The 天美影视传媒 today announced a multimillion-dollar gift to establish the Winbond Endowed Fund for Excellence in the College of Engineering, supporting research, education and innovation for students, faculty and staff.

The $12 million gift from Winbond Electronics Corporation America, a U.S. subsidiary of Taiwan-based Winbond Electronics Corporation, a global semiconductor company and leading provider of memory and integrated circuit solutions, provides the College with the flexibility to make strategic investments in exceptional people, promising ideas and emerging opportunities.

鈥淲inbond鈥檚 investment in the College of Engineering reflects tremendous confidence in our faculty and students and strengthens our ability to advance discovery in emerging technologies. Deepening the UW’s partnership with Winbond also creates new opportunities to connect with leading companies and scholars across the Pacific Rim,鈥� said UW President Robert J. Jones. 鈥淭he fact that this partnership is championed by UW alumnus Arthur Chiao makes it all the more special to the University.鈥�

Winbond鈥檚 chairman, Arthur Y.C. Chiao, (MS 鈥�80 Electrical Engineering) has spent more than three decades helping shape Taiwan鈥檚 semiconductor industry, advancing innovation in memory and logic integrated circuits, strengthening independent research and development capabilities and fostering collaboration across industry, academia and government. Chiao envisions the new fund as a catalyst for breakthrough discoveries, early-stage research and interdisciplinary collaboration, enabling the College to pursue bold initiatives and respond to evolving opportunities in engineering, technology and fields of future strategic importance. Examples include semiconductors, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and advanced manufacturing, areas where the UW Engineering already leads, and could expand to include other emerging fields.

鈥淪eattle is a gateway to the Pacific Northwest of North America, and the 天美影视传媒 will play an important role in connecting future technology innovation between North America and East Asia,鈥� Chiao said.

The fund will support research, faculty recruitment and retention, student scholarships and fellowships, research infrastructure, interdisciplinary collaborations and emerging opportunities across the College.

The work will build upon existing Pacific Rim collaborations and further interconnect the UW with industry and research across the globe.

“Arthur Chiao’s vision, leadership and lifelong commitment to the 天美影视传媒 make this gift especially meaningful. This investment strengthens our ability to attract talent, foster innovation and deepen collaborations across the Pacific Rim, creating new opportunities for students and researchers while advancing the technologies that will shape the future,鈥� said Nancy Albritton, the Frank and Julie Jungers Endowed Dean at the College of Engineering.

For more information, contact Jackson Holtz at jjholtz@uw.edu.聽

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Last month, a group of 175 researchers, including eight from the 天美影视传媒, co-authored published in Earth鈥檚 Future and the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

The paper provides a roadmap for future climate assessments in the U.S. by synthesizing the science and identifying research priorities based on existing gaps. 鈥淯.S. Climate Collection: Informing Assessment of Risks and Solutions鈥� is the first article to appear in a launched by the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society.

Many of the scientists who co-authored this commentary were invited to contribute to the sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA), slated for early 2028, but were then dismissed in April 2025 after the Trump Administration for the assessment. The fifth NCA was published in 2023.聽

The federal government is legally required to produce a National Climate Assessment chronicling climate change every four years per the . These assessments track new and evolving risks related to climate change, as well as options for mitigation and adaptation. The national scope is key to ensuring that funding and policies represent a broad range of experiences and concerns. 

鈥淚nternational assessments are valuable, but they are not always tailored to the specific regions and issues that are important in the United States. National assessments fill that gap,鈥� said , Washington state climatologist and a research scientist in the UW Climate Impacts Group.

The special collection is not intended to replace the NCA but rather compile research for other scientists, policymakers and members of the public to aid in decision making. The commentary kicks off the collection by identifying where research has advanced, and how risks have changed, in the years since the last assessment. 

鈥淥ur understanding of climate change and its impacts continues to evolve,鈥� said , professor of global health, of environmental and occupational health sciences, and of emergency medicine in the UW School of Medicine. 鈥淐onducting regular climate assessments allows us to systematically evaluate that new evidence, incorporate it into our understanding of current circumstances, present it to stakeholders, and apply it to near-term decisions in our respective sectors.鈥� 

UW News asked each of the UW contributors to elaborate on their role in authoring the commentary and how it connects to their research.

, research scientist, UW Cooperative Institute for Climate, Ocean, and Ecosystem Studies: 鈥淚鈥檓 an oceanographer with intimate experience in federal research funding mechanisms and with a broad familiarity with ocean warming and CO2 uptake with associated acidification and feedback on marine ecosystems and fisheries. Initially I was appointed to coordinate among federal agencies, academics and policymakers, but that changed dramatically when the Trump administration eliminated NCA6. In the scramble I became more of an author, and an editor of the Ocean section. 

鈥淪ome of my research at the UW involves ocean model development in collaboration with NOAA. It was a natural fit to contribute to the discussions on 鈥楽imulations of ocean conditions鈥� and on 鈥業nnovations in ocean observation and data science.鈥欌��

, professor of urban and environmental planning 鈥淚 led the urban team and the section on urban regions. Urban regions are central to climate assessments. They concentrate populations and human activities, contribute substantially to climate change, and shape how impacts propagate across neighborhoods, metropolitan systems, national supply chains, and global markets. They are also critical places to examine where mitigation and adaptation reinforce one another, where they create trade-offs, and how benefits, costs, and risks are distributed across communities. 

鈥淥ur section argues that future assessments must represent cities as complex dynamic systems. We call for comparative, long-term evaluation of urban mitigation and adaptation strategies. For nature-based solutions, that means testing performance under future climate conditions and assessing multiple functions, life-cycle costs, social and ecological outcomes, and trade-offs rather than simply measuring short-term, project-level benefits.鈥�

Mauger: 鈥淚 contributed to the Northwest section of the paper, based on my expertise in regional climate impacts and adaptation science, specifically around water and flooding. Our synthesis reflects many of the emerging issues I see in my work helping communities, tribes, agencies and others to understand and prepare for the effects of climate change. For example, we highlight new research on the effectiveness of resilience actions 鈥� as more communities take action on climate, I am seeing a greater need for research of this kind.鈥�

, principal scientist, UW Climate Impacts Group: 鈥淚 also contributed to the Northwest section of the paper. My work at UW aims to provide the science, tools and guidance needed by governments and communities as they respond to climate impacts and prepare for those to come. Most of this work is focused on the Northwest, with a heavy emphasis on ecosystems and natural resources. The Northwest section of the paper highlights many of the climate risks and adaptation advances and challenges my partners on the ground face every day.鈥�

Hess: 鈥�The takeaways from the health section, which I helped draft, are that we need more information on health impacts from extreme weather and compound events, as well as information on the costs of these impacts. We also need more strategies for advancing adaptation in public health and health care systems; we need health care interventions to protect patients at particular risk; we need more information on nature-based solutions; and we need more information to help convey the health benefits of a clean energy transition. 

鈥淭he recommendations related to interventions and adaptation in the health sector are particularly relevant to my work at the UW, which is focused on climate change health impacts and opportunities for increasing resilience of the public health and health care systems. I research these issues and also provide leadership related to sustainability and climate resilience for UW Medicine.鈥�

, professor of global health and of environmental and occupational health sciences: 鈥淚 was an author on the Air Quality chapter that focused on how climate change could alter exposures to poor quality, from pollen to wildfire smoke to indoor and outdoor air quality. One of my areas of research at UW is quantifying the extent to which reducing greenhouse gas emissions could reduce morbidity and mortality from outdoor air pollution. The evidence is robust that the economic value of the health benefits from reducing greenhouse gas emissions would be of the same order of magnitude 鈥� if not larger 鈥� than the costs of reducing emissions. In other words, reducing greenhouse gas emissions would benefit Americans by decreasing hospitalizations and deaths.鈥�

Other UW co-authors include , research scientist of environmental and forest sciences and Deputy Director of the Western Fire and Forest Resilience Collaborative and , affiliate professor of environmental and forest sciences. 

For more information, contact Alberti at malberti@uw.edu.

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Irrigation canals form a sort of circulatory system for global agriculture. Across the world, millions of kilometers of human-made canals carry water from lakes, rivers and reservoirs downhill to farmland. Canals are vitally important to human food production, yet many agricultural areas lack the means to monitor the ebb and flow of water through these waterways. This forces farmers and water managers to rely on scattered gauges, inspections and local reports to make decisions about water use.

A new study from the 天美影视传媒 suggests, however, that the tools needed for more comprehensive monitoring may already exist. In the study, researchers analyzed data from a NASA satellite built to track over time the water level of oceans, lakes, rivers and other large bodies of water. That project was never designed to track smaller bodies like canals. Yet, when the researchers looked at roughly 800,000 kilometers of canals in Asia, they found that the satellite could measure water levels with moderate to high confidence at more than 85% of locations.

The discovery could give farmers around the world a powerful new tool to manage precious water resources, prepare for droughts and improve food security in their communities.

鈥淲hat we are seeing is not simply a new satellite capability,鈥� said co-author , a UW professor of civil and environmental engineering. 鈥淚t may represent a fundamentally new way of managing the water conveyance systems that sustain modern agriculture.鈥�

Sept. 30 in Geophysical Research Letters.

The satellite at the center of the study, , is a joint effort of NASA and international partners. In orbit since December 2022, the satellite monitors the Earth鈥檚 surface water at least once every three weeks using a tool called , which compares multiple radar scans over time to detect elevation changes.

Oceans, lakes and other large bodies of water are relatively straightforward to track in this manner. Irrigation canals, on the other hand, are frequently narrower than 20 meters, which puts them at the extreme low end of the satellite鈥檚 observation power. The project鈥檚 architects assumed that fluctuations within small canals would be invisible to the satellite.

Hossain wasn鈥檛 so sure. In 2025, he and collaborators published the (GRAIN), a global dataset that used and machine learning to chart 3.8 million kilometers of canal networks. Lead author , a UW graduate research assistant in civil and environmental engineering, then overlaid SWOT鈥檚 radar data on top of the canal map to see whether he could find meaningful elevation changes where there were canals.

鈥淚t was quite the accidental and pleasant discovery to see that SWOT is able to track flow direction and water levels in most of the canals skillfully,鈥� Sharma said. 鈥淕RAIN mapped where canals are. SWOT revealed what was happening inside them. They complemented each other beautifully.鈥�

As a proof of concept, the team focused on canals in 22 countries across Asia 鈥� a region where irrigation plays a critical role in feeding roughly 3 billion people. Researchers looked at the satellite鈥檚 data along 800,000 kilometers of canals within that region. They then assigned a confidence score to each kilometer based on how closely the satellite鈥檚 view of the canal water matched the known contours of the land and how strong the signal was compared to the noise in the data. As an additional check, they compared the satellite鈥檚 data to real canal measurements in the United States and found that their confidence levels matched the system鈥檚 actual abilities.

Of all the kilometers studied, the team designated 37.5% as highly observable, 46.9% as moderately observable and 15.6% as poorly observable. The highest-confidence areas corresponded to well-organized, wider canals, smooth slopes and open surroundings. Dense vegetation around canals proved the satellite鈥檚 biggest obstacle. The satellite鈥檚 performance is expected to improve over time as Hossain and other scientists working with SWOT data build better algorithms and analysis methods.

The next step for researchers is to build practical tools that leverage SWOT data. Hossain and collaborators at the UW are already building such systems to monitor and improve water delivery in South Asia and to aid in canal management in the western United States.

In time, farmers around the world could use SWOT-powered tools to monitor which canals are carrying sufficient water; see where water levels drop unexpectedly or where canal flow might be stagnant; and understand the evolution of water delivery across an entire growing season. For example, a farmer preparing to plant rice might see through SWOT that there won鈥檛 be enough water arriving to their field to support the growth of the crop, and switch instead to a less water-intensive crop like corn or wheat.

Altogether, this new view of agriculture鈥檚 circulatory system could improve drought preparedness, strengthen food security and help researchers map humanity鈥檚 change to the global freshwater cycle.

鈥淪ome of the most important scientific discoveries happen when a tool designed for one purpose unexpectedly reveals something else,鈥� Hossain said. 鈥淪WOT may be offering a similar surprise.

鈥淎 mission built to study oceans and rivers has begun revealing the hidden dynamics of the canals that sustain agricultural production around the globe. What was once invisible is becoming measurable.鈥�

Co-authors include and , UW graduate research assistants in civil and environmental engineering; , a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech who completed this research as a UW doctoral student of civil and environmental engineering; and at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

This research was funded by NASA.

For more information, contact Hossain at fhossain@uw.edu.

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If someone leaves the faucet running in your bathroom and the house floods, it’s easy to assign responsibility for the damage. But for other disasters 鈥� bigger, costlier and more complicated ones 鈥� the link between cause and effect isn鈥檛 as clear.

In recent years, scientists have improved methods for connecting extreme weather events, sometimes called climate disasters, to climate change. Advancements in clarify how burning fossil fuels has increased the likelihood of extreme weather occurring. These findings form the backbone of a attempting to hold major emitters responsible for deaths and damages incurred during climate disasters.

A new 天美影视传媒 study takes this work a step further by showing that past emissions from 鈥� the top 178 oil, gas, coal and cement producers 鈥� will continue impacting our environment for decades to come.

The results in PLOS Climate.

鈥淲e know that fossil fuel emissions have caused a lot of warming, and we鈥檙e seeing the impacts of that, but the question is: How long does that warming last into the future?鈥� said , a UW associate professor of atmospheric and climate science.

If greenhouse gas emissions were to plummet tomorrow, the environment would not revert to its old self. Carbon majors have emitted more than a trillion tons of carbon dioxide, a substantial portion of which will remain in the air, trapping heat, for millennia.

Even if we stop emitting, Earth will remain approximately 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial temperatures.

鈥淲e expect continued warming of the climate until we stop fossil fuel emissions,鈥� Frierson said. 鈥淭he only stable future is one with no fossil fuels burned at all.鈥�

To arrive at this conclusion, researchers simulated global climate through 2500 using the Finite Amplitude Impulse Response, or , model in both low and higher emissions scenarios, with and without emissions from carbon majors through 2024.

In a future where greenhouse gas emissions are limited, carbon majors are responsible for a larger percent of warming above preindustrial levels.

In higher emissions scenarios, where fossil fuel burning continues unabated, Earth becomes much warmer as emissions rise. In the most extreme scenario tested, future emissions cause a much larger percentage of warming than carbon majors. But the total temperature change from carbon majors is about the same.

鈥淭he amount of warming is calculable and relatively independent of future emissions,鈥� Frierson said. 鈥淚f there are legal decisions about accountability, the responsibility is not just now, it will continue for many many years into the future.鈥�

The relationship between greenhouse gases and global warming is not new. In fact, scientists understood the risks many decades ago. Efforts to hold emitters accountable hinge on allegations that companies knew about those risks and concealed that information from the public, sometimes employing .

This new study shows that the gasses released by leading emitters, from both extracting and burning fossil fuels, may also be responsible for events that have not happened yet. Emissions from the past can increase the odds of a future disaster through persistent warming.

“This is important for current decisions about fossil fuels,” Frierson said. “Future fossil fuel production will exacerbate climate disasters for many decades to come, so new legal battles about who is accountable should be expected for many years.”

Lauren Henrie, a former student of Environmental Science and Resource Management at the UW, is a co-author.聽

For more information, contact Frierson at dargan@uw.edu.

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UPDATE Sept. 8, 2026: This story has been updated to correct the total increase in melt season since the 1980s.

Relatively few people have been to the Arctic, and even fewer have set foot in Antarctica. Most of us rely on our imaginations and media to visualize these landscapes and the ways they are changing.

Research shows that the Arctic is than the global average. The sea ice is melting, exposing more open ocean and throwing the ecosystem out of balance. The story of Antarctica contains fewer details, but emerging trends are concerning to researchers.

Conceptualizing this change can be challenging for those of us who have only glimpsed Greenland from the airplane window, but for someone with firsthand experience, it鈥檚 eye-opening.

, a research scientist at the 天美影视传媒鈥檚 Applied Physics Laboratory, has visited the Arctic at least once a year since 2009, sometimes staying for as long as five months.

Webster is the lead author of a new research paper, in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, that describes how sea ice has changed in the past 50 years.

Their analysis arrives as the world begins preparations for the , a dedicated period of observation that will peak during the 2023 to 2033 season. International Polar years have occurred every 30 to 50 years since the late 1800s to advance polar research and track environmental change. The upcoming International Polar Year will occur just 25 years after the last, held in 2007, due to the acceleration of climate change.

What motivated this study?

Melinda Webster: We have known for a long time now that the extent, or area, and thickness of sea ice is declining, especially in the Arctic. But we wanted to take that a step further to examine the properties of the ice, especially perennial ice, which doesn鈥檛 completely melt away in summer. We updated trends for sea ice with 15 to 20 more years worth of data to understand how it has changed through the contemporary period. We also wanted to emphasize the divergent responses we see in the Arctic and Antarctica, and make recommendations for future research.

What did you discover?

MW: The Arctic sea ice melt season has gotten approximately seven and a half days longer per decade since 1979, and this is mostly driven by sea ice forming later in the fall. This has sweeping implications for the global climate system. The superpower of sea ice is its high albedo, meaning that it reflects a lot of sunlight 鈥� somewhere between 60% and 90% 鈥� back into space. Dark ocean water, on the other hand, reflects just 7%. The open ocean absorbs much more sunlight than ice does, and with that absorption comes warming. In the fall, the ocean is too warm for ice to form and it is taking longer for that heat to dissipate.

The seasonal ice that ultimately forms is thinner, and easier to melt in the following spring and summer. So this creates a cycle of warming that reduces ice coverage and increases the amount of energy in our climate system over time.

What鈥檚 the deal with Antarctica?

MW: Antarctica is a land mass covered in ice and surrounded by water. The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land. Although they share certain qualities, the two regions are very different from one another, with distinct responses to climate change. For a long time, the sea ice cover wasn鈥檛 declining in Antarctica, but in the last four years the sea ice cover experienced record losses.

Logistically, it’s a lot more difficult to deploy instruments in the Antarctic than the Arctic. The measurements we do have are less accurate because the Antarctica sea ice system is more complicated. But, we need to unravel these recent changes, which is a priority research area we identify in the paper.

What other impacts do you foresee these changes having?

MW: Another key result we presented is that snow cover on Arctic sea ice has gotten thinner and the sea ice itself is smoother. That has huge repercussions for polar bears and seals, as it impacts their ability to build dens for raising their young.

There’s also a connection to fisheries. Changes in sea ice cover also impact algae, which form the base of the food web. These algae are accustomed to very low light conditions, but thinner snow and ice let more light in and the algae are essentially getting sunburnt.

When you take an ecosystem that was adapted to an ice environment and introduce open ocean, it disrupts its regular functioning. The health of algae impacts the entire food web, which has important implications for fisheries in the sub-Arctic and Arctic. Less food might mean fewer fish, and that introduces a whole new set of concerns.

Are there any potential solutions?聽

MW: To mitigate climate change, you have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. That’s at the center of the problem. There are various alternative geoengineering strategies floating around but little consensus on how safe and useful they are.

I think that it is critical to have international regulations that are shaped by representative communities on what kind of research we need before any geoengineering action is taken, if at all. Still, at the end of the day, geoengineering is a Band-Aid. We need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to deal with the underlying cause of climate change instead of just treating its symptoms.

I鈥檓 optimistic about solutions for reducing emissions. Technological and scientific innovation are progressing at a rapid pace, which gives me hope about the future.

Co-authors include of the University of Hamburg; of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology; of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; of Universit茅 Catholique de Louvain; of the Finnish Meteorological Institute and of Hokkaido University.

This research was funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, NASA, the Alfred-Wegener-Institut, Helmholtz-Zentrum f眉r Polar- und Meeresforschung, the University of Hamburg, the German Research Foundation, SnowCast, the DFG Emmy Noether Programme Project Snowflake and the Research Council of Finland.

For more information, contact Webster at melindaw@uw.edu.

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Between 2021 and 2023, Antarctica appeared to be growing. Heavy snowfall fueled by wetter weather caused parts of the continent to gain mass, leading whether climate change is really causing the ice to melt. However, a new study shows that the precipitation increase was an anomaly related to extra warm tropical ocean temperatures, not part of a long term trend.

The results Aug. 19 in Nature.

Antarctica as warm water melts ice from below and sends large chunks crashing into the ocean. Annual precipitation can鈥檛 keep up with the rate of melt, causing a net mass loss. However, the snow that fell on East Antarctica, a vast area that contains nearly 80% of Earth鈥檚 land bound ice, added mass faster than the ice was melting. Although mass loss continued in West Antarctica, the general trend seemed encouraging.

鈥淚n the early 2020s, there was an exceptional amount of snowfall over parts of Antarctica. Because Antarctica is so big, it doesn鈥檛 take that much extra snow thickness to counter the loss of ice from the edges of the ice sheet, which led to the perception that the loss of ice is slowing down,鈥� said co-author , a UW professor of Earth and space sciences.

The question nagging researchers was whether this would continue into the future. To answer it, they needed to trace the origins of the precipitation.

Because warm air can hold more moisture than colder air, higher latitudes could eventually see wetter conditions due to global warming. Scientists recognize that the average amount of moisture in the air will increase as global temperatures rise. Some saw the heavier snowfall as evidence that this expected trend was materializing in Antarctica.

鈥淲armer conditions favor storms shifting toward the poles, which could offset ice loss through snowfall,鈥� said co-author Qinghua Ding, a professor of atmospheric and climate science at UC Santa Barbara.

But the data told a different story. Using a computational method that involves 鈥渢agging鈥� water molecules, the researchers linked the extra precipitation in Antarctica to the tropical warm pool, a warm patch of ocean in the western Pacific and eastern Indian oceans that makes an outsized contribution to extreme weather.

Water temperature in the warm pool was notably higher than average between 2021 and 2023, triggering changes in atmospheric circulation that directed more moisture toward East Antarctica.

Historical evidence shows that multi-year warming of the warm pool is normal. Every few decades or so, it heats up for several years before reverting to its average temperature.

鈥淲hen something changes, it is very tempting, even to scientists, to think 鈥極h, there鈥檚 a new normal happening,鈥� but this analysis shows that鈥檚 not the case. This is most likely a short-lived phenomenon,鈥� Steig said.

The connection to global warming from human activity is tenuous, he added. It鈥檚 difficult to tease apart human impact from natural variability in the tropics, but because we see this pattern repeated in history, it is most likely just part of the natural background variability of the tropical climate system.

However, increased carbon dioxide emissions to the climatic conditions accelerating ice loss in West Antarctica.

As a whole, the Antarctic Ice Sheet covers an area larger than the U.S. and Mexico combined and stores most of Earth鈥檚 freshwater. It is also the greatest source of uncertainty in long-term sea-level rise projections. Understanding the balance between ice gain and loss in Antarctica helps researchers make predictions with global implications. Knowing the underlying dynamics provides important guidance for how to interpret new observations.

鈥淭here hasn鈥檛 been much attention paid to the particular mechanism we identify; this is a reminder to not interpret short term change as a long term trend,鈥� Steig said.

鈥淭he climate system is complex,鈥� Ding said. 鈥淓very year brings new surprises and we have to stay curious, humble and open-minded to improve our theories.鈥�

Additional co-authors include and of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; of UC Santa Barbara; of the University of Alaska Fairbanks; of Dartmouth College and D谩niel Top谩l of Universit茅 catholique de Louvain.

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, JST PRESTO, Japan, the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

For more information, contact Steig at steig@uw.edu and Ding at qinghua@geog.ucsb.edu.

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Eight 天美影视传媒 researchers have been selected as Fulbright Scholars for 2026-2027 and will pursue studies around the world.聽

Fulbright Scholars are college and university faculty, administrators and researchers, 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鈥檚 UW cohort represents a variety of disciplines, including sciences, engineering, business, environmental sciences, electrical and computer engineering, and computer science. The scholars will conduct research across the globe, including in Australia, India, Indonesia, Western Europe, Scandinavia and East Asia.

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

鈥淲e are incredibly proud of these outstanding 天美影视传媒 faculty and staff whose selection as Fulbright Scholars reflects the excellence, innovation and global impact of their work,鈥� said UW Vice Provost for Global Affairs Ahmad M. Ezzeddine. 鈥淭he 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鈥檚 continued investment in this transformative program.鈥澛�

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

This year鈥檚 UW Fulbright Scholars are:

is a professor in the Department of Biology in the College of Arts & Sciences. His research focuses on how mutually beneficial interactions between species 鈥� such as how insects pollinating plants is beneficial to both 鈥� 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 research institution, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient铆ficas, at the Do帽ana Biological Station in Seville. His work there will involve synthesizing and analyzing two comprehensive long-term datasets 鈥� one from his lab and one from his Spanish host lab 鈥� to better understand global patterns in pollination networks. In particular, scientists have recorded species that appear to be 鈥渟pecialists鈥� 鈥� such as a bee species that has only been recorded visiting one plant species聽 鈥� in many ecological networks, but, without long-term data, it鈥檚 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 Do帽ana.聽聽

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

While a Fulbright Scholar, she will develop a framework for a new doctoral biomedical research 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 research exchange, including eligibility criteria, mentorship plans and evaluation metrics. She will also explore funding sources for the program鈥檚 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鈥檚 and doctoral students. She was named a Poets & Quants top 50 undergraduate business professor in 2021.聽

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鈥檚 research exploring the emergence and evolution of new technology-based industries.

is聽 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.

Green鈥檚 Fulbright award is to advance the inclusion of聽 fish and other aquatic foods 鈥斅� 鈥淏lue Foods鈥� 鈥� into Indonesia鈥檚 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 research 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 researchers at the Centre for Machine Intelligence and Data Science (C-MInDS) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Bombay) 鈥� the nation鈥檚 topmost and most selective public research 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 research partnerships between the United States and India.

is an associate professor in the School of Oceanography in the College of the Environment. Morris鈥� research 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.聽

During his time at in South Korea, Morris will pursue a project entitled, 鈥淗igh-throughput cultivation-based genomics of freshwater Chloroflexota.鈥� 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 researchers, Dr. Juan 脕lvaro 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.聽聽

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 research 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 research on AI agents into enterprise applications. His book, 鈥淎gent Nation,鈥� was published this year.聽

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 researchers 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.

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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.聽

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.聽

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.聽

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.聽

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.聽

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.聽

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.聽

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.聽

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.聽

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

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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The 天美影视传媒 recently was ranked highly among its global peers in both the and the . Both rankings were released in mid-June.

According to U.S. News, the UW is No. 12 in the world on the 2026-27 rankings, No. 3 among U.S. public institutions. The UW also placed in the top 10 globally in six subject areas.

On the QS World University Rankings, the UW is among the top 100, landing at No. 92, or No. 7 among U.S. public universities.

More about the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities ranking:

The U.S. News ranking methodology 鈥� based on data and metrics provided by Clarivate 鈥� weighs factors that measure a university鈥檚 global and regional research reputation and academic research performance. For the overall rankings, this includes bibliometric indicators such as the number of publications, citations and international collaboration.

The overall Best Global Universities ranking encompasses 2,250 institutions spread across 105 countries.

Here are the UW fields of study that are in the top 10 in U.S. News鈥� subject rankings:

• Public, environmental and occupational health 鈥� No. 4
• Molecular biology and genetics 鈥� No. 6
• Microbiology 鈥� No. 7
• Biology and biochemistry 鈥� No. 7
• Infectious diseases 鈥� No. 7
• Clinical medicine 鈥� No. 8

More about the QS World University Rankings:聽

This is the 23rd edition of the global higher education ranking by the analyst firm QS Quacquarelli Symonds. The UW placed No. 92 in the world and No. 23 in America. The UW is in the top 10 among U.S. public universities, landing at No. 7. This year’s ranking features more than 1,500 universities across 106 higher education systems, including 184 in the U.S.

The QS World University Rankings are based on a weighted index of indicators including research and discovery, employability and outcomes, global engagement, learning experience and sustainability.

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Seven 天美影视传媒 students and recent alumni were awarded聽聽scholarships for the 2026鈥�27 academic year, joining about 2,000 students and recent graduates from around the country to pursue graduate study, conduct research and teach English abroad.

The Fulbright scholarship program is the largest U.S. international exchange opportunity for students to pursue graduate study, advanced research and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide.

The Fulbright awards speak to the talent, curiosity and global commitment of 天美影视传媒 students, said UW Vice Provost for Global Affairs Ahmad Ezzeddine.

鈥淔ulbright remains one of our nation鈥檚 most powerful platforms for learning across cultures, and it gives students the opportunity to pursue ambitious research, teaching and study while building meaningful relationships around the world,鈥� Ezzeddine said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e grateful for the State Department鈥檚 continued investment in this program and proud to see UW students representing our university 鈥� and the best of higher education 鈥� as thoughtful ambassadors engaged in work that will have lasting impact.鈥�

Among this year鈥檚 recipients are four UW undergraduate students or recent alumni who plan to travel to Europe and Asia to take part in graduate study, research and teaching assistantships. Three graduate-level students, including one recent alumnus, plan to travel to Asia, Europe and South America.

The UW also had five undergraduate students selected as alternates.

This year鈥檚聽聽awardees are:

• Katherine Guild: English teaching award, South Korea
• Tin Pak: Master鈥檚 degree program award, Taiwan
• Sofia Regan-Bon茅: English teaching award, Spain
• Wendi Zhou: Study award, Germany

This year鈥檚聽 awardees are:

• Vecksle Drake: English teaching award, Mongolia
• Tessa Marks: Research award, Honduras
• Justin Zeitlinger: Study award, Netherlands

The Fulbright program, funded by the U.S. Department of State, provides round-trip travel, health insurance, a housing stipend and visa assistance to awardees. Awardees may, from time to time, decline the Fulbright scholarship to pursue other opportunities.

Read more about this year鈥檚 UW Fulbright Student Program finalists and the projects they will pursue abroad at the Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships & Awards聽and the Graduate School鈥檚聽.

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