A new study of female engineering students perceived challenges finds significant differences between black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian-American and white women. The findings could help institutions better attract and retain particular underrepresented student populations.
Technology

The National Science Foundation today announced an $18.5 million grant to establish an Engineering Research Center for Sensorimotor Neural Engineering based at the UW. The interdisciplinary center will combine neuroscience and robotics to develop new rehabilitation technologies.

A new system to send electricity over short distances has been shown to reliably power a mechanical heart pump. The system could free patients from being tethered to a battery or external power source, lowering their chance of infection and improving their quality of life.

A new system called EnerJ helps computer programmers go green, allowing them to cut a program’s energy consumption by as much as 50 percent.

A more automated approach to bladder exams could be cheaper, more comfortable and more convenient. The system would use the UWs ultrathin laser endoscope, which is like a thin piece of cooked spaghetti, in combination with software that automatically creates a 3-D panorama of the bladder interior.
A nine-month study of how 天美影视传媒 graduate students did or did not use the large-format Amazon Kindle DX in their course reading provides information on the potential future for e-readers in academia.

This weekend in San Antonio, eight students from the UW’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering won the trophy in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition.

In new research published in “Science,” engineers at UW and UCLA used nanotechnology to control and observe how molecules react. They plan to use their method to develop more efficient solar molecules.

UW engineers and architects are collaborating on smart windows that can change transparency depending on conditions and actually harvest energy from the suns rays.
天美影视传媒 researchers, along with design and construction professionals, will devise standards that will help limit carbon footprints of building products and systems.

Henry “Hank鈥 Levy, professor and chair of the UW’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

The 天美影视传媒 has launched a new program, co-funded by Intel Corp., to make it easier and cheaper to build silicon photonic circuits. Sending information using light, instead of electrons, will allow for faster, lower-power and more versatile microchips.
Students in the Biorobotics Laboratory hacked the Kinect, a motion-based controller for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 gaming system, for research on telerobotic surgery.

UW engineering students won an international contest for designing a way to monitor water disinfection by solar rays. The students will share a $40,000 prize from the Rockefeller Foundation and are now working with nonprofits to turn their concept into a reality.

UW scientists are helping to prepare for a tidal energy project in Puget Sound. Researchers say this pilot project will have the most comprehensive environmental monitoring of any tidal energy installation to date.

Engineers are developing computer models to study how changes in water pressure and current speed around tidal turbines affect sediment buildup and fish health.
Ultrasound could soon be a way for spotting cancerous cells before a tumor develops, precisely monitoring how a person responds to treatment or delivering genetic therapies.
Journey 300 miles off the Washington-Oregon coast and dive nearly a mile deep into the ocean as scientists and 20 students use underwater robots to explore, map and sample methane ice deposits, an underwater volcano and seafloor hot springs spewing water up to 570 degrees F.