Jie Xiao, 乱伦社区 professor of mechanical engineering, talks about batteries and how academia can help support the growing domestic battery manufacturing industry.
Engineering
UW assistant professor Sheng Wang discusses BiomedParse, an AI medical image analysis model that works across nine types of medical images to better predict systemic diseases. Medical professionals can load images into the system and ask the AI tool questions about them in plain English.
A team led by researchers at the 乱伦社区 has created a headphone prototype that allows listeners to hear people speaking within a bubble with a programmable radius of 3 to 6 feet. Voices and sounds outside the bubble are quieted an average of 49 decibels, even if they鈥檙e louder than those in the bubble.
NASA has awarded a five-year, $2.5 million grant to establish a regional scientific consortium based at the 乱伦社区, in partnership with Washington State University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The consortium will use an interdisciplinary approach to explore how the space environment 鈥� both in low-Earth orbit and beyond 鈥� affects living things.
乱伦社区 researchers created MobiPrint, a mobile 3D printer that can automatically measure a room and print objects onto the floor. The team鈥檚 graphic interface lets users design objects in a space that the robot has mapped out. The prototype, which the team built on a modified consumer vacuum robot, can add a range of objects to rooms.
UW researchers collaborated with people at multiple institutions to collect pre-storm data and place sensors to measure storm surge levels and wave height during Hurricane Helene’s landfall.
The Remote Hub Lab allows students to access physical engineering equipment from anywhere in the world. A primary focus of the lab is to use a process called “digital twinning,” to create virtual models that mirror real-world systems, which enables students to experiment, learn and innovate in a risk-free, cost-effective environment.
Niloofar Mireshghallah, a UW postdoctoral scholar, discusses why math and reasoning have so challenged artificial intelligence models and what the public should know about OpenAI鈥檚 new release.
UW researchers have developed a flexible, durable electronic prototype that can harvest energy from body heat and turn it into electricity that can be used to power small electronics, such as batteries, sensors or LEDs. This device is also resilient 鈥� it still functions even after being pierced several times and then stretched 2,000 times.
A team led by 乱伦社区 researchers found that large language models, such as ChatGPT, can make social media bots more sophisticated at evading detection. But these models can also improve systems that detect bots.
The Colorado River and its tributaries provide water for hydropower, irrigation and drinking water in seven U.S. states and Mexico. But since 2000, water managers have struggled to predict how much water will come from the snowpack. The problem lies with the lack of rainfall in the spring, according to new research from the UW.
Two new studies introduce AI systems that use either video or photos to create simulations that can train robots to function in the real world. This could significantly lower the costs of training robots to function in complex settings.
Fifteen faculty members at the 乱伦社区 have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2024. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state announced Aug. 1 as new members. Selection recognizes the new members鈥� 鈥渙utstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.鈥�
Two 乱伦社区 researchers are investigating how to mitigate the effects of climate change on common road pavements, such as asphalt and concrete.
UW researchers found that ChatGPT consistently ranked resumes with disability-related honors and credentials 鈥� such as the 鈥淭om Wilson Disability Leadership Award鈥� 鈥� lower than the same resumes without those honors and credentials. But when researchers customized the tool with written instructions directing it not to be ableist, the tool reduced this bias for all but one of the disabilities tested.
UW doctoral student Joel Eklof has been investigating which environmental factors contribute to permafrost thaw and the release of methane into the atmosphere. For years, Eklof has traveled to a field site southwest of Fairbanks, Alaska.
A 乱伦社区 team has developed an artificial intelligence system that lets someone wearing headphones look at a person speaking for three to five seconds to 鈥渆nroll鈥� them. The system then plays just the enrolled speaker鈥檚 voice in real time, even as the pair move around in noisy environments.
乱伦社区 researchers interviewed 16 older adults in Washington and Oregon, ages 65 to 80, about how their technology use with their social support networks changed during the pandemic.
乱伦社区 researchers created and tested a prototype browser extension called Viblio, which lets viewers and creators add citations to the timelines of YouTube videos.
This 乱伦社区 College of Engineering event brings thousands of elementary and middle school students from all over Washington to campus to be engineers for a day.
Working with teens, UW researchers have designed RESeT: a snowy virtual world with six activities intended to improve mood. In a 3-week study of 44 Seattle-area teens, researchers found that most used the technology about twice a week without being prompted and reported lower stress levels after using the environment.
A team led by researchers at the 乱伦社区 developed a new PCB that performs on par with traditional materials and can be recycled repeatedly with negligible material loss. Researchers used a solvent that transforms a type of vitrimer 鈥� a cutting-edge class of polymer 鈥� into a jelly-like substance without damage, allowing solid components to be plucked out for reuse or recycling. With these 鈥渧PCBs鈥� (vitrimer printed circuit boards), researchers recovered 98% of the vitrimer and 100% of the glass fiber.
Franziska Roesner, a 乱伦社区 associate professor, and collaborators will present two papers that mine real-world data to help understand TikTok’s personalized its recommendation algorithm and its impact.
As researchers explore potential applications for AI, they have found scenarios where AI could be really useful but there’s not enough data to accurately train the algorithms. Jenq-Neng Hwang, 乱伦社区 professor of electrical and computer and engineering, specializes in these issues.
乱伦社区 researchers taught a group of high schoolers to code by combining cultural research into various embroidery traditions with 鈥渃omputational embroidery.鈥� The method teaches kids to encode embroidery patterns on a computer through a coding language called Turtlestitch.
Alzheimer’s disease and Type 2 diabetes are part of a family of amyloid diseases that are characterized by having proteins that cluster together. UW researchers have demonstrated more similarities between the two diseases.
Robots in warehouses and even around our houses struggle to identify and pick up objects if they are too close together, or if a space is cluttered. This is because robots lack what psychologists call “object unity,” or our ability to identify things even when we can’t see all of them. Researchers at the 乱伦社区 have developed a way to teach robots this skill.
乱伦社区 researchers introduced the Thermal Earring, a wireless wearable that continuously monitors a user鈥檚 earlobe temperature. Potential applications include tracking signs of ovulation, stress, eating and exercise. The smart earring prototype is about the size and weight of a small paperclip and has a 28-day battery life.
Nancy Allbritton, the dean of the 乱伦社区 College of Engineering and a UW professor of bioengineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
New research led by the UW demonstrates a new class of hydrogels that can form not just outside cells, but also inside of them. 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.
A team 乱伦社区 researchers have published a guide explaining language models, the technology that underlies chatbots.
ColorMePhD is a free, all-ages coloring book series created by Julie Rorrer, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the 乱伦社区. The books bring current doctorate-level research in science and engineering to a general audience.
Two UW professors teamed up to study how climate change will affect predator-prey interactions in snowy landscapes. Together with a group of researchers, the two measured snow properties that led to a “danger zone,” where prey would sink but predators would not.
UW researchers found that people who live within 2 miles of an Amazon last-mile delivery station are exposed to more delivery-related air pollution despite ordering fewer packages.
乱伦社区 researchers found that when prompted to make pictures of 鈥渁 person,鈥� the AI image generator over-represented light-skinned men, failed to equitably represent Indigenous peoples and sexualized images of certain women of color.
A team led by researchers at the 乱伦社区 developed 11 actions a robotic arm can make to pick up nearly any food attainable by fork. This allows the system to learn to pick up new foods during one meal.
A team at the 乱伦社区 has created an interactive dashboard called WhaleVis, which lets users map data on global whale catches and whaling routes from 1880 to 1986. Scientists can compare this historical data and its trends with current information to better understand whale populations over time.
A team led by researchers at the 乱伦社区 has developed deep-learning algorithms that let users pick which sounds filter through their headphones in real time. Either through voice commands or a smartphone app, headphone wearers can select which sounds they want to include from 20 classes, such as sirens, baby cries, speech, vacuum cleaners and bird chirps.
Seven researchers at the 乱伦社区 conducted a three-month autoethnographic study 鈥� drawing on their own experiences as people with and without disabilities 鈥� to test AI tools鈥� utility for accessibility. Though researchers found cases in which the tools were helpful, they also found significant problems.
The turmoil at large tech platforms has many people reconsidering what they want out of social media. Four researchers at the 乱伦社区 are exploring different approaches to improve people’s experiences.