affects approximately 23 million people worldwide, with onset usually occurring during a person’s late adolescence to their 20s. Impairments associated with schizophrenia include hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking and behavior.

Now, 91����ers at the 91���� are investigating how genetic changes impact the severity of schizophrenia symptoms. A new study, , supports the idea that deletions in genes that regulate early brain and neuron development are associated with more severe features of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, particularly lower cognitive abilities.

How schizophrenia manifests — and how severely — differs between patients. Poorer cognitive functioning in schizophrenia is associated with more treatment-resistant forms of the disease. , co-author and assistant professor of psychology at the UW, said understanding early developmental genetic factors could help identify people who could benefit from earlier, targeted inventions.

“For a subset of individuals, we may need to be thinking about how we can create treatments earlier in brain development that will help compensate for the fact that certain genes are being deleted,” Forsyth said. “Is there some kind of medication that can help with that? Down the road, could there be gene therapies for some of these individuals? I do think this 91���� is going to be important for changing treatment direction.”

The 91����ers studied the DNA of more than 600 people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders. The team compared these results to data from patients’ relatives, people without schizophrenia and nearly 10,000 children participating in the .��

People with schizophrenia who carried the deletions tended to perform worse on cognitive tests — showing poorer memory, thinking and attention skills than people with schizophrenia who didn’t carry the deletions. Similar, weaker associations were also seen in the general population, which suggests these variants may influence brain development more broadly, even in individuals without schizophrenia.

The study also showed these specific genetic deletions were associated with differences in brain structure, including higher gray matter volume and cortical thickness. This is the opposite pattern 91����ers typically see on average in schizophrenia, Forsyth said, which again suggests variability between patients.

“This study helps us understand the specific way somebody manifests a disorder,” Forsyth said. “It’s sort of a cumulative effect of different risk profiles. We all carry tons of genetic variants, and the specific types of variants we have and how they combine is very complicated. These things aren’t totally deterministic, but I do think understanding which specific aspects of brain development are affected by the genetic variants a person carries, and how this shapes how the disorder manifests, can start to inform how we think about different treatment approaches.”

Other UW co-authors were graduate students Jinhan Zhu, Zachary Trevorrow and Mahnoor Hyat, undergraduate 91���� assistant Ariana Chavannes, 91���� coordinator Sam Sievertsen and 91���� technologist Sophie Ferreira-Ianone. , a UW senior 91���� scientist in biostatistics, was also a co-author.

A is included with the study.

This study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the UCLA Brain Research Institute and the Shear Family Foundation.

For more information, contact Forsyth at jenforsy@uw.edu.

Eight 91���� 91����ers have been selected as Fulbright Scholars for 2026-2027 and will pursue studies around the world.��

Fulbright Scholars are college and university faculty, administrators and 91����ers, as well as artists and professionals, who build their skills and connections, gain valuable international insights and return home to share their experiences with their students and colleagues.

This year’s UW cohort represents a variety of disciplines, including sciences, engineering, business, environmental sciences, electrical and computer engineering, and computer science. The scholars will conduct 91���� across the globe, including in Australia, India, Indonesia, Western Europe, Scandinavia and East Asia.

Two-thirds of this year’s UW applicants were selected as Fulbright Scholars — an astonishing acceptance rate in the prestigious and highly selective program.

“We are incredibly proud of these outstanding 91���� faculty and staff whose selection as Fulbright Scholars reflects the excellence, innovation and global impact of their work,” said UW Vice Provost for Global Affairs Ahmad M. Ezzeddine. “The knowledge, partnerships and cultural understanding they gain through these experiences will enrich the UW and strengthen our shared commitment to addressing global challenges through collaboration and discovery. As the Fulbright Program celebrates its 80th anniversary, we are grateful for the U.S. Department of State’s continued investment in this transformative program.”��

The Fulbright Scholar Program for academics and professionals supports more than 800 people to teach and conduct 91���� abroad.��

This year’s UW Fulbright Scholars are:

is a professor in the Department of Biology in the College of Arts & Sciences. His 91���� focuses on how mutually beneficial interactions between species — such as how insects pollinating plants is beneficial to both — scale into networks involving multiple species, and how the structure of those networks affects ecosystems. For example, some ecological network structures, or how connections between species are arranged, make these networks more resilient to perturbations, such as droughts or climate change.

Brosi’s Fulbright Scholar award will be through Spain’s flagship public 91���� institution, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, at the Doñana Biological Station in Seville. His work there will involve synthesizing and analyzing two comprehensive long-term datasets — one from his lab and one from his Spanish host lab — to better understand global patterns in pollination networks. In particular, scientists have recorded species that appear to be “specialists” — such as a bee species that has only been recorded visiting one plant species�� — in many ecological networks, but, without long-term data, it’s difficult to disentangle whether they are really specialists or just rare. Brosi will tackle this problem in collaboration with his Fulbright host, Ignasi Bartomeus, at Doñana.����

is the director of academic services in the Department of Bioengineering in the College of Engineering and UW Medicine. She supports the department’s doctoral students with a focus on improving the 91���� experience, expanding opportunities and advancing access and collaboration.��

While a Fulbright Scholar, she will develop a framework for a new doctoral biomedical 91���� exchange between the UW and Tampere University in Finland. Combs will work with faculty, students and staff at both universities to lead the development of a preliminary structure of a doctoral 91���� exchange, including eligibility criteria, mentorship plans and evaluation metrics. She will also explore funding sources for the program’s ongoing sustainability and draft a memorandum of understanding for the institutions to consider.

, an assistant professor of management and organization and the Helen Moore Gerhardt Faculty Fellow in Entrepreneurship in the Foster School of Business. Her areas of expertise include entrepreneurship, organizational growth and scaling, technology and innovation strategy, and venture capital. DeSantola teaches entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial strategy to undergraduates, master’s and doctoral students. She was named a Poets & Quants top 50 undergraduate business professor in 2021.��

DeSantola will use her Fulbright award, during which she will be a visiting U.S. Scholar to University College Cork in Ireland, to study factors influencing innovation and entrepreneurship in novel food technologies. The project connects to a broader stream of DeSantola’s 91���� exploring the emergence and evolution of new technology-based industries.

is�� an interdisciplinary scientist in the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs in the College of the Environment. Her work focuses on how coastal communities adapt to climate change and other environmental and socioeconomic stressors, particularly within fisheries and aquaculture systems. During the past 15 years, she has worked with coastal populations, including Indigenous harvesters, to support food sovereignty and long-term approaches to adaptation and resilience.

Greene’s Fulbright award is to advance the inclusion of�� fish and other aquatic foods —�� “Blue Foods” — into Indonesia’s National School Lunch Program. The goal of this project is to improve nutritional outcomes for school-aged children while strengthening local food systems. Through working directly with fishers and fish suppliers, Green will work with the project team to identify the conditions necessary to provide Blue Foods that promote positive nutritional outcomes for children, support local fishers and sustain local ecosystems. This project is a pilot program for the initiative that will hopefully be expanded nationally.

is an associate professor in the Information School and also is part of the Responsibility in AI Systems and Experiences (RAISE) Center. An interdisciplinary scholar with expertise in human-centered AI, Mitra’s work draws on human-computer interaction, machine learning, natural language processing and social science to understand how people and AI interact in large-scale online systems. Her 91���� examines the societal impacts of generative AI and develops methods to make AI systems more trustworthy, culturally aware and beneficial for diverse communities.

She will use her Fulbright award in India, where she will collaborate with 91����ers at the Centre for Machine Intelligence and Data Science (C-MInDS) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay) — the nation’s topmost and most selective public 91���� institution. She will investigate the risks and capabilities of generative AI systems across socio-cultural contexts most relevant to the Global South. The work aims to advance more culturally aware and responsible AI while strengthening 91���� partnerships between the United States and India.

is an associate professor in the School of Oceanography in the College of the Environment. Morris’ 91���� uses cultivation and whole-genome DNA sequencing to identify the roles of bacteria in global nutrient cycles. With a focus on carbon, nitrogen and sulfur, he has conducted studies that show the effects of low dissolved oxygen on the nutrient cycling activities of the ocean’s most abundant organisms.��

During his time at in South Korea, Morris will pursue a project entitled, “High-throughput cultivation-based genomics of freshwater Chloroflexota.” A key goal is to advance understanding of the evolution of this important group of bacteria and its potential to mediate key nutrient transformations.

is an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and in the Department of Bioengineering in the College of Engineering. She leads a neural engineering lab focused on motor brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs. Her work combines experiments with computational methods to develop new ways to build BCIs that interact with plasticity in the brain.

During her stay at the Champalimaud Institute Centre for Restorative Neurotechnology in Portugal, she will collaborate with two 91����ers, Dr. Juan Álvaro Gallego and Dr. John Krakauer. The new projects aim to improve our understanding of how plasticity shapes brain dynamics and apply new BCI algorithms for stroke rehabilitation.����

is a professor in the Information School and an adjunct professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering in the College of Engineering. He is the founding director of the InfoSeeking Lab and founding co-director of RAISE, the Center for Responsibility in AI Systems & Experiences. His 91���� focuses on agentic AI, human-centered information seeking and responsible AI, examining how intelligent systems can act on people’s behalf while remaining transparent, trustworthy and accountable. He is also the founder and CEO of VersarAI, a startup translating his 91���� on AI agents into enterprise applications. His book, “Agent Nation,” was published this year.��

Shah will use his Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, to study how agentic AI can responsibly power entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystems. Working with RMIT 91����ers and Australia’s startup community, he will investigate what he calls the Delegation Paradox: the tension between the efficiency gained by delegating tasks to AI agents and the oversight, trust and accountability that delegation demands. The work aims to produce frameworks that help founders, enterprises and policymakers adopt AI agents in ways that drive innovation without sacrificing human agency.

Researchers at the 91���� and partners at Carnegie Mellon University are collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy’s on a new project to help scientists use artificial intelligence to better understand the universe.

Modern astronomy is producing more data than ever before. Powerful telescopes — like the — and other instruments around the world are collecting detailed information about billions of stars, galaxies and other cosmic objects. These observations help 91����ers investigate some of the biggest mysteries in science, including the nature of dark matter and dark energy, how the universe evolved over time and what it is made of.

But there is a challenge: Much of the data from those projects is stored in different formats, housed at different institutions and difficult to combine. As a result, scientists often spend significant time preparing data before they can begin analyzing it.

“The scientific opportunities and the data analysis challenges are incredible,” said , head of physics at Carnegie Mellon University.

The new effort, led by Mandelbaum and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s , will create a shared data service to allow 91����ers to seamlessly access and combine information from multiple astronomy experiments. Rather than moving massive datasets from one location to another, the system will allow the data to remain where it is stored while making it available through a central platform.

“A new generation of telescopes and surveys will each change the way we understand our universe,” said co-investigator , a UW professor of astronomy and director of the eScience Institute. “But it is when we bring these data together to look at the universe from a unified perspective that these discoveries will be truly transformative.”

The data infrastructure developed as part of this project will be available to the astronomical community at the SLAC-hosted 91���� Observatory’s U.S. Data Facility and via the American Science Cloud, which integrates the nation’s most advanced high-performance computing systems, scientific facilities, data resources and production capabilities into a single, coordinated AI-driven system. The project extends the UW’s investments in 91���� Observatory and the UW , which are supported by Charles and Lisa Simonyi and led by and .��

The infrastructure also will support a growing area of AI known as foundation models. These AI systems are trained on large and diverse datasets, enabling them to recognize patterns and connections that might otherwise go unnoticed.

In astronomy, foundation models could help 91����ers analyze many different types of observations at once, including images, measurements of light from distant objects and records of how those objects change over time. By bringing these data sources together, scientists hope to uncover new insights about the universe more quickly and efficiently.

Ultimately, the team hopes to transform the vast collections of astronomical data being gathered today into a long-lasting scientific resource, helping 91����ers answer some of humanity’s most fundamental questions about the origin, evolution and makeup of the universe.

Other UW co-investigators include , a 91���� scientist and engineer in astronomy. Other co-investigators include , director of engineering for the LINCC project and , senior staff scientist at SLAC and at Stanford’s/SLAC’s Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology.

Additional modeling will be provided by Francois Lanusse of the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Their work is an extension of the Schmidt Sciences-supported LINCC Frameworks program, a partnership led jointly by CMU and the UW.

This story was adapted from a press release by .

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 91���� institute at the 91���� 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 91����ers 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 91����ers, contact Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.

Approximately 90% of the U.S. population . A significant portion of the water supplying those systems comes from forested lands, which means that policies impacting forests also impact our water access.

In 2001, the Clinton administration passed the , blocking 60 million acres of national forest land from development to limit industrial timber harvest and preserve forest ecosystems. Although popular with the public, the roadless rule drew immediate criticism from timber and related industries. Last summer, the federal government announced plans to rescind it.

A new study from the 91���� and Conservation Science Partners, , highlights the potential consequences of losing those protections by mapping how the roadless rule protects rivers.

“The roadless rule supports the drinking water supply for 25 million Americans and offers critical protection of wildlife habitat and recreational assets. In short, rivers in roadless areas are essential for both people and nature,” said lead author , a UW professor of aquatic and fishery science.

To show how forests impact freshwater, the 91����ers looked at nearly 110,000 square miles of national forest representing 2,488 officially designated “roadless areas.” They cross-referenced the roadless areas map with a recent study assessing river protections nationwide to see where rivers and roadless areas overlap, and therefore which rivers were vulnerable to losing protection.

The 91����ers found that more than 80,000 miles of rivers in the continental U.S. receive some protection from the roadless rule. Of those protected segments, nearly 62,000 miles of river are protected by only the roadless rule. That water reaches 25 million people across the country, often at downstream distances far from roadless areas.

Research shows that forested lands provide higher quality water because soil microbes and plant roots filter contaminants before water arrives at treatment facilities. Cleaner water requires less processing, reducing potential treatment costs for public utilities. Some water utilities are investing in watershed protection as a way to save money and limit chemical use as demand for water rises.

“Forest cover is well recognized for generating economic benefits by avoiding the large capital costs of water treatment plants needed to ensure clean, safe drinking water for people,” said Olden.

Roadless areas are also vital strongholds for sensitive aquatic species, Olden added. At-risk species such as the use protected habitat for spawning and raising young. Hunters and anglers also value roadless areas because they support such productive fish and wildlife habitat and offer unparalleled opportunities for outdoor recreation.

After the U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the plan to rescind the roadless rule last year, more than half a million people submitted comments during the public comment period, which ended in September. According to the Center for Western Priorities, more than expressed opposition to the plan.

Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers attempted to by attaching it to the Wildfire Prevention Act, which supports prescribed burns and forest thinning to fight megafires. Their to justify clawing back protections claimed that rescinding the roadless rule would allow for better forest management, but . Research shows that roadbuilding in formerly roadless areas is more likely to increase fire risk.

“To be clear, the rule does not block any management action that supports forest health, wildfire mitigation or recreation,” Olden said. “In fact, energy projects, transmission lines and mining development remain permitted within roadless areas.”

Roadbuilding and logging can cause sediment build up in lakes and rivers, which must be filtered out. Chemicals from construction can also end up in the water supply. Reductions in forest cover resulting from rescinding the roadless rule may compromise water quality in the U.S., among other negative consequences for animals and ecosystems.

The U.S. Forest Service says it is reviewing public comments and a proposed rule and draft statement of environmental impact this year.

“Any decision to rescind or downgrade the roadless rule that may put forested lands at risk requires careful consideration of the numerous benefits they offer to people and nature,” said Olden. “Our study offers data to inform such decisions.”

This study was funded by the 91���� and from a contract from American Rivers to Conservation Science Partners.

For more information, contact Olden at olden@uw.edu.

Come curious. Leave inspired.

Wherever you are, the 91���� offers opportunities to learn and connect with the ideas, people, and 91���� shaping our world. This summer, visit campus for the latest exhibitions at the Henry Art Gallery and Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, or join us from anywhere through recorded lectures, podcasts, virtual experiences, and more. As a public university, we’re proud to share the knowledge, creativity, and discoveries of the UW with communities near and far.

.

If You’re in Seattle:

(Biology)
Wednesdays, noon to 4 pm / 2nd and 4th Saturdays, 10 am – 2 pm
For nearly 70 years, the Biology Greenhouse at the 91���� has played a vital role in 91���� and teaching. Whether focusing on plant-pollinator interactions, paleoclimatology, or other biological questions, the teaching collection has enhanced and inspired UW biological 91����. Visit the 4 Collection rooms and browse through an amazing diversity of plant species from around the world.

July 7 | (Arboratum Foundation)
Meet Seattle-based author, journalist, and photographer Roddy Scheer and learn about his new book, Wild Seattle: Explore the Amazing Nature in and Around the Emerald City.

July 11 | (Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies)
Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies at the 91���� for a day packed with labor history, organizing strategies, and labor 91���� with the Seattle labor community. How are racism and capitalism related, and how have workers confronted them, past and present? Come ready to learn, discuss, and organize!

July 22 – 26 | (School of Art + Art History + Design)
Assembly is a new invitational contemporary art fair organized by a cohort of Seattle’s leading galleries. Founding members include Traver Gallery, led by School of Art + Art History + Design alum Sarah Traver (BFA ’02), and Greg Kucera Gallery. The fair’s inaugural edition will take place at the West Canal Yards. It will bring together galleries from across the Western US with their curatorial programs, artists, and collectors.

July 23 – 26 | ��(ArtsUW)
Seattle Art Fair, a one-of-a-kind showcase for the vibrant arts community of the Pacific Northwest, and a leading destination for the best in modern and contemporary art, returns for its tenth edition. The Fair brings together the region’s strong collector base, the Pacific Northwest’s top museums and institutions, and an array of innovative public programming.

Through July 24 – Book Club | The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (UW Alumni Association)
Readers’ Choice! Bundle up for an historical mystery set in 18th-century Maine. The body of a local man is found in the frozen Kennebeck River. Martha Ballard, the local midwife, suspects that this death is not an accident — and her detailed diaries of local life are full of clues. Will she weather the scandals unleashed by her pursuit of the truth? Inspired by historic events!

July 25 | (Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Walk around the 91���� campus with Dr. Susan Pavel to learn more about native plants and how you can use them to dye textiles. In this workshop, learn about the native plants around the Burke Museum and how they can be used. Hear about the dyeing process and see samples of native plant dyes. Leave this workshop with the information to do your own natural dyeing at home! Takeaways include: a sample card of a natural dye from a native plant.

August 6 |��(Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture)
Admission to the Burke Museum is FREE, and the museum is open until 8 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month. Get closer to the daily work happening in the Burke Museum’s visible collections storage, labs, and workrooms during Free First Thursday.

August 27 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Celebrate the opening of new exhibitions featuring newly acquired prints by Helen Frankenthaler, collection objects that explore the politics of the everyday, a solo exhibition by artist Joiri Minaya, and the unveiling of a new mural project! Plus music and drinks!

September 10 | Book Launch – Just Hear Me Out: How to Change Minds Without Lies, Bullshit, or Moral Compromise by Colin Marchall (Philosophy)
In Just Hear Me Out, philosopher Colin Marshall describes a persuasive method that is both effective and ethical. Rather than share a flurry of tips on how to win friends and influence people, Marshall invites us to take up persuasion as fundamentally civil work, good for both our conscience and our communities. Real-world persuaders such as Jane Addams, Daryl Davis, and Fred Rogers show us an ethical route, he argues, to changing hearts through patience, respect, and compassion. Hosted at the University Bookstore. Details coming.

EXHIBITIONS:

Opening July 5 | ��(Henry Art Gallery)

By the age of thirty-two, Helen Frankenthaler (1928—2011) had established herself in a white male-dominated art world as one of the leading American Abstract Expressionist painters of the twentieth century. Her distinctive “soak-stain” technique—applying thinned paint onto unprimed canvases on the floor to produce watercolor-like effects—introduced chance as an integral part of her artistic process. Printmaking, a technical process involving chemistry, collaboration, and repetition, might appear at odds with the spontaneity and physicality of her painting.

Opening July 11 |
(Henry Art Gallery)
This exhibition brings together contemporary artworks across media that explore the poetics and politics of everyday life. Using the day-to-day as both material and subject, these works explore how the ordinary and seemingly incidental can become a powerful source for artistic inquiry, critical reflection, and imagination.

Opening July 18 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Richard Learoyd’s (U.K., b. 1966)��large-scale photograph of a dead grey reef shark in the Henry’s permanent collection. This photograph draws from lineages of scientific photography and still life across media, resulting in a picture that surfaces entanglements between traditions of imaging and practices of extraction from land, people, and other living creatures. Reflections from members of the UW community across Art History, Anthropology, and Marine Biology will examine these intersecting histories and contexts.

Opening July 25 | (Henry Art Gallery)
Joiri Minaya (b.1990, New York City; raised in the Dominican Republic) is a multidisciplinary artist who examines the Tropics as a constructed place and identity. As both performer and saboteur, Minaya challenges misrepresentations that reduce tropical geographies and their inhabitants to imagined fantasies of the colonial imagination. In her work, she reclaims Afro-Indigenous narratives of resistance, ancestral knowledges, and regenerative practices—especially those rooted in plant and botanical traditions.

Through August 30 | (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. Related Article by the Seattle Times:

As you enter the exhibit, you’ll see baskets, tumplines, and raw materials — all part of the first phase of the weaving process: gathering. Ancestral weavings — some on loan and returning to Coast Salish territory for the first time in a century — are displayed alongside contemporary creations by the co-curators.

(Henry Art Gallery)
ojo|-|ólǫ́ (pronounced oh-ho hol-ohn) is an exhibition of recent and newly commissioned work by Diné artist Eric-Paul Riege (b. 1994, Na’nízhoozhí [Gallup, New Mexico]) that includes sculpture, textile, collage, and video, activated by moments of performance. Across this work, Riege combines customary Diné practices of weaving, silversmithing, and beading with contemporary cultural forms, exploring Diné cosmology, the history of Euro-American trading posts in and adjacent to the Navajo Nation, and the notion of “authenticity” as a value marker of Indigenous art and craft.

ART AROUND SEATTLE:

Volunteer Park: (Henry Art Gallery)
The title, Soft Services, is a phrase drawn from the artist’s 91���� and interviews with members of the activist community, in reference to the care efforts made during the height of the AIDS crisis. At the time, the rare opportunity arose to use the Ryan White (CARE Act) monies towards “soft services”—aspects of support deemed assistive but not strictly necessary and as such not covered by traditional healthcare (massage, meal trains, dog walking, etc.) Through this installation, Bass explores the notion of what true care means, what we define as essential versus optional, and who has access to it, questions of heightened importance at this moment of crisis and recovery.

Judkins Park Sound Transit: ��(School of Art + Art History + Design)
“A Walk in the Neighborhood,” a public art installation by Barbara Earl Thomas, ’73, ’77, is the culmination of 12 years of creative development. It features illustrated glass panels that serve as dividers and windbreaks on the terminal platform. The imagery features people and elements from the neighborhood rendered in Thomas’s cut-paper style.

Through August 8 | ARTS at King Street Station: ��(School of Art + Art History + Design)
Vivian Cho is a visual designer and animator based in Seattle whose work includes themes of identity, nature, and digital nostalgia. Their practice is driven by curiosity and a love for experimentation, often exploring ways to synthesize 2D and 3D digital art with analog techniques. A recent graduate of the 91����’s Visual Communication Design program, Vivian has previously worked as a motion design intern at Netflix and a visual designer at the Jacob Lawrence Gallery. Currently, they are a staff designer at ARCADE NW Publishing, while also continuing to develop their independent practice and personal design and animation projects. Related article by 91���� Magazine: .

Engage with the 91���� from Anywhere:

SUMMER READS:

��(Department of English)
Discover the latest books and creative achievements from the Department of English faculty.

(Department of English)
From captivating novels and memoirs to poetry, scholarship, and more, this collection showcases the breadth of alumni publications.

PODCASTS:

(Communication)
Lost Credits is a podcast that emerged from a single question: what happened to all of the Black girls that used to occupy our screens? Each episode invites listeners into the quest of two friends to find answers. Hosts Dr. Timeka Tounsel (UW Communication associate professor) and Dr. Ashleigh Greene Wade (Digital Studies, University of Virginia) draw on their expertise as Black feminist media scholars to offer fascinating insights about popular culture and the inner workings of Hollywood. Together, they examine Black girls’ representation in late-twentieth-century and new-millennium entertainment media. With equal doses of fan criticism and educational content, Lost Credits is designed for Black culture enthusiasts as well as students and teachers.

(School of Art + Art History + Design)
UW Professor Karen Cheng joins host and Design alum Jason Tselentis (MFA 2004), Head of Design at Winthrop University, to discuss Working Girl (1988). They discuss the cinematography, Harrison Ford’s character, and other movies that would pair well with Working Girl for a potential double feature.

Ways of Knowing, Season 2 (College of Arts & Sciences)
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 91���� shapes our knowledge of the world in real time—from digital humanities to mathematics to AI.

(Astronomy)
Researchers at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland have announced that they discovered a new subatomic particle. Roughly four times more massive than a standard proton, this short-lived piece of matter called Ξcc⁺(Xi-cc-plus) is like an extra-heavy proton, 91����ers say. Physicist Hassan Jawahery joins Host Flora Lichtman to unpack how the particle was found, and what its discovery means for theoretical physics. Then, astronomer Eric Bellm describes a new alert system that could flag potentially significant changes in the southern night sky in real time. On its first night of testing at the 91���� Observatory in Chile, the system fired off 800,000 alerts.

��(Jackson School of International Studies)
Launched in 2021 with UW Professor Daniel Bessner and writer Derek Davison, “American Prestige,” the winner of the 2025 Signal Awards “silver” medal, offers an in-depth analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international affairs, and has featured guests such as actor Morgan Spector and HuffPost senior diplomatic correspondent Akbar Shahid Ahmed.

(Biology)
This is a podcast centered around the humans who study the myriad biological processes that shape our world, specifically, the humans who are students and faculty in the Department of Biology at the 91����. They are scientists who study everything from the ways cells move through complex tissues to ancient communities of long-extinct mammals, from the ways plants interact with their surroundings to the ways bats fly and hummingbirds feed. Plunge into the vast world of biology, where students share paths to becoming scientists and the lessons they have learned along the way.

Podcast:����(School of Drama)
A lively and opinionated cultural history of the Broadway Musical that tells the extraordinary story of how Immigrants, Jews, Queers, African-Americans, and other outcasts invented the Broadway Musical, and how they changed America in the process. In Season One, host David Armstrong traces the evolution of American Musical Theater from its birth at the dawn of the 20th Century, through its mid-century “Golden Age”, and right up to its current 21st Century renaissance; and also explores how musicals have reflected and shaped our world — especially in regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, and equality.

STREAMING 2025-26 LECTURES AND PERFORMANCES:

The World (Cup) Comes to Seattle Lecture Series (Jackson School of International Studies)
The Global Sports Lab hosts an online series of talks and discussions featuring local and global experts to discuss the geopolitical, local, and sporting implications of the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Seattle.

• 
  Presented by Sean Jacobs, Professor and Director of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at The New School, and Martha Saavedra, former Associate Director of the Center for African Studies at UC Berkeley.
• 
  Presented by César Wazen, Director of the International Affairs Office at Qatar University.
• 
  Presented by Mary V. Harvey, Chief Executive at the Center for Sport and Human Rights; Maya Mendoza-Exstrom, Board Member of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee, Chief Business Officer of Seattle Reign Football Club, and Chief Operating Officer of Seattle Sounders Football Club; Leo Flor, Chief Legacy Officer of the SeattleFWC26 Local Organizing Committee; and Anita Ramasastry, Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law and Director of the Sustainable International Development Graduate Program at the 91���� School of Law.
• 
  Presented by Niki Akhavan, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Media and Communication Studies at The Catholic University of America.
• 
  Presented by Teresa Mosqueda, Councilmember of the Metropolitan King County Council, and Anita Ramasastry, Barer Chair and Professor of Law at the 91����.
• 
  Presented by Stéphane Mourlane, Senior Lecturer, Aix-Marseille University; Yvan Gastaut, Lecturer, University of Côte d’Azur; and Paul Dietschy, Professor, Marie and Louis Pasteur University.
• 
  Presented by Abdullah Al-Arian, Associate Professor of History, Georgetown University in Qatar.
• 
  Presented by Jen Barnes, Co-Chair of the Pride+ Match Impact Committee with SEA2026 and founder and CEO of both Rough & Tumble Pub and Salmon Bay FC.

��(Physics)
Building on the Department’s longtime commitment to public scholarship, the lecture series brings renowned scientists to UW to offer free lectures on exciting advances in physics with the goal of fostering an appreciation of science and technology in our community:

• 
  Nobel laureate David Baker discusses advanced protein design software and its use in developing molecules to address challenges in medicine, technology, and sustainability.
• 
  Dr. John Martinis, recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics, presents “Prehistoric quantum bits: experiments testing the fundamental physics of superconducting quantum devices.”

��(History)
Incarceration is a hotly debated topic in the United States, a country that has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world. Looking at the practice from a historical perspective, what can incarceration teach us about who we were and who we are now? What might histories of incarceration, and the histories of those who have been incarcerated, tell us about power dynamics, belonging, exclusion, struggle, and hope across societies in the past and present? The 2026 History Lecture Series explores the practice of incarceration, tracing its evolution from antiquity to our modern world.

(Communication)
Kathleen Hall Jamieson is the Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and the cofounder of the fact-checking site FactCheck.org and its science subsite, SciCheck. In this lecture, Dr. Jamieson argues that scientists and science communicators would be well served by using a “mental models” approach to simultaneously increase consequential knowledge and reduce public susceptibility to misconceptions about controversial climate and health findings. By engaging audiences with visual, verbal, or animated models, this approach fosters an understanding of science that audiences can draw on to recognize and reject consequential misconceptions.

(Department of English)
Nationally-acclaimed poet and critic Ange Mlinko lecture, “When Poets Say Nothing,” addresses the use of a negative mode in poetry, called apophasis or the apophatic. Her title itself is a clever pun that operates on several levels. Poets have always been accused of saying nothing much, of course. William Butler Yeats describes this accusation as a professional hazard; to be a poet is to “[b]e thought an idler by the noisy set / Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen / The martyrs call the world.” On a different level, though, it is equally true that poets themselves invoke the negative to create distinct artistic and intellectual effects from those of positive language. As Mlinko noted, the apophatic is historically connected to theology, with figures from the ancient world, such as Saint Augustine of Hippo, urging that a correct human understanding of God must always be tempered by humility. Humans cannot understand the divine, writes Augustine; if you think you understand something, you can be sure it is not God. Poets say nothing when nothing is precisely the thing that needs to be said.

(Department of Psychology)
Dr. Cynthia Berg presents a perspective on self- and social-regulation that guides her work across the lifespan. In addition to talking about transition points across the lifespan where coordination of self- and social-regulation are linked to diabetes outcomes — across adolescence, in young adulthood, and in late adulthood — she identifies interventions that help to optimize the coordination of self- and social-regulation.

(School of Art + Art History + Design)
Visual Communication Design faculty members Karen Cheng, Annabelle Gould, Chad P. Hall, and Kristine Matthews give a series of short presentations reflecting on the designers, projects, and ideas that have shaped their practices and design values—from their time as students through their early careers. Their selections ranged from foundational texts on typography to inventive works, such as annual reports that document a designer’s year through charts and graphs. Watch the presentation recording to learn from these creative influencers.

UW School of Music Performances
Performances and more from the 91���� School of Music.

Browse the full list of the UW School of Music’s

By bringing top minds from around the world to the 91���� to teach and speak to the public, the UW Graduate School’s Office of Public Lectures takes big ideas and discoveries into the community and brings the community into scholarly life.

• 
  This talk invites audiences to explore five distinct perspectives on the political and cultural impact of the tournament—offering a more nuanced, thought-provoking look at what the World Cup means for Seattle and the world.
• 
  From winning two Olympic gold medals and a World Cup championship to enduring a career-ending concussion that left her “temporarily totally disabled” and forced her to pawn her Olympic medals, Briana Scurry delivers a raw and inspiring account of resilience. With unflinching candor, she guides audiences through the soaring highs and devastating lows of her journey—sharing a story of triumph, adversity, and ultimate redemption. Along the way, Scurry reflects on soccer’s global influence and the enduring significance of the World Cup, offering a deeply personal perspective on the sport that shaped her life and legacy.
• 
  Based on Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ forthcoming book of poetic indexes, this interactive poetic lecture explores the life, teaching, and artwork of color theorist Alma Thomas. Engaging themes of audience, intimacy, abstract expressionist art, and the dynamic relationship between Black women’s creativity and the process of being Earth, the lecture invites participants into a rhythmic dialogue of form, meaning, and presence.
• 
  In the shadow of an empire, in a world on fire, what if we could imagine — and build — otherwise? Crip feminist technoscience teaches us how to wield disabled, mad, neuroexpansive, crip, sick people’s wisdom as a vital tool for surviving now and thriving then. Disabled people know intimately how to strategically leverage legal and policy tools and know precisely the limitations of these tools and frameworks.
• 
  While World War I is often framed as a European conflict, its most far-reaching consequences were profoundly felt far beyond Europe’s borders. In the Middle East, the war sparked a sweeping political crisis that ultimately led to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In its wake, the European victors imposed new borders and mandates, carving the region into fragmented zones of imperial control and influence. But this was not merely a story of unchecked colonial dominance. In the postwar moment, a spectrum of fluid, intersecting anti-colonial movements emerged. Palestine became a key site in these struggles, as a racialized order of settler-colonial capitalism took shape under British rule. This talk locates those movements within the broader transition from British to American imperial ascendancy, contending that the political history of the region must be understood as integral to the global history of fossil capitalism. Moving beyond frameworks centered solely on empire, the talk examines how anti-colonial actors envisioned their futures within a rapidly transforming global system—even as new hierarchies of race, empire, and capital were being redefined.
• 
  This talk explores the idea that the endurance of the rule of law in the United States relies not solely on the provisions of the Constitution—its structural framework, the institutions it established, or the rights it enshrines—but fundamentally on the character of its citizens. Qualities such as public-spiritedness, tolerance, moderation, empathy, mutual respect, a sense of fair play, and, ultimately, intelligence, honor, and decency form the foundation of constitutional democracy.
• 
  Join this lecture on reviving MLK’s vision of the beloved community—where inclusion, cultural goodwill, and nonviolence expand democracy beyond voting. Discover how these values can bridge today’s deep divides and strengthen the soul of American civic life.
• 
  Healthcare can be challenging for anyone—but for older LGBTQ individuals, the barriers are often deeper and more complex. This engaging talk explores how thoughtful, inclusive communication can transform healthcare experiences, making every person feel truly seen, heard, and respected. Join us to learn how the words we choose and the ways we listen can foster trust, reduce disparities, and build a system that cares for everyone with dignity.
• 
  Is artificial intelligence on the brink of world domination? Have tech giants created autonomous thinking machines? Will AI render authors, artists, and other creatives obsolete? Are we entering an era where computers surpass humans in every way?
• 
  In this powerful and deeply personal talk, Dr. Uché Blackstock explores the legacies that have shaped her journey—both personal and institutional. She reflects on following in her mother’s footsteps to medical school, a path that made Dr. Blackstock and her twin sister the first Black mother-daughter legacy at the institution.

(Simpson Center for the Humanities)
The Katz Distinguished Lectures Playlist offers a rich, ever-growing archive to explore from anywhere, inviting you to engage with a wide range of thought-provoking topics.

• 
  Why do we turn to the past in order to confront the crises of the present? Michael Rothberg approaches this question from the perspective of “comparison controversies,” which occur when impassioned public debates emerge from provocative historical comparisons. Since October 7, 2023, political speeches, protests, magazine articles, and social media posts have generated controversy by connecting recent events in Israel and Gaza to the Holocaust. In this talk, Rothberg will consider post-October 7 examples in relation to a larger context of comparison controversies and a longer trajectory of Holocaust memory to reflect more generally on the possibilities and pitfalls of historical analogy.
• 
  The production and promotion of so-called “AI” technology involves dehumanization on many fronts: the computational metaphor valorizes one kind of cognitive activity as “intelligence,” devaluing many other aspects of human experience while taking an isolating, individualistic view of agency, ignoring the importance of communities and webs of relationships. Meanwhile, the purpose of humans is framed as labeling data or as interchangeable machine components. Data collected about people is understood as “ground truth” even while it lies about those people, especially marginalized people. In this talk, Bender will explore these processes of dehumanization and the vital role that the humanities have in resisting these trends by painting a deeper and richer picture of what it is to be human.

(Astronomy)
What will 91���� Observatory discover that no one’s expecting? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice learn and answer cosmic queries about the Vera 91���� 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 91���� Observatory Construction.

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).uw.edu).

The 91���� is exploring a significant redevelopment and expansion of UW Medical Center–Montlake, the Magnuson Health Sciences Center and west campus.

To kick off this potential 10-year effort, the UW Real Estate office is issuing a Phase-1 request for proposals for a one-year exercise to find a development advisor that will, in collaboration with the UW, deliver an executable strategy for the project. This Phase-1 work would include a year-long process to identify potential capital funding sources, assess the existing south campus buildings and infrastructure, and determine a realistic program and plan for expansion and redevelopment.

The UW’s current facilities cannot meet the demand for health care as more patients turn to UW Medicine for cancer, heart and transplant treatments, among other care needs. UWMC–Montlake currently operates with a shortage of beds, and that shortage is expected to grow to nearly 300 by 2040.

Additionally, modern biomedical 91���� and health 91����, such as the Institute for Protein Design led by Nobel Prize winner David Baker and the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine require expanded facilities to continue delivering new treatments and cures.

Teaching, 91���� and clinical facilities in the Magnuson Health Sciences Center are split across many floors and wings, and many of those spaces need replacement or will soon. The review will also include close consultation with the schools of Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy to determine the need for improved teaching, clinical training, 91���� and dental care facilities.

A four-month initial feasibility study conducted by Seattle architectural and design firm NBBJ, along with the UW Medicine Strategy Team, determined the clear need for a new hospital tower at UWMC–Montlake with capacity for up to 400 additional beds. In a separate assessment, it was determined a new electrical substation is needed, as the existing substation is at capacity.

The RFP states a clear preference for limiting situations where a unit has to move more than once and for minimizing disruptions to teaching, 91���� and patient care. If the project proceeds, the preferred project timeline includes the construction of new, permanent space for any units that may need to move, to be completed in approximately five years, at which point the existing hospital tower and portions of the Magnuson Health Sciences Center would be demolished and replaced. If the project proceeds, any units that are impacted will be supported through the project, including if there is a need to move to temporary space during construction.

An important component of the RFP is the development of a structured, multi-source funding plan for the entirety of the project. Potential funding sources include, but are not limited to, philanthropy, government funding, public-private partnerships and ground leases. If the year-long review determines that some aspects of the program are not feasible, the team will provide an alternative plan.

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

Arguably the most important crop on Earth, rice has been cultivated for roughly 10,000 years. It’s a staple food for more than half the global population, with about 90% cultivated and consumed in Asia.

But a new 91���� study, recently published in , warns that this essential crop is in danger. Due to rising temperatures driven by climate change, projections show that Asia’s major rice-producing regions may soon pass the thermal limits that have remained consistent throughout the crop’s history.

Using satellite maps, agricultural records, archaeological data and climate projections, 91����ers found that domesticated Asian rice has never thrived where the mean annual temperature exceeds 28 degrees Celsius — 82 degrees Fahrenheit — or where the warm-season maximum temperature exceeds 33 C, or 91 F.��

Climate projections estimate that, by the end of this century, the land area exceeding these temperature limits could expand by 10 to 30 times in Asia’s major rice-producing nations. This would create unparalleled challenges in a region where more than a billion people rely on rice cultivation for their livelihoods. While rice breeding programs offer some hope, the 91����ers found that even the major rice subspecies won’t thrive in the projected temperatures.

UW News spoke with , an archaeologist, UW associate professor of anthropology and co-author of the study, about the 91���� and what it means for the future.

How did you become interested in this topic?

JDG: A lot of my 91���� focuses on how climatic events have shaped people’s ability to farm or grow crops in environments around the world. One of the places I previously worked was the Tibetan Plateau, and some of my early 91���� documented that there was a cooling event around 4,000 years ago that halted Tibetans’ ability to grow two critical crops, which were . They shifted to wheat and barley after that, and they’ve been growing them ever since.

I became interested in applying the same 91���� to understand how our current unprecedented moment of climate change may impact crop distribution. I work in Asia, particularly China, and I’ve worked on rice for most of my career. Our team found that the same cooling event that affected Tibet had a major impact on rice genetics. In fact, it led to the development of cold-adapted temperate rice, which is the same type of rice that people rely on for subsistence today in Japan, northern China and Korea. It’s the short-grained sticky rice that’s cold tolerant, as opposed to the original form of rice that was a semi-subtropical cultivar.��

We then became interested in the types of challenges rice will face moving forward. We pulled records of everywhere that rice has ever been cultivated in Asia throughout human history — and all the climatic conditions under which it’s been cultivated — and compared that to the types of situations that we’ll face under global warming today.

What did you find as you started looking toward the future?

JDG: Basically, we found that large areas that are major rice producers are going to face rising temperatures that are unprecedented in the history of rice cultivation. Over the course of the past 10,000 years and its domestication, rice has been adapted to cooler conditions and not to warmer conditions. We used a wide variety of forward-looking climate projection models, and all of those models seem to converge on the same point: Large parts of primary rice growing regions around the world are expected to surpass the known temperature limit where these crops can be cultivated.

I use the word unprecedented, and I don’t use it lightly. Another term I could apply to this would be no analog. There is no known situation over the course of rice’s cultivation where rice grew in regions which had such high mean annual temperatures. This crop has simply never experienced this before, so there is no data for how it will react. But we do have thousands of years of data saying that to date, it hasn’t been cultivated in temperatures like these. In fact, there are only two parts of the world today that have mean annual temperatures that are similar to those that we expect will occur in major rice producing regions of the world: the Sahara desert and parts of the Arabian peninsula. There is a reason these areas are largely desert. Most people think about water but temperature is a critical reason, too.��

I can’t underscore enough how writing this study felt. Millions of people live in this region and depend on temperatures as we have known them to continue to live and farm there. This is beyond devastating, and we are beginning to see the impacts of processes like this already.��

What are some recent examples of rising temperatures causing problems with crop cultivation?

JDG: In 2023, of all non-basmati rice. Sona masoori rice, or the type of rice grown across most of low altitude South Asia, had such great losses due massive heat waves that the government stopped all exports. People were panic buying rice that year, even in the U.S.

With climate change, the temperature is not increasing in a completely linear fashion. But the average is increasing over time. As the average increases, there’s a higher probability of these extreme events occurring. It’s already happening in our lifetime, and this study is solid evidence for why addressing climate change should be an absolute top priority for all of us. Over a billion people on the planet are rice cultivators, and that is their primary means of livelihood. For a fourth of the world’s population, rice is a main staple in the diet.

We could have written this paper for so many crops, including wheat, corn and others. What we’re dealing with here is that plant photosynthesis just doesn’t function well above those temperature limits. We’re running into fundamental limits of photosynthetic biochemical process plants, which are temperature limited. There are not that many types of plants that can sustain life under conditions like that, and certainly they are not our major economic plants.��

We live in an era where we have all experienced climate change. In 2026, most of the globe has experienced an extreme heat event. We understand how difficult this is for us as mammals to live through, and yet some of us have the privilege of escaping indoors or even to air conditioning. Plants, on the other hand, cannot move to escape the heat. I’m sure many here in Seattle remember the . The plants in our yard are still recovering from those short few days. That event caused billions of dollars in losses in the agricultural sector in the Pacific Northwest. Some berry and soft fruit farmers experienced nearly 100% crop losses. By midcentury, conditions like this could occur every five to 10 years and could have a huge impact on all plants, including the ones we rely on for food.��

This also critically highlights why we need to expand rather than contract our dietary breadth. Sadly, the opposite of this is happening due to industrial farming practices. Humanity is relying on an increasingly narrow range of species. We are essentially putting all our eggs into one or just a few baskets when we need crop diversity.��

What do climate projections take into account, and what can be done to change the path we’re currently on?

JDG: For this study, we used multiple climate projections based on what different countries’ carbon commitments will be moving forward. What we found is that even for climate scenarios where there is a strong global commitment to sustainability-focused growth, international cooperation, and an eventual transition to net-zero emissions, major rice growing regions are still impacted (SSP 1-2.6 on our maps). These impacts expand dramatically with other climate scenarios which assume less concerted action, and sadly this is consistent with where we are headed today which is probably somewhere between SSP 3- 7.0.

Our actions can change the course of what scenario we might be looking at with these maps. We have the technology to move forward with more climate-friendly solutions and many countries around the world are trying to take the lead while we lag behind. For instance, China, where I work, has made massive investments in public transit and railways. Nearly everybody in China drives an electric vehicle. I did not see a single gas-powered car last time I was there. We could do that here at home, and we’re not. Our politicians are making active choices to halt this type of action and at the same time we have the highest per capita emissions in the world. We could and should do much more. It can feel hopeless, particularly for those of us who live in a country where action from our politicians has been in a decades-long gridlock for meaningful change. But we shouldn’t stop lobbying for change.��

We can also look at what steps we can make in our own lives to lower emissions. It’s worth noting that the vast part of emissions come from the top 1%, and that portion of the population can really drive meaningful personal action. Simple steps for those that have the means and access can be switching to solar if you own a home or taking public transit where you can.Asking honestly, how am I contributing to this and what can I do differently can always help. For me, the single largest part of my personal emissions was flying and I ceased a large part of all my noncritical travel for that reason. Emissions from short-distance flights and private jets contribute hugely to this issue.

No country will be immune to a crisis of this magnitude, and it is an issue that deserves global attention. While the impacts may initially appear distant to readers from the U.S., our interconnected economies mean that we will also be affected through global trade systems and shifting agricultural dynamics. The same environmental and socioeconomic processes influencing rice production in Asia will have comparable implications for crops such as corn in lower-latitude regions of the U.S. and even here in the Pacific Northwest, as we saw with the last heat dome. Addressing these challenges requires recognizing their global scope and engaging proactively with the evidence before us.��

Other co-authors of the study were of the University of Florida and and of New York University.��

The study was funded in part by grants from the Zegar Family Foundation and the NSF Plant Genome Research Program.

For more information, contact d’Alpoim Guedes jguedes@uw.edu.

From a mountaintop in Chile, under clear dark skies, the Simonyi Survey Telescope at the NSF–DOE Vera C. 91���� Observatory has officially begun the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (). The 10-year survey will create the most comprehensive, cinematic record of the universe in history. Over the next decade, 91���� will observe the entire southern sky every few nights to create an ultra-wide, ultra-high-definition time-lapse record of our universe.��

“The decision to officially begin the LSST was made after a period of system optimization and a careful operational review of technical readiness, data system performance and scientific validation,” said , a 91���� professor of astronomy and head of LSST. “The 91���� 91���� team played a central role in optimizing the observatory and helping prepare it for the start of full survey operations.”

The Simonyi Survey Telescope’s unique design combines enormous light-collecting power, the ability to move rapidly across the sky and a wide field of view. The attached 3,200-megapixel camera — the largest digital camera in the world — is now capturing a new, detailed image approximately every 40 seconds. Using a telescope with this speed and sensitivity, 91���� is capable of catching faint objects and fleeting events with reliability and consistency every night.

Over the next decade, 91���� will illuminate a treasure trove of discoveries: pulsating stars, supernova explosions, the fossil record of galaxies, clues to the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter, and entirely new phenomena we’ve never seen before. Some cosmic processes unfold slowly, unpredictably or incredibly rarely, which is why a 10-year survey is essential. By returning to each point in the sky about 800 times over a decade, 91���� data will provide the scientific community with deep, time-rich views needed to uncover subtle events, capture moving objects and study the accelerating expansion of the universe.

This milestone follows the 91���� First Look event that took place in June 2025, which was followed by final commissioning work, an operational readiness review and the beginning of the alert stream.

Each night, 91���� collects approximately 10 terabytes of data and produces as many as seven million alerts of changes in the night sky. These alerts stream to : automated systems that sort and classify these changes so scientists can act quickly. UW 91����ers led by , 91���� associate professor of astronomy, developed the alert pipeline.

“Astronomers have already used 91����’s public alerts to discover and follow up hundreds of transient phenomena during the early optimization period,” Bellm said. “We can expect many more exciting discoveries with the start of the full survey.”

Not only is 91���� helping to unlock the mysteries of the distant universe, it is also the most powerful solar system discovery machine ever built. By taking about a thousand images every night, 91���� is compiling a detailed census of our solar system, including millions of asteroids and comets. In just a month and a half, during early optimization surveys, 91���� discovered over 11,000 never-before-seen asteroids, including 33 near-Earth objects and 380 trans-Neptunian objects.

When the LSST is complete, the final dataset will contain billions of objects with trillions of measurements, all accessible through regular data releases. This is the first time so much astronomical data will be available to so many people, opening the door to new kinds of discovery by both scientists and the public. 91���� invites anyone in the world to engage with its data and explore the dynamic universe in ways never before possible.

“It is amazing and humbling to be here at this time and place as we start the Legacy Survey of Space and Time, after more than two decades of incredible work by our dedicated team,” said Bob Blum, director of 91���� Observatory at NSF NOIRLab. “91���� Observatory is for everyone; the LSST will change how we do astronomy and astrophysics, allowing 91����ers anywhere to participate in cutting-edge science.”

Visit to follow the status of the LSST in real time.

91���� Observatory is jointly operated by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC. Observatory operations��are funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

For more information, contact Ivezić at ivezic@astro.washington.edu.

This story was adapted from a press release by .