It鈥檚 not unusual for students to ask why he鈥檚 so dressed up for class, but his answer often takes them by surprise.

Goldman, a teaching professor of chemistry at the 天美影视传媒, often goes directly from work to meetings for his other position: for Lake Forest Park, a suburb of Seattle. He鈥檚 been a council member since 2022 and is currently serving his second term, which runs through 2029.

Science came naturally to Goldman. He decided to major in chemistry during an Advanced Placement class in high school and chose to teach as a postdoctoral scholar, but his venture into civics was 鈥渕ore serendipitous.鈥� When a friend on the council first approached him with the idea in April 2021, Goldman all but scoffed.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 not my personality,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not the most gregarious person. I tend to be much more analytical, so I wouldn鈥檛 have envisioned myself being a politician. I also think there is a stereotype that you have to have studied political science or you have to be a lawyer to be in politics. I鈥檓 a chemistry teacher.鈥�

But Goldman鈥檚 friend insisted he only needed to be passionate about the community to be an effective council member. A month later, he decided to run. In order to run for office in Lake Forest Park, a person must only be a registered voter of the city and have lived there at least one year.

鈥淚 think my friend was completely correct in that each council member brings a different scope,鈥� Goldman said. 鈥淚 really took that to heart. Some people are more experienced in land use while others know construction design or finances or can analyze data.鈥�

Lake Forest Park covers an area of 3.4 miles in King County. The city has an estimated population of 13,630 as of the 2020 Census. More than 18% of the population is aged 65 and over, while 21% of the population is 21 and under.

Goldman’s focus is on environmental issues and public transit. Lake Forest Park tends to be car-centric, Goldman said, so his goal is to make it easier for people to bike or walk to transit.听 He doesn鈥檛 own a car, so he commutes to work at the UW by bus.听

鈥淭here is no reason to be pigeonholed,鈥� Goldman said. 鈥淭here is no reason for people to think, 鈥極h, I鈥檓 in science and you鈥檙e in politics and those two things are totally separate.鈥� Scientific literacy is critical for the general population.鈥�

Goldman has also found overlap in the skills he uses for his two roles. While professors teach individually, they collaborate on topics like course ideas, textbooks and changing the curriculum.

鈥淎 lot of the decisions in the chemistry department are made through mutual consensus,鈥� Goldman said. 鈥淚 bring that mindset to the city council. There will be some disagreements, but it鈥檚 the same process of: Where does everyone start from? What are we already in agreement on? What do we need to reach an agreement?鈥�

Sitting on the council has also given Goldman a more complete understanding of what it takes to manage a budget, which has helped him grasp the operational and capital expenses in the chemistry department and the College of Arts & Sciences.

By sharing about his path with students, Goldman hopes to illuminate career options outside the traditional chemistry track. Many graduates remain in academia or pursue pre-med or similar paths, but there is a lot of middle ground, Goldman said. Students could consider going into law or using their chemistry knowledge to become a professional consultant.

鈥淭here are a lot of alternative approaches,鈥� Goldman said. 鈥淎nd having politicians who are knowledgeable about science will make any science-related legislation that much more effective. I want to encourage people not to separate science from politics.鈥�

As for Goldman, his political ambitions end here. You won鈥檛 see him campaigning for any county or state posts.

鈥淵ou wouldn’t be the first person to ask,鈥� Goldman said. 鈥淗onestly, it took a bit of arm-twisting to get me to run in the first place. This is not a stepping stone. I’m happy in my own little quiet neck of the woods.鈥�

For more information, contact Goldman at goldmanl@uw.edu.

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Capybaras like their habitats wet. These large rodents thrive in low-elevation wetlands, migrating along creeks and rivers to nibble on foliage and flowers. That’s why researchers were surprised to find an 8.8 million-year-old fossilized capybara tooth in northern Chile’s , one of the driest regions on Earth. In a paper in Scientific Reports, researchers postulate that the Atacama Desert must have had a wetter climate during the , based on this discovery. This is the first time a capybara species has ever been seen in the Atacama region of Chile 鈥� today these creatures reside in the marshy lowlands across Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay. Researchers had at one time assumed that the Andean mountain chain on the eastern side of Chile would have prevented these short-legged rodents from ever entering the Atacama region. With this discovery, the authors propose that capybaras were able to follow a wetland trail along the northern part of South America, trekking from Bolivia to Peru into northern Chile. In addition to capybaras, the ancient Atacama region also likely had palms and other flowering plants, according to plant fossils analyzed by a UW scientist for the study. These findings challenge the idea that the Atacama was just always a desert, and can help researchers better understand how shifts in climate can drastically affect the environment.

For more information, contact co-author , UW professor of biology, at caestrom@uw.edu.听听听听听听

A full list of co-authors and funding is . Adapted from a release .

Multitasking gives marine microbes an edge when nutrients are scarce

The world鈥檚 oceans teem with tiny organisms that are difficult to study yet critical to account for. The organisms that make up this microscopic community, many of which are protists, have evolved over time to help keep marine ecosystems balanced. A UW study in the ISME Journal, found that organisms that can both photosynthesize and eat to generate energy do better in nutrient-limited environments, which includes warmer water. This flexibility may help them cope with changing conditions and could help researchers gauge how marine ecosystems will respond to future warming. Gathering more data from the bottom of the food web is important for understanding the ecosystem-wide impacts of environmental change. The study also debuted a new genetic method for studying energy production versus consumption that may make it easier to study protists. Samples in this study were collected from the North Pacific, near Hawaii and about 1,000 miles north, but the researchers hope to continue expanding the radius to improve global ocean models.

For more information, contact , UW research scientist and engineer of biological oceanography at coesel@uw.edu.

The UW co-authors are Shiri Graff van Creveld, and . A full list of co-authors and funding is .

UW engineers capture behavior of ‘edge waves’ on beaches, putting popular wave models to the test

Coastal engineers and oceanographers often think of the motion of water on beaches as “one dimensional”: waves propagating directly onto the beach from offshore. These simplified wave models are used widely from designing shoreline infrastructure to forecasting coastal flooding. However, some waves propagate along the coast rather than crashing into it, and may push an additional meter of water depth onto the beach. For decades, these “edge waves” have not been accounted for in the one-dimensional models commonly used to understand wave behavior. To find out how edge waves might be impacting model accuracy, researchers at the UW and UC San Diego deployed an array of pressure and velocity sensors along a beach in Southern California for 60 days. In a paper in JGR Oceans, the researchers describe a model they built to tease out the influence of edge waves in the larger system. While edge waves contributed a significant amount of energy, the team found that ultimately the one-dimensional models that exclude edge waves remain accurate enough for predicting total water levels at the shoreline.

For more information, contact , a postdoctoral scholar of civil and environmental engineering, at cshender@uw.edu.

A full list of co-authors and funding is .

How Colombian environmentalists use law and democracy to redefine mountain landscapes

In 2013 and 2017, Colombian voters in two towns backed a legal effort to stop a large-scale gold mining project. In doing so, they are making the mountainous areas where they live more visible and politically relevant. The decision allowed environmental advocates to organize around a larger area defined by elevation, massive volume, and subterranean and arboreal features. , UW assistant professor of anthropology, a research article in the journal Anthropological Forum that examines how the effort used legal tools for citizen participation to not only voice their opinions on extractive projects, but also reconfigure space in unprecedented ways. The case shows that democratic participation can have far-reaching consequences for how landscapes are defined and lived. The article appears in a special issue, called “Ethnographies of Vertical and Volumetric Worlds,” which was co-edited by Ardila and Steven Schwartz of the University of Rochester.

For more information, contact Castillo at acastil@uw.edu.

Funding information is .

Researchers develop new way to measure how blood clots form

A wound stops bleeding because tiny blood cell fragments called platelets clump together to form a clot. Researchers know that platelets generate forces that help compact and strengthen clots. However, they鈥檝e struggled to understand how blood clots form in real time. To better understand this system, UW mechanical engineers created a device that measures how platelet forces and stiffness evolve together during the first minutes of clot formation. in Advanced Healthcare Materials, the research team used the device to apply magnetic forces to clumps of platelets, causing them to strengthen and stiffen through a process called 鈥渕echanotransduction鈥� in which cells convert mechanical forces into biological responses. These findings could be used to study how new drugs affect clot formation, how platelets respond to signals when disease is present, and how blood clotting biomechanics contribute to cardiovascular disorders.

For more information, contact , a UW professor of mechanical engineering, at nsniadec@uw.edu.

The UW co-authors are , , Yoeur-Man Mach and . A full list of co-authors and funding is . Adapted from a story by .

UW researchers probe superconducting materials that defy expectations

Most materials resist the flow of electricity to some degree, but unusual materials known as superconductors can carry an electric current with no resistance at all. Superconductors offer a unique window into the physics of materials at tiny scales, and they could one day revolutionize electronics. In recent years, researchers have discovered new forms of superconductivity in stacks of atomically thin materials such as . Resistance typically drops to zero as these materials are cooled, but in some cases it mysteriously levels off at a small finite value, which contradicts expectations of superconductor behavior. In a paper in Nature, UW materials scientists tested this behavior with a device consisting of several layers of graphene stacked in a staircase-like pattern. By adjusting voltages applied to the device, the researchers could control whether the graphene exhibited true superconductivity or the more peculiar 鈥渇ailed鈥� form, providing clear evidence that failed superconductivity is real. The team is now working to uncover the origin of this mysterious behavior.

For more information, contact , a UW associate professor of both physics and materials science and engineering, at myank@uw.edu..

The UW co-authors are , , and . A full list of co-authors and funding is .

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Frequent news headlines and rising gas prices are constant reminders of the fuel shortage linked to the war in Iran. But energy crises are about more than oil and geopolitics, say and , who co-teach 鈥�Communication, Design and the Environment鈥� in the 天美影视传媒鈥檚 Communication Leadership program.

Muren, a teaching professor of design, and Russell, a professor of communication, examine environmental problems from a perspective beyond the hard sciences. They are currently working on a book that explores how the systems we design and the stories we tell shape the relationship between society and the living world.

UW News spoke to Muren and Russell about what today鈥檚 energy crises reveal about contemporary societies鈥� dependence on fossil fuels and how we can create a 鈥渟olar-powered system.鈥澨�

The war in Iran has put energy back at the center of public debate. What stands out to you about the conversation we’re having?

Adrienne Russell: To me, it鈥檚 impressive how quickly the conversation 鈥� in the news media mostly 鈥� narrowed to . Where will the oil come from? How quickly can markets stabilize? What will happen to prices? Those are important questions, but they’re also very familiar. Every energy crisis seems to produce the same script. We talk about rather than asking why our societies are organized in ways that make them so vulnerable to disruptions in the first place.

Dominic Muren: Exactly. We tend to treat these moments as temporary interruptions to an otherwise normal system. But they’re also reminders that the system itself depends on finite resources and exceptional geopolitical stability. The crisis isn’t just exposing a shortage of oil; it’s exposing assumptions about how much energy we expect to have available and how our economies are built around that expectation.

What assumptions are built into this way of thinking?

DM: The biggest assumption is that energy should always be available in whatever quantity society demands. When supply falls short, we assume the problem is getting more energy, not reconsidering the expectations that created that demand. That assumption feels natural today, but of the fossil-fuel era.

AR: Those assumptions become embedded in everyday life. We stop noticing that overnight shipping, long commutes, streaming entertainment or all depend on enormous amounts of energy. They begin to feel like ordinary features of modern life instead of choices made possible by a particular energy system.

What are the material consequences of thinking about energy this way?

DM: We respond to crises by reinforcing the very system that created them. The was widely expected to trigger a dramatic spike in global oil prices. Instead, the shock was muted, in part because China rapidly shifted away from imported oil and relied more heavily on domestically produced coal. Economically, that reduced dependence on imported oil. Environmentally, however, it came at a significant cost: than oil per unit of energy, so avoiding one crisis just increased another.听

Even China’s massive electric vehicle fleet 鈥� normally a climate advantage 鈥� became more carbon-intensive because the electricity charging those vehicles increasingly came from coal rather than lower-carbon sources. From a climate perspective, that represents a significant step backward.

AR: We’re seeing similar patterns elsewhere. In the United States, the war in Iran has been in California and in the name of energy security. Each crisis becomes a justification for extracting more rather than asking why our societies remain so dependent on these fuels in the first place.听

In other words, the immediate response is often to stabilize today’s energy system, even if doing so locks in higher emissions tomorrow. We end up reversing much of the progress we’ve made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions because we’re treating the symptoms instead of addressing the underlying design of the system.

How have fossil fuels shaped contemporary society and our expectations?

DM: Fossil fuels gave us access to enormous stores of concentrated energy accumulated over millions of years. That allowed societies to expand production, transportation and consumption at unprecedented scales. Over time, we built our cities, economies and institutions around the expectation that this on-demand abundance could continue indefinitely. But this 听

AR: Fossil fuels and their infrastructures are one of the most powerful sense-making systems ever built. They have trained societies to expect continuous expansion. Because that expectation feels natural, it rarely appears as a choice; it appears as reality. That’s why energy shocks are so often misread. When supply is disrupted, the instinct is to restore the flow and return to “normal.” But that normal isn’t neutral. It’s a high-energy system organized around the assumption that growth has no meaningful limits. Energy crises aren’t interruptions to that system 鈥� they’re the moments when those assumptions collide with physical reality.听

DM: And because those systems become invisible, so do the assumptions they create. Continuous access to energy begins to feel like a law of nature rather than the outcome of a vast physical and political system. So when disruptions occur, we focus on repairing the flow instead of questioning the system that made uninterrupted flow seem inevitable.听

We could counter this tendency by recognizing that the only long-term source of energy available to life on Earth is the continuous flow of . Every fossil fuel we burn is nothing more than stored sunlight from the distant past. And like any finite reserve, it will eventually run out. What is guaranteed is the steady income of energy from the sun we receive each day, nearly unchanged from one sunrise to the next. Long before humans, life on Earth already adapted to this reality. Plants learned to capture sunlight directly, while animals survived by consuming those that did. Growth has always depended on access to this continuous energy flow. The point is not that we need more solar panels. It is that we need to think like a solar-powered system.

What does it mean to think like a solar-powered system? What would have to change, politically and culturally?

DM: A solar-powered system is one that aligns its activity with incoming energy rather than assuming limitless withdrawals from stored capital. Instead of designing around unlimited energy and perpetual expansion, we’d design around timing, sufficiency, resilience and adaptation. It’s not simply a technological shift; it’s a different way of imagining how society should function with whatever technologies 鈥� past, current听 or yet-to-be-invented 鈥� make that possible.

The transition isn’t simply replacing fossil fuels with renewable technologies. It’s replacing the mindset fossil fuels made possible. If we continue expecting unlimited growth while changing only the energy source, we’ll recreate many of the same problems in a different form. supports this.听 A durable transition means learning to organize society around the energy that is actually available, rather than around the illusion of limitless reserves.听

AR: We would have to rethink many of the assumptions we’ve inherited about progress and abundance. Much of contemporary culture treats continual expansion as both natural and desirable. Changing energy systems requires changing those stories as well.

For more information, contact Russell at adruss@uw.edu and Muren at dmuren@uw.edu.

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UPDATE Aug. 20, 2026: This story has been updated to include a faculty member who was originally omitted.听

Twelve faculty members at the 天美影视传媒 have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. They are among 30 scientists and educators from across the state July 16 as new members. Election recognizes the new member鈥檚 鈥渙utstanding record of scientific and technical achievement and willingness to assist the Academy in providing the best available scientific information and technical understanding to inform complex policy decisions in Washington.鈥�

New WSAS members are selected by current members or by their election to national science academies. All 11 UW faculty members were voted on by current WSAS members:听

, chair and PACCAR Endowed Professor of mechanical engineering and adjunct professor of neurological surgery and of aeronautics and astronautics, for 鈥渟ignificant contributions to scientific understanding of multiphase and biomedical flows, including the role of fluid mechanics on arterial disease, heart failure, biomedical devices, and surgical planning for respiratory disease, through work combining rigorous experimentation and analysis that has influenced both engineering and clinical practice.鈥�

, professor of materials science and engineering, for 鈥減ioneering research on structure鈥損rocessing鈥損roperty relationships and the aging of hard tissues that has shaped modern oral health science, and for influential contributions to advanced manufacturing, biomechanics, and bioinspired materials 鈥� coupled with exemplary educational leadership 鈥� that have made a lasting impact across disciplines and the STEM community.鈥�

, professor of health economics and Stergachis Family Endowed Director of The CHOICE Institute, for 鈥減ioneering health economic methods 鈥� including causal estimation of personalized treatment effects, cost-effectiveness frameworks, and value-of-information analysis 鈥� that have shaped national drug pricing policies, international discussions on the economics of innovation, and the scientific foundations of the economics of precision medicine.鈥�

, affiliate professor of health services and biostatistics and professor in the Public Health Sciences Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, for 鈥減ioneering statistical models that transformed cancer early detection and screening policy, reshaping national and global guidelines and advancing equitable public health decision鈥憁aking, and for exceptional leadership, cross鈥慸isciplinary collaboration, and mentorship, influencing generations of scientists.鈥�

, Charles O. Cressey Endowed Professor of social work and executive co-director of the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, for 鈥減ioneering research across historical trauma, cultural buffers, and healing; substance use/misuse prevention; indigenous health disparities and family wellness; and youth health interventions.鈥�

, Endowed Professor in Prevention in the School of Social Work and director of the Social Development Research Group, for 鈥渃ontributions to the economic assessment of prevention programs addressing substance abuse and mental health, and for advancing community-engaged research, and effective communication of findings to different audiences.鈥�

, director of and research professor in the UW School of Marine and Environmental Affairs, for 鈥渓eadership and contributions in ecosystem-based management, salmon conservation, urban ecology, and pioneering contributions to the development of social-ecological approaches to environmental problem solving.鈥�

, research professor of epidemiology and associate director for public health sciences at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center for 鈥渋ntegrating large鈥憇cale genomic, environmental, and tumor data to advance colorectal cancer prevention and reduce population disparities, and for her leadership at Fred Hutch, shaping precision prevention and population health science.鈥�

, affiliate professor of environmental engineering and chief scientist and laboratory fellow emeritus at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for 鈥渉is seminal leadership and sustained contributions to soil and agricultural science and environmental geosciences, spanning basic and applied research, university-level teaching and mentoring, and exceptional service.鈥�

, professor of bioengineering, the Dr. James B. Bassingthwaighte Endowed Faculty Fellow in Bioengineering, director of the Center for Translational Muscle Research, and听 associate chair of research and translation for the Department of Bioengineering, for 鈥渋nternationally recognized leadership in discovering the molecular mechanisms of contractile dysfunction with familial genetic mutations that lead to muscle dysfunction with disease, the design of novel, targeted therapies, and training the next generation of scientists and engineers to have further impact in understanding and treating heart failure and skeletal muscle diseases.鈥�

Dr. , professor and chair of radiology in UW Medicine, for 鈥渃ontributions to the science and clinical practice of radiological imaging and for leadership in national programs and professional and scientific societies that advance academic radiology.鈥�

, affiliate professor of civil and environmental engineering and chief scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, for “pioneering the integration of climate science with power systems studies through computational, data-driven, experimental approaches, resulting in significant cost savings for energy customers and a safer, more reliable grid.”

Additionally, Dr. , professor emerita of global health and of medicine and epidemiology in the UW School of Medicine, was elected to the WSAS Board of Directors. Wassersheit has been a member of WSAS since 2008. An infectious disease physician and epidemiologist, Dr. Wasserheit played a central role in launching the UW Department of Global Health and served as chair from 2014-2022. She also served as co-director for the UW Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness. She was the founding chief of the U.S. National Institute of Health鈥檚 Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) Research Branch, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention鈥檚 STD/HIV Prevention Program and director of the FHCRC-based HIV Vaccine Trials Network. Her work on epidemiological synergy between HIV and sexually transmitted infections has shaped prevention policy worldwide.

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New design process accelerates the discovery of advanced materials

Flexible materials that combine mechanical flexibility with high thermal or electrical conductivity are essential for wearables, stretchable electronics and soft robotic systems. To identify new composite materials with those properties, researchers typically create and test many different material formulations, a process that can be time-consuming, expensive and lead to waste. , UW researchers developed a new 鈥渋nverse design framework鈥� that reverses the standard design process to speed up the discovery of multifunctional materials. The framework starts with the desired material properties for a specific application 鈥� such as wearable electronics 鈥� and works backward to determine the optimal material composition using physics-based modeling and machine learning. Experiments showed that a material identified by the framework achieved about 60% higher thermal conductivity while reducing material cost by about 10%, compared to materials that were previously used.听

For more information, contact senior author , UW assistant professor of mechanical engineering.听

The other co-authors are Lijun Zhou, Yunsik Ohm, Ren-Mian Chin, Olivia Kerr and Krithika Manohar.

Climate models get a vote of confidence in a new UW study mapping tropical ocean temperature over time

Climate models help researchers understand how conditions are changing over time to forecast what is likely to happen in the future. Predicting extreme heat, drought or flooding years in advance can give people time to prepare, but the accuracy of these predictions varies. Scientists test models by asking them to recreate past climate and comparing those predictions with observational data. Although modern climate models get a lot of things right, they often fail to replicate recent temperature change in the tropical Pacific Ocean, a key region for global weather. This has concerned scientists, but a UW study offers a glimmer of hope. The researchers found that climate models could successfully replicate temperature trends in the equatorial Pacific when they expanded the window of observation by 20 years. Including more data allowed the models to better account for climate variability, which can create long-lasting fluctuations in temperature and precipitation that aren鈥檛 always indicative of a general trend.听

For more information, contact senior author Matt Luongo, UW postdoctoral fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, & Ecosystem Studies and School of Oceanography at mluongo@uw.edu.

The other UW co-author is . A full list of co-authors is .

Paternal body odor increases brain-to-brain synchrony with infants

Infant brains recognize their fathers as unique social partners, showing stronger brain-to-brain synchrony with their fathers compared to unfamiliar males during social interactions. A new study also shows that when infants interact with unfamiliar males while exposed to their fathers鈥� body odor, their brain synchrony increases to levels similar to those seen with their own fathers. Further, exposure to paternal body odor increased infants’ positive arousal. These findings suggest that infants use their fathers鈥� scent as an important social cue, even when the father is not physically present. Researchers also found that father-infant synchrony involved a different neural rhythm than previously observed in mother-infant interactions, suggesting that mothers and fathers may support development through complementary neural pathways. Combined, these findings reveal a previously unknown role of paternal body odor as a sensory signal that contributes to early social and brain development.

For more information, contact , co-author and a research scientist in the UW Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences.听

The other co-authors are Linoy Schwartz and Ruth Feldman.

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

Now, researchers at the 天美影视传媒 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 鈥� and how severely 鈥� 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.

鈥淔or 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,鈥� Forsyth said. 鈥淚s 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 research is going to be important for changing treatment direction.鈥�

The researchers 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 .听

People with schizophrenia who carried the deletions tended to perform worse on cognitive tests 鈥� showing poorer memory, thinking and attention skills than people with schizophrenia who didn鈥檛 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 researchers typically see on average in schizophrenia, Forsyth said, which again suggests variability between patients.

鈥淭his study helps us understand the specific way somebody manifests a disorder,鈥� Forsyth said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 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鈥檛 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.鈥�

Other UW co-authors were graduate students Jinhan Zhu, Zachary Trevorrow and Mahnoor Hyat, undergraduate research assistant Ariana Chavannes, research coordinator Sam Sievertsen and research technologist Sophie Ferreira-Ianone. , a UW senior research 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.

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

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

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

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鈥檚 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 researchers found that even the major rice subspecies won鈥檛 thrive in the projected temperatures.

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

How did you become interested in this topic?

JDG: A lot of my research focuses on how climatic events have shaped people鈥檚 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 research 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 research to understand how our current unprecedented moment of climate change may impact crop distribution. I work in Asia, particularly China, and I鈥檝e 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.听

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 鈥� and all the climatic conditions under which it鈥檚 been cultivated 鈥� 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鈥檛 use it lightly. Another term I could apply to this would be no analog. There is no known situation over the course of rice鈥檚 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鈥檛 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.听

I can鈥檛 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.听

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鈥檚 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鈥檙e 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.听

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鈥檓 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.听

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.听

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

JDG: For this study, we used multiple climate projections based on what different countries鈥� 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鈥檛 stop lobbying for change.听

We can also look at what steps we can make in our own lives to lower emissions. It鈥檚 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.听

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

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.

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While soccer is the most popular sport globally, it wasn鈥檛 high on the list in Ron Krabill鈥檚 home state of Indiana. As a high schooler, Krabill鈥檚 soccer team often had to travel an hour and a half to find the nearest school with a team. Krabill still became a lifelong fan.

Now a professor in UW Bothell鈥檚 School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and director of the Global Sport Lab in the UW Jackson School of International Studies, Krabill never imagined soccer would become part of his academic work until he found himself conducting research in South Africa in 2010 when the country hosted the World Cup. He鈥檚 been intertwining sport and academics ever since.

With Seattle scheduled to host World Cup games from June 15 to July 6, Krabill is gearing up to co-lead this year鈥檚 UW Summer Institute in the Arts & Humanities with , UW teaching professor of communication, and , doctoral student in the UW Jackson School of International Studies. This year鈥檚 theme, Seattle鈥檚 World Cup: Storytelling Through Community Mapping, will combine community mapping with other methodologies, including photo and video essays and journalistic reporting, to tell stories about Seattle鈥檚 experience with the World Cup.听

The mapping technology was developed by , associate professor of Urban Studies at UW Tacoma. Kelley is the director of the Action Mapping Project, which works to engage issues of livability, equity, and voice in marginalized neighborhoods through the use of participatory data collection, spatial data analysis, mapping and data visualization.

UW News talked with Krabill about his plans for participating students, his background in sports scholarship, what he鈥檒l be watching during Seattle鈥檚 tournament games and more.

When did your love of soccer and your academic work first intersect and how have you continued that work?

Ron Krabill: I lived and worked in South Africa on and off between 1996 and 2010 doing research on South African media, the late Apartheid Era and the media’s impact on anti-Apartheid politics. And then South Africa hosted the World Cup. I had been to two Women鈥檚 World Cups, but never before to a Men鈥檚 World Cup and I thought, 鈥淚 can鈥檛 be in South Africa when this happens and not go.鈥� It just felt too big and too important. It was a momentous thing for South Africa as a nation.听

A lot of debates were happening from the time South Africa was awarded the World Cup about whether it was going to be a good thing or a bad thing and what it meant. My academic work was concerned with a state putting a lot of money into feel-good projects when听 it鈥檚 struggling to provide basic resources for its people. I around 2010 for Social Text, which is an academic journal that covers a wide range of social and cultural phenomena. The piece talked about the challenge for people who love soccer but also see all the problems with soccer, mega-events, the industry, and so on. In that piece, I also talked about loving South Africa, being deeply connected to South Africa and worrying about what the impact of the World Cup would be.

In 2010, I helped lead a UW study abroad program called My World Cup, which was funded in part by the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the UW, the Seattle Sounders and Cape Town Community Television. We paired our UW students with University of Cape Town film students and media activists from the Media Workers Alliance to put together short segments on the impact of the World Cup locally. We then aired those during the World Cup on Cape Town Community Television.听

After that, the UW Le贸n Center in Spain approached me and I proposed a class about the politics of soccer in Spain and beyond that addresses questions of gender, race, nationalism and migration. For this year鈥檚 World Cup, I wanted to create an immersive course much like the study abroad program 鈥� something that students can really sink their teeth into.

How will your students study the World Cup and Seattle as a host city?

RK: developed the Action Mapping Project, a community mapping tool that we鈥檙e excited to use in the World Cup context. This tool will allow us to do both large and geographical analysis alongside more qualitative and traditional arts and humanities methods. We鈥檒l be asking people outside the stadium, at fan zones and at watch parties to reflect on what stories Seattle tells about itself. How do their experiences in Seattle during the Cup 鈥� whether they鈥檙e from the area, elsewhere in the United States or an international visitor 鈥� relate to what they imagine Seattle to be? In other words, does their experience of World Cup Seattle match their expectations?

The first two weeks are going to be very intense. The games are only in town for three weeks and unfortunately, the first of those weeks is the break in between academic terms. So those first weeks, we鈥檒l be introducing students to critical sport studies as a field and what it means to think about sports as a site of power and politics, at the same time as training them in research methods and fieldwork.听

Hopefully we鈥檒l gather a lot of material to work with, and then we’ll have the rest of the summer to figure out what to do with it. The students will be working in collaborative research teams, looking at different angles of what it means for Seattle to host. They’ll work off whatever material they find really compelling.听

It will be tricky, because they’ll have to collect the data before they’ve decided exactly what they’re going to do with it. They won’t have had the theoretical background to really think about the meaning. That means the teaching team is going to have to be a little more direct about what kinds of research gathering we do on our field days. The first two weeks, we’ll have four pretty long field work days with students. We’re expecting to send teams of students out into different parts of the city and the region to see what the World Cup experience is like.

What are you most interested to observe in Seattle during those three weeks?听

RK: When South Africa hosted the World Cup in 2010, the vibe was incredible. It鈥檚 not really clear how much Seattle is going to embrace that vibe. Is the whole city going to be all about the World Cup? Because it was definitely like that in Cape Town. The Women’s World Cup in Paris wasn鈥檛 like that. You could have easily been in Paris and not had any idea what was going on. I don’t know where Seattle will land. There have also been a lot of stories about the hotel industry downgrading their expectations. The thing about the economic impact is that it’s often named as one big number, but it’s not always very clear where that money’s going and if it’s staying in the city.

People like to say that we should keep politics out of sports. But when we start talking about where the money is going to flow to, who鈥檚 going to be able to afford games,听 or the pressures FIFA and the federal government is putting on local organizing committees, it鈥檚 not as hard for people to understand. We should be thinking about: What are the implications of this, and what are the actions that people can take to make it as beneficial as possible for the city and for the people who live in the city? How do you mitigate against the potential harms, and how do you take advantage of the potential benefits?

There is also a lot of evidence that the fan base is going to be more domestic and less international than expected from a World Cup, particularly because President Donald Trump’s stance on immigration will discourage a lot of people from traveling. I do think that’s going to impact Seattle more than most places because of our proximity to Canada. I think we would have had a lot of visitors, both from Canada and from other countries, because they could have gone to Vancouver and Seattle to see matches in both countries.

I鈥檓 also super interested in what the will look like. The local organizing committee is super committed to having it. The Seattle committee is also taking really seriously their responsibility to think about what it means to have the U.S. play on Juneteenth. That鈥檚 an opportunity to educate a worldwide audience about what Juneteenth is and why it’s necessary as a holiday.听

I鈥檓 following very closely, too. And not just because they鈥檙e coming to Seattle. I鈥檓 looking at what it means for modern society that two nations can be at war, and yet there is an expectation that one of them will travel to play in the other鈥檚 country in a tournament. The idea that that鈥檚 even a conversation says something about how detached we are in the United States from the idea of warfare.听

For more information, contact Krabill at rkrabill@uw.edu or globalsportlab@uw.edu.

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The increased public attention on racial injustice after influenced how Black and white employees interacted at work, new 天美影视传媒 research suggests.

The study, recently published in , examines how major societal events tied to race and injustice can shape workplace behavior. Researchers specifically investigated how the heightened salience of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement impacted cooperation between Black and white coworkers.

鈥淥rganizations are often treated as relatively self-contained systems where formal goals, incentives and task structures determine how employees interact,鈥� said co-author , professor of management in the UW Foster School of Business. 鈥淏ut employees do not leave the outside world at the door. When major societal events occur, people carry those emotions, anxieties and identities with them into the workplace.鈥�

The study examines responses to 鈥渕ega-threats,鈥� a term used to describe highly-publicized and emotionally-charged events involving violence or injustice against marginalized groups. Such events can threaten people鈥檚 sense of identity and alter how they relate to others at work. To investigate these dynamics, researchers used an unexpected but enlightening proxy: the National Basketball Association (NBA).

鈥淭he NBA is essentially a collection of mini-organizations,鈥� Gupta said. 鈥淧layers from different racial backgrounds must cooperate intensively in order to succeed, and importantly, their cooperation can actually be measured.鈥�

Using detailed data from more than 124,000 player-to-player interactions during the 2014 to 2015 NBA season, the researchers tracked how passing rates aligned with the rise of the BLM movement. Passing behavior offered a direct behavioral measure of workplace cooperation.

The findings revealed strikingly different responses among Black and white players. Black players increased cooperation with other Black players 鈥� marked by more passes 鈥� but did not reduce cooperation with white teammates. The passing behavior of white players showed standard cooperation with other white players, but white players became less likely to cooperate with Black teammates.

The researchers then conducted two experiments in which participants were randomly exposed to either materials describing highly publicized incidents of race-based injustice or unrelated information. Participants were then asked to decide about collaborating with other Black and white participants, showing how heightened awareness of these events shapes cooperation.

For Black participants, attention to BLM increased identification with their racial group and strengthened feelings of solidarity with other Black individuals. This increased their willingness to cooperate with fellow Black coworkers.

White participants, however, experienced a different psychological reaction. Researchers found that many white participants experienced a sense of 鈥渕oral taint鈥� associated with acts of racial injustice committed by members of their racial group. This shame increased concern that attempts at interracial cooperation might be rejected, misunderstood or viewed skeptically by Black coworkers. As a result, many white participants became more hesitant to initiate cooperation across racial lines.

鈥淭hey did not necessarily become hostile,鈥� Gupta said. 鈥淩ather, many seemed to retreat inward because they feared that their gestures might be unwelcome or misinterpreted.鈥�

The researchers also uncovered an important exception. The tendency of white employees to withdraw from interracial cooperation was significantly weaker when the Black coworker held higher professional status.

In the NBA context, white players remained more willing to cooperate with Black teammates who occupied higher-status positions on the team. This suggests that workplace norms and professional role expectations can partially offset the interpersonal strain created by major societal conflicts.

The study highlights how societal events surrounding race and injustice can shape workplace relationships in subtle but important ways. The researchers argue that organizations need to recognize that employees may react differently to racial injustice depending on whether they identify with the victims or feel implicated by association with the perpetrators.

The study also suggests that organizations hoping to foster productive interracial collaboration during periods of social tension may need to create environments that reduce fears of rejection and encourage open, psychologically safe interaction across group boundaries.

鈥淏oth groups may need support, though for very different reasons,鈥� Gupta said. 鈥淥rganizations cannot assume that societal tensions remain outside the workplace. These events can alter patterns of trust, communication and cooperation in ways that directly affect organizational functioning.鈥�

For more information, contact Gupta at abhinavg@uw.edu.

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grew up in the United Kingdom surrounded by soccer. He鈥檚 always loved sport, but his academic focus 鈥� he鈥檚 a 天美影视传媒 master鈥檚 student in South Asian Studies researching the history of memory in diaspora communities 鈥� is far removed from the playing field.

But Josan brought his passion for sport, particularly soccer 鈥� known as football to most of the world 鈥� with him to the United States. When packing for the move, he even found room in his suitcase for a prized soccer jersey he received as a Christmas present when he was 13. When Josan arrived at the UW, he started searching for ways to engage in sport scholarship.

鈥淢y interest comes from how sport creates identity and how much of our cultural connection comes from sport,鈥� Josan said. 鈥淭hat obviously has good parts, but it also means sport becomes very politically loaded. We see both in the wider scale kind of conversations about sports and politics today.鈥�

Josan found a way to nurture his combined interests when he took a course with , professor in UW Bothell’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences and director of the in the Jackson School of International Studies. The two developed a relationship, which led Krabill to ask Josan to serve as the managing editor for a new website: .

Whether people are counting the days until the 鈥� games will be played in Seattle from June 19 through July 6 鈥� or wondering what all the hype is about, the Global Sport Lab鈥檚 syllabus was created as a way for anyone to learn more about the history and politics of the tournament.

鈥淧avandeep is an incredibly talented, thoughtful guy,鈥� said Krabill, who also served as the editor for the syllabus. 鈥淭here is no way the project would have happened without him.鈥�

The idea for the syllabus emerged from the creation of similar resources for social movements and newsworthy events. There is a Black Lives Matter syllabus, for example. And during the protests that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, after Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer in 2014, a Georgetown University professor launched the.

鈥淲hat those syllabi did really well was put current events into larger historical, cultural and political contexts,鈥� Krabill said. 鈥淭he idea was to do the same thing with the World Cup 鈥� imagining someone who is really interested in the politics and controversies around this event and wants to dig deeper and find more analysis.鈥�

World Cup: The Syllabus is divided into seven sections: FIFA; migrations; protest and resistance; arts and culture; human rights; stadiums; and technology. Each page offers analysis written by experts, discussion questions and a suggested reading list.听

The website was curated by an editorial team of six leading experts in global football, including Krabill. Krabill and Josan had multiple, hours-long meetings with the other five academics, many of whom have sat on FIFA panels and produced some of the most widely read resources on global soccer.

鈥淚鈥檝e read a lot of what these experts have produced in the past, and I never thought I鈥檇 be chairing meetings with them,鈥� Josan said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 sometimes a bit surreal when you work with people that you鈥檝e read before. It was exciting learning about their insights, not just from what they鈥檝e studied and their research, but also from their lived experiences. That was fascinating to me.鈥�

Krabill wrote the syllabus鈥� introduction, and , a UW student in visual communication design, designed the site.鈥淭here is no right or wrong way to engage with the syllabus, and we want people to engage however they see fit,鈥� Josan said. 鈥淚f there鈥檚 a particular category that speaks most to you, start with that one.鈥�

The website is also structured to help guide readers who don鈥檛 have a preference or don鈥檛 know where to begin. In these cases, Josan recommends starting with the first section, which focuses broadly on FIFA. From there, the topics narrow down. The syllabus isn鈥檛 specific to this summer鈥檚 World Cup, either. The hope is for the resource to remain relevant for future events, including for the 2027 Women鈥檚 World Cup in Brazil.

鈥淭he Women鈥檚 World Cup has been gaining a lot of prominence, a lot of popularity,鈥� Josan said. 鈥淎ttendance numbers are higher than they鈥檝e ever been for women鈥檚 sport across the board, and specifically for women鈥檚 football. So, we鈥檙e hoping this project doesn’t stop when the 2026 final is played. It鈥檚 something that will continue to be updated.鈥�

Even people with no interest in soccer can find something in the syllabus worth exploring, Josan said.

鈥淭he syllabus is designed to cross the boundary between football and other topics that are of interest to our society,鈥� he said. 鈥淚鈥檇 encourage anyone to engage with this, especially if you live in an area that鈥檚 going to host a World Cup game. There is going to be so much that you鈥檒l learn, and you might be able to connect the dots when you see things play out in our local area.鈥�

For more information, contact Lauren Kirschman at lkirsc@uw.edu.

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