annual list from Clarivate.

The highly anticipated annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the Web of Science citation index.

The list of faculty and researchers who were acknowledged for their work while at UW includes:

• David Baker
• Frank DiMaio
• William Sheffler
• Dr. Jay Shendure
• Cole Trapnell
• David Veesler
• Alexandra C. Walls*
• Philip Mease
• Dr. Christopher J. L. Murray
• Dr. Ganesh Raghu
• Dr. Stanley Riddell
• Alejandra Tortorici
• Dr. William A. Banks
• Gregory N. Bratman
• Steven L. Brunton
• Guozhong Cao
• William A. Catterall
• David H. Cobden
• Riza M. Daza
• Dr. E. Patchen Dellinger
• Dr. Janet A. Englund
• E. Erskine
• Michael Gale Jr.
• Raphael Gottardo
• Celestia S. Higano
• Neil P. King
• Ali Mokdad
• William S. Noble
• Julian D. Olden
• L. Patrick
• David L. Smith
• Dr. Piper Meigs Treuting
• Spencer A. Wood
• Jesse R. Zaneveld
• Ning Zheng
• Dr. Hans D. Ochs
• Simon I. Hay
• Evan E. Eichler
• Deborah A. Nickerson**
• John A. Stamatoyannopoulos***
• Dr. Thomas J. Montine****
• Di Xiao
• Xiaodong Xu
• Bryan J. Weiner
• Mohsen Naghavi
• Theo Vos
• David M. Pigott

The that determines the “who’s who” of influential researchers draws on the data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate. It also uses the tallies to identify the countries and research institutions where these scientific elite are based. This year Clarivate partnered with Retraction Watch and extended the qualitative analysis of the Highly Cited Researchers list, addressing increasing concerns over potential misconduct.

The full 2022 Highly Cited Researchers list and executive summary can be found online .

* now is at BioNTech SE.

** on Dec. 24, 2021.

*** now is at Altius.

**** now is at Stanford University.

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Four �������� professors were among the winners of the 2021 Breakthrough Prize, which recognizes groundbreaking achievements in the life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics.

David Baker, a professor in the UW School of Medicine’s department of biochemistry, won the prize for life sciences, while a team of UW physics professors, including Eric Adelberger, Jens Gundlach and Blayne Heckel, earned the prize for fundamental physics.

The annually awards the Breakthrough Prizes, which were founded in 2013 and are dubbed the “Oscars of Science.” Each prize is worth $3 million.

Baker, director of the , was recognized for developing technology that allowed the design of proteins never seen before in nature, including novel proteins that have the potential for therapeutic intervention in human diseases.

Over billions of years, nature has produced a thousand trillion proteins��— the workhorse molecules essential to every life function��— each with a unique origami-style design that allows it to precisely lock onto an adjacent molecule to perform its unique function. Then came the Protein Design Revolution, harnessing supercomputing and newly discovered principles of how natural proteins fold to turn evolution on its head.

“We could wait another million years for the protein we need to evolve, or we could design it ourselves,” Baker said. His enthusiastic design community of 250,000��— citizen scientists, Foldit players and gamers��— uses a combination of human ingenuity and automated computational firepower. Their latest project is a promising crowd-sourced novel protein that could adhere to a COVID-19 virus and destroy it.

“One-hundred people will approach the solution to a problem from 100 different perspectives,” said Baker, who invented the open-source Rosetta software for computational modeling and analysis of novel proteins. The promise of protein design? Universal vaccines for flu, HIV, COVID-19 and cancer; medicines for chronic pain; smart therapeutics; nanoengineering for solar energy capture, and more.

“I am excited about this award accelerating progress at the IPD in de novo design of new proteins not found in nature to address current challenges in medicine and beyond,“ Baker said. “I thank my wonderful colleagues��— undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, faculty and staff��— at the IPD and UW, and members of the general public contributing to our efforts through the rosetta@home and Foldit projects.“

The award gives Baker and Gundlach, longtime friends who go on hikes and climbs together, something new to talk about the next time they hit the trails.

“David is very well deserving of this prize,” said Gundlach, who currently serves as principal investigator on the ’s research in physics. “He has really pioneered the field of protein folding in a major way.”

The Eöt-Wash Group, made up of UW physicists Adelberger, Gundlach and Heckel, was recognized for precision fundamental measurements that test our understanding of gravity, probe the nature of dark energy and establish limits on couplings to dark matter is.

“I think the award was quite unexpected to all of us, but as a surprise it generates even more joy,” Gundlach said. “Presenting our research to the public was always rewarding because our experiments are intriguing and fun to hear about, but knowing that a panel of famous physicists selected our work feels particularly rewarding.”

The equivalence principle — the observation that objects, whatever they are made of, fall with the��same acceleration — inspired Albert Einstein’s��relativistic theory of gravity. Motivated by the unexplained phenomena of��dark matter and dark energy that hint towards new physics, as well as theoretical attempts to develop unified quantum theories of gravity that��inherently predict violations of the equivalence principle and additional curled-up space dimensions,��the UW Eöt-Wash team decided to probe the fundamental properties of gravity with a new generation of instruments.

They took the two-century-old torsion balance concept and developed it into a supremely sensitive 21st-century instrument to look for new fundamental physics. They tested the equivalence principle, the inverse square law, and measured the gravitational constant��with unprecedented precision and sensitivity.��For example, their latest inverse-square law test probed gravity at ultra-short distances, establishing that any extra dimension must be curled up with a radius less than one-third��the diameter of a human hair.

Last year, Lukasz Fidkowski, an assistant professor of physics at the UW, won the New Horizons in Physics Prize from the Breakthrough Foundation. At least three researchers associated with the UW have received Breakthrough prizes in prior years.

Each year, the Prize is celebrated at a gala award ceremony, where the awards are presented by superstars of movies, music, sports and tech entrepreneurship. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, however, this year’s ceremony has been postponed until March 2021.

For more information, contact Victor Balta at balta@uw.edu.

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David Baker, Dayong Gao, Herbert Sauro named fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering

UW professors , and have been named fellows of the .

The three faculty members are among the institute’s , numbering 157 in all, chosen for their “distinguished and continuing achievements” in medical and biological engineering.

Called the AIMBE for short, the institute is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization. Its 2,000-member College of Fellows includes outstanding engineers, entrepreneurs and innovators in medical and biological engineering.

The organization advocates for the value of medical bioengineering in society. Its mission, which also drives advocacy initiatives, is to “recognize excellence, advance the public understanding and accelerate medical and biological innovation,” according to its website.

Baker is a professor of biochemistry and directs the . Gao is a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the . Sauro is a professor of bioengineering and director of the . All three have affiliate appointments in other departments as well.

Election to the institute’s College of Fellows is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to a medical and biological engineer; fellows include three Nobel Prize laureates and 18 recipients of the Presidential Medal of Science or National Medal of Technology and Innovation. The institute’s annual meeting, scheduled for March, was cancelled due to health concerns and the fellows were inducted remotely.

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Essay fondly remembers Ellis Goldberg, professor of political science

A researcher with the nonprofit has penned a remembrance and appreciation of , UW professor of political science, who September 20, 2019, at the age of 72.

Goldberg, a political economist and scholar of Middle East politics, was a longtime UW faculty member and former director of the Middle East Center in the Jackson School of International Studies. He also wrote a blog called “” that commented on Middle Eastern and U.S. politics.

He is remembered fondly on the Middle East research project’s website by , clinical assistant professor in Liberal Studies at New York University, in an essay titled “Ellis Goldberg, Egypt and a Reverence for Life.”

El-Ghobashy writes that Goldberg “loved Egypt and knew more about its history and political economy than anyone I know. … At a time when lives in Egypt are imperiled by deprivation, dictatorship and disease, as are so many lives across the globe, an intellectual sensibility grounded in a reverence for life is a gift and an exigency.”

With Goldberg’s death, El-Ghobashy writes, “we lost one of the most erudite, generous and original scholars of the modern Middle East and North Africa, a truly reflective mind …”�� .

There were remembrances of Goldberg from the and the as well.

UW Notebook is a section of the UW News site dedicated to telling stories of the good work done by faculty and staff at the ��������. Read all posts here.

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