Even though video games have grown as an artistic medium , they are still often written off as mindless entertainment. Research is increasingly exploring meaningful gaming experiences. Less studied, though, are the ways such experiences can alter people鈥檚听 lives long term.听

In a new study, 天美影视传媒 researchers surveyed gamers about video games鈥� effects. Of 166 respondents researchers asked about meaningful experiences, 78% said such experiences had altered their lives. Researchers then pulled recurring themes from the responses 鈥� such as the power of听 rich storytelling 鈥� so that developers, gamers and even parents or teachers might focus on those elements.听

The team will Oct. 14 at the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play in Pittsburgh.听

To learn more about the paper, UW News spoke with lead author , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering; co-senior author , a UW professor and chair in human centered design and engineering; and co-senior author , a UW professor in the Information School.听

What are the most significant findings in the study?

Nisha Devasia: We highlighted three conclusions drawn from modeling the data. The first is that playing games during stressful times was strongly correlated with positive outcomes for physical and mental health. For example, during COVID, people played听 games they felt strongly improved their mental health, such as Stardew Valley. Others mentioned that games that required movement, or games that had characters with interesting physical abilities, inspired them to get outside or try new sports. Many participants also said that they gained a lot of insight from the game narrative. Story-based games often tell a sort of hero’s journey, for instance. People reported that the insight they gained from those stories correlated to their own self-reflection and identity building.

Finally, most people had these meaningful experiences in very early adulthood or younger, when they’re still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be in the world. Playing as a character and seeing your choices change the course of events is pretty unique to games, compared with other narrative media like novels or movies.

Do any individual stories really stand out to you from the survey you took?

ND: All the stories about Final Fantasy VII, because that’s the game that I love. I鈥檓 actually sitting in my childhood bedroom right now and the wall behind me is covered in Final Fantasy VII posters. The quote we used in the title also really resonated with me: 鈥淚 would not be this version of myself today without these experiences.鈥� I definitely cannot imagine what I would be doing in my life if I had not played Final Fantasy VII when I did.听

People also said things like, 鈥淭his helped me build the skills that ended up being my career. I learned how to program because I wanted to make games.鈥� I worked in the gaming industry and can verify that鈥檚 true for many people in the industry.听

How should these findings fit into how we view games as a society?

Julie Kientz: People have a tendency to treat technology as a monolith, as if video games are either good or bad, but there’s so much more nuance. The design matters. This study hopefully helps us untangle the positive elements. Certainly, there are bad elements 鈥� toxicity and addictiveness, for example. But we also see opportunities for growth and connection. Some people in the study met their spouses through games.

Jin Ha Lee: What Nisha studies is essentially what I live. I鈥檓 a gamer, and I have definitely started playing certain games with my two children specifically because I wanted to have more conversations with them. When my daughter plays games with interesting stories, we have the opportunity to talk about our lives as we analyze the story. What were these people thinking? Why did they make certain decisions?听

As researchers, we develop games for learning, for instance, for teaching people about misinformation or AI, or promote digital civic engagement, because we want to foster meaningful experiences. But a lot of the existing research just focuses on the short-term effects of games. This study really helps us understand what actually caused a game to make a difference in someone鈥檚 life.

What societal changes could we make in our approach to gaming?

JK: Because people have a tendency to oversimplify things, some of the proposed solutions can be counterproductive. For instance, limiting kids鈥� screen time can actually interfere with positive experiences, especially if someone is immersed in the storyline and identifies with the characters. If 30 minutes into a game, a kid鈥檚 Nintendo Switch turns off because of parental controls, that might hinder the ability to have a positive experience. If we aren鈥檛 using these tools consciously, it might actually lead to kids playing more casual, junk games, because those can be played in 30 minutes.

ND: You see this with discourse around game addiction, too. Sometimes excessive gaming is because of dark patterns in a game鈥檚 design. But it is often a symptom of someone going through something difficult in their life, and the game happens to be a way to cope. As our study shows, there鈥檚 the potential for growth in that coping.听

JHL: There鈥檚 also a place for games and media that we consider 鈥渂ad.鈥� You might play a game that鈥檚 so horrible that you make a meme out of it, and the jokes you share become a way to build community. Online communities can grow into offline events and friendships. But that isn鈥檛 necessarily obvious if you just view gaming as something you need to protect your children from.

What technological changes might accentuate the meaningful effects of games?

JHL: Games are naturally interactive and complex, so there鈥檚 a lot of opportunity for critical engagement beyond just the gameplay. There鈥檚 music, there鈥檚 art, there鈥檚 storytelling. All of these offer space for meaningful interaction. Designers can skillfully incorporate these elements to prompt reflection, evoke emotions, or challenge players鈥� perspectives.听

ND: We鈥檙e calling our next study Video Game Book Club. Right now I’m building a tool to allow people to annotate their gameplay as if they were writing in the margins of a book. While you play, a little pop-up lets you make a note. At the end, an interface pops up showing your gameplay stream and all the notes you made, which should allow them to reflect on what they were thinking as they were playing.

We鈥檙e also working on a reflection chatbot. Every time after you play a session that’s 30 minutes to an hour long, you’ll interact with this bot that prompts you to think critically about the experience, much like we鈥檙e taught to relate to literature. What was really memorable? How is this connected to your life?听

Co-authors include , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, and , a UW doctoral student in the Information School. This research was funded by the .听

For more information, contact Devasia at ndevasia@uw.edu, Kientz at jkientz@uw.edu and Lee at jinhalee@uw.edu.

Twelve faculty members at the 天美影视传媒 have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state July 17 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�听

The UW faculty members were selected by current WSAS members or by their election to national science academies. Eleven were voted on by current WSAS members:听

, professor, Bill & Melinda Gates Chair, and director of the Paul G. 听Allen School for Computer Science & Engineering, for 鈥渃ontributions in data management for data science, big data systems, cloud computing and image/video analytics and leadership in data science education.鈥�听

professor of civil & environmental engineering and of industrial & systems engineering, for 鈥減ioneering work in human mobility analysis and infrastructure resilience, which have transformed transportation systems in terms of both demand and supply, and shaped the future directions of transportation systems research on community-based solutions and disaster resilience.鈥�听

Lloyd and Kay Chapman Endowed Chair for Oral Health and associate dean for research in the UW School of Dentistry, and professor in the Department of Health Systems & Population Health, for 鈥渓eadership in understanding and addressing children’s oral health inequities through community-based socio-behavioral interventions and evidence-based policies.鈥�听

professor of biology, for 鈥渋nternationally recognized leadership in the biology of sleep, including groundbreaking research on molecular and genetic aspects of the brain, human behavioral studies on learning under varied sleep schedules, and contributions that have shaped policy on school schedules and standard time.鈥�听

, the Virginia and Prentice Bloedel professor of physics and of electrical & computer engineering, for 鈥渇oundational contributions to fundamental and applied research on the optical and spin properties of quantum point defects in crystals and for service and leadership in the quantum community.鈥� 听

, professor and chair of human centered design and engineering, for 鈥渁ward-winning leadership in HCI computing, whose research has advanced health and education technology, influenced policy, and shaped the HCI field of through impactful scholarship, interdisciplinary collaboration and inclusive, real-world technology design.鈥�听

, professor and associate dean for research in the UW School of Social Work, for 鈥渃ontributions to understanding psychosocial and physiological factors that moderate the effectiveness of their interventions and ultimately improve the health of children with abdominal pain disorders.鈥�听

, professor of medicine in the UW School of Medicine and of pharmacy, 鈥渇or leadership in health economics and cancer research, including work on financial toxicity, cost- effectiveness, and healthcare policy that has influenced national discussions, improved cancer care access, and shaped policies for equitable and sustainable healthcare.鈥� Ramsey is also Director of the Cancer Outcomes Research Program at Fred Hutch.听

, professor of bioengineering and Vice Dean of Research and Graduate Education in the UW School of Medicine, for 鈥渘ational leadership in biomedical research, research policy, and graduate education, including pioneering novel drug delivery approaches for regenerative medicine applications in the nervous system and other tissues such as bone, cartilage, tendon and skin.鈥�听

, Rabinowitz Endowed Professor of Earth and space sciences, for 鈥渞evolutionizing our understanding of climate change in Antarctica through pioneering ice core extractions under hazardous Antarctic conditions and their subsequent analyses over two decades, and for applying that expertise to advance climate research in Washington State.鈥�听

, professor of pharmaceutics, for 鈥減ioneering contributions to pharmaceutical and translational sciences, including groundbreaking research on drug transporters, PBPK modeling and maternal-fetal pharmacology that have helped shaped drug safety policies.鈥�听

The Academy also welcomed new members who were selected by virtue of their election to the National Academies of Science, Engineering or Medicine. Among them is , the Arthur B. McDonald professor of physics and director of the Center for Experimental Nuclear Physics and Astrophysics. Hertzog was elected to the National Academy of Sciences last year. 听

While the current generation of artificial intelligence chatbots , the systems answer with such confidence that .

Adults, even those such as , still regularly fall for this. But spotting errors in text is especially difficult for children, since they often don鈥檛 have the contextual knowledge to sniff out falsehoods.

天美影视传媒 researchers developed the game AI Puzzlers to show kids an area where AI systems still typically and blatantly fail: solving certain reasoning puzzles. In the game, users get a chance to solve 鈥楢RC鈥� puzzles (short for Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus) by completing patterns of colored blocks. They can then ask various AI chatbots to solve the puzzles and have the systems explain their solutions 鈥斕齱hich they nearly always fail to do accurately. The team tested the game with two groups of kids. They found the kids learned to think critically about AI responses and discovered ways to nudge the systems toward better answers.

June 25 at the Interaction Design and Children 2025 conference in Reykjavik, Iceland.

鈥淜ids naturally loved ARC puzzles and they鈥檙e not specific to any language or culture,鈥� said lead author , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering. 鈥淏ecause the puzzles rely solely on visual pattern recognition, even kids that can鈥檛 read yet can play and learn. They get a lot of satisfaction in being able to solve the puzzles, and then in seeing AI 鈥� which they might consider super smart 鈥� fail at the puzzles that they thought were easy.鈥�

to be difficult for computers but easy for humans because they demand abstraction: being able to look at a few examples of a pattern, then apply it to a new example. Current cutting-edge AI models have improved at ARC puzzles, but they鈥檝e not caught up with humans.

Researchers built AI Puzzlers with 12 ARC puzzles that kids can solve. They can then compare their solutions to those from various AI chatbots; users can pick the model from a drop-down menu. An 鈥淎sk AI to Explain鈥� button generates a text explanation of its solution attempt. Even if the system gets the puzzle right, its explanation of how is frequently inaccurate. An 鈥淎ssist Mode鈥� lets kids try to guide the AI system to a correct solution.

鈥淚nitially, kids were giving really broad hints,鈥� Dangol said. 鈥淟ike, 鈥極h, this pattern is like a doughnut.鈥� An AI model might not understand that a kid means that there鈥檚 a hole in the middle, so then the kid needs to iterate. Maybe they say, 鈥楢 white space surrounded by blue squares.鈥欌��

The researchers tested the system at the last year with over 100 kids from grades 3 to 8. They also led two sessions with the , a project that works with a group of kids to collaboratively design technologies. In these sessions, 21 children ages 6-11 played AI Puzzlers and worked with the researchers.

鈥淭he kids in KidsTeam are used to giving advice on how to make a piece of technology better,鈥� said co-senior author , a UW associate professor in the Information School and KidsTeam director. 鈥淲e hadn’t really thought about adding the Assist Mode feature, but during these co-design sessions, we were talking with the kids about how we might help AI solve the puzzles and the idea came from that.鈥�

Through the testing, the team found that kids were able to spot errors both in the puzzle solutions and in the text explanations from the AI models. They also recognize differences in how human brains think and how AI systems generate information. 鈥淭his is the internet鈥檚 mind,鈥� one kid said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 trying to solve it based only on the internet, but the human brain is creative.鈥�

The researchers also found that as kids worked in Assist Mode, they learned to use AI as a tool that needs guidance rather than as an answer machine.

鈥淜ids are smart and capable,鈥� said co-senior author , a UW professor and chair in human centered design and engineering. 鈥淲e need to give them opportunities to make up their own minds about what AI is and isn’t, because they’re actually really capable of recognizing it. And they can be bigger skeptics than adults.鈥�

and , both doctoral students in the Information School, and , a master鈥檚 student in human centered design and engineering, are also co-authors on this paper. This research was funded by The National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences and the Jacobs Foundation鈥檚 CERES Network.

For more information, contact Dangol at adango@uw.edu, Yip at jcyip@uw.edu, and Kientz at jkientz@uw.edu.

In 2022, after decades of booming growth, technology companies in the United States began to lay off droves of employees. The announcements 鈥� which continued in 2023 and 2024, spanning from major corporations to startups 鈥� made constant headlines: , 13% of its staff. , . In all, between 2022 and 2024, . Smaller cuts have continued; this week, , nearly 2,000 in Washington.

In 2023, 天美影视传媒 researchers recruited a group of 29 laid-off U.S. tech workers to explore the effects of these mass cuts on employees. Over five weeks, participants reflected on topics like job searching and the potential for workplace organizing. They shared their answers and responded to each other in a private Slack group. Overall, the group was ambivalent about tech work. They said the work was often unfulfilling, despite their plans to continue in the industry.

The April 30 at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Yokohama, Japan.

UW News spoke with lead author , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, about shifting views of the tech industry, the potential for workplace organizing and why workers find themselves in a state of 鈥渃ruel optimism鈥� with the industry.

Can you give some context around the layoffs? Why was it such a big shock that the tech industry was laying people off like this?

Samuel So: Overall, the layoffs came as a shock because the tech industry has been thought of as layoff-proof for the past 20 years. At least since the , there hasn鈥檛 been precedent for mass tech industry layoffs. So many tech workers reckoned with the possibility for the first time, and many of the layoffs were unceremonious 鈥� people learned about the cuts when their access to work accounts was revoked, or through impersonal email announcements.

Companies generally cited macroeconomic factors when they announced layoffs. This included high interest rates, industry-wide revenue losses and over-hiring during the pandemic.

But what鈥檚 interesting is that these companies were announcing layoffs in rapid succession. Some appeared to be performing well, even achieving record profits, yet still staged subsequent rounds of layoffs. So it鈥檚 also helpful to understand that layoffs are helpful for boosting stock performance, and companies were simply copying each other because they could. Mass layoffs may have previously been considered taboo in the tech industry, but now that big tech companies were doing it, it became more acceptable for other companies to follow suit. Some also speculated the layoffs were intended to reset labor relations in favor of employers, because tech workers were previously able to command high salaries.

I do want to note that, because the study didn’t engage with executives or company leadership, my understanding is primarily drawn from news articles, public speculation and the working theories of the participants in our study.

What made you want to study this?

SS: I鈥檓 broadly interested in the values and beliefs surrounding technologies and in studying the rhetoric of tech companies. I also had a personal interest. In Seattle, we鈥檙e surrounded by the tech industry, and I was curious about how these mass layoffs would potentially impact not just the tech industry, but the cultures, neighborhoods, and cities that were largely developed by these tech companies.

I also went to a public STEM high school and majored in computer science in my undergraduate degree. I received a very clear message that, to many people, a tech job signified upward mobility, work-life balance and job stability. My high school was largely made up of low-income immigrant families, and tech jobs practically signified the American dream. So I was curious about how layoffs might have affected or shaped people’s beliefs around the tech industry and what that signals for the future of the industry.

What do you think distinguished these from layoffs in other industries?

SS: The idea that the tech industry is layoff-proof was a factor. Another aspect is the rollout of high-profile generative artificial intelligence technologies. Some tech conglomerates were announcing billion-dollar investments in AI around the time of mass layoffs. This contributed to internal conflicts and alienation that many laid-off workers experienced, especially those who felt companies would chase technology trends at the expense of their workers’ well-being.

Several workers in the study felt this was a culmination of their disillusionment with major tech companies. In many ways this seems to track with how the broader culture has come to view these companies. What do you make of this shift in perception?

SS: Some participants in our study likened the tech industry to a cult, that it has these cults of personalities and passion around leadership principles and company values that are almost treated as scripture. So some of the romantic or utopic sentiments around tech companies are now being actively challenged by tech workers. This is not particularly new 鈥� tech workers have been voicing their concerns and discontent over the past decade. We鈥檝e seen the rise of collective organizing and worker-led campaigns. But I think the mass layoffs took this discontent to unprecedented levels.

Even so, most tech workers in our study planned on staying in the industry. This raises an interesting tension: What might it mean for the tech workforce to be disillusioned with the beliefs that drove the industry for so long? For example, some participants talked about entering the tech industry with goals of changing humanity or working on projects with broad societal impacts, to ultimately be disappointed when their work was just moving pixels around.

Your paper centers on the theory of 鈥渃ruel optimism.鈥� Can you explain what that is and why it applies to these workers鈥� experiences?

SS: Cruel optimism describes a relation in which something you desire is actually detrimental to your well-being. The cultural theorist to describe how people might remain attached to ideas of the “good life” because it promises a desirable outcome. But the pursuit of this good life can lead people to work through precarious or uncertain conditions that put them at risk.

In our case, cruel optimism helps us understand why tech workers remain in an industry that is actively contributing to their unfulfillment and discontent. Berlant raises interesting points about how, when ideas of the good life are threatened, people will hold onto those ideas as much as possible, as it feels like a necessary way of being in the world. We can see this in how tech workers cling to certain ideas of what a good life looks like in the tech industry, even while they are explicitly criticizing the tech industry and its leadership.

What are some potential ways for the tech industry to move beyond its current state?

SS: Mass layoffs are not inevitable. .S. until the 1980s, and there are historical examples of and contesting their layoff decisions from the early 2000s.

We found workers managed their feelings of discontent through individual adjustments. For example, some accepted that work is just work, and moving forward, they planned to act in their best interests and not in those of the company. While there is value in that shift, it also risks having workers isolate themselves in dealing with these problems or resigning themselves to the way things currently are.

Our paper argues that these feelings of discontent can be redirected toward collective action or organizing. The tech workers in our study had an appetite for resistance or organizing, but they felt powerless in pushing back. This makes sense, since the tech industry is largely anti-union by design. Founders of early tech companies said that unions were antithetical to innovation.

But fostering open spaces for collective reimagining of the industry can take many forms. Existing organizing groups like Tech Workers Coalition operate across different companies and physical locations. Some workers in our study were talking about these issues with other tech workers for the first time. Simply sharing grievances and expressing discontent with trusted coworkers is a form of organizing.

Vannary Sou, a UW undergraduate in the Information School, was a co-author. , a UW assistant professor of human centered design and engineering, and , a UW professor of human centered design and engineering, are senior authors. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact So at samuelso@uw.edu.

In 2023, a good portion of 鈥� in part over concerns about artificial intelligence in filmmaking. Now the use of AI has roiled this year鈥檚 Academy Awards: Several of the best picture nominees . 鈥淭he Brutalist鈥� showed AI generated architecture blueprints in a scene and its editor used a program called Respeecher to hone actors鈥� Hungarian pronunciations. 鈥淓melia Per茅z鈥� used Respeecher to adjust an actor鈥檚 singing voice.

, a 天美影视传媒 doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, interviewed picketing film workers about AI during the 2023 strikes. Their concerns ranged from AI鈥檚 effects on wages and jobs to the inauthenticity of the resulting art.

Halperin Feb. 6 in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction.

UW News spoke with Halperin about how film workers are thinking about AI and the history of technology in filmmaking.

The striking film workers you spoke with raised various concerns about the use of AI in filmmaking. Were you surprised to see some consternation around the Oscars this year?

Brett Halperin: We have seen backlash to AI from workers and the general public manifest in multiple ways over the past few years 鈥� from striking to protesting screenings. Many filmmakers have valid concerns about how studio use of AI can undermine their craft and labor. Meanwhile, many writers and artists object to how their materials are scraped and co-opted as training data for machine learning models without their consent or compensation. This makes AI particularly thorny and controversial. But it鈥檚 also important to situate this backlash in the broader historical context.

Throughout history, the 鈥渄eath of cinema鈥� trope has resurfaced with each major technological shift. For example, the use of synchronized sound systems starting in 1926 rendered many silent-era acting techniques, production methods and even professions obsolete. While this caused massive disruption, it ultimately created new professions, such as sound specialists, and transformed rather than eradicated cinema. The rise of color, television, digital media and so on follow similar trajectories. AI presents another iteration of this trope that continues to reflect the shifting cultural and industrial anxieties about technological agency. Part of what makes cinema unique relative to other art forms is that it has always depended on complex, evolving technologies. This change is unsettling, but also an opportunity for all of us, including the Academy, to reevaluate what makes film meaningful.

The Academy is reportedly considering making AI disclosure mandatory for the 2026 Oscars. Do you see value in this?

BH: Generally, I think as much transparency as possible is a good thing. But as AI further integrates into production processes and workflows, excessive mandates could become unreasonably cumbersome and difficult to track. So I would first start by asking: What do we mean by AI? Computer-generated imagery and its associated algorithms have been in the Hollywood studio system since the 1970s. At what point did CGI and other algorithmic tools become rebranded as AI?

In my view, regulation should focus on where AI use has the potential to undermine workers and manipulate viewers. For example, AI actors and de-aging techniques might further intensify body image issues among the public, as well as take work away from actual actors. Disclosure would help the Academy and spectators understand what they are seeing to not only assess the ethics, but also better judge and criticize films in general.

The uses of AI in 鈥淭he Brutalist鈥� and 鈥淓melia Per茅z鈥� are relatively minor. What were workers鈥� feelings about AI tools as instruments to assist their work, rather than replace it?

BH: The workers did not oppose AI altogether. They seemed to recognize that technological change is an ongoing part of cinema and expressed degrees of openness to the creative possibilities. They acknowledged that there are potentially useful applications insofar as the decision-making power and control over AI lies with them rather than studio executives forcing its integration.

That said, the workers seemed to find current AI-assisted capabilities to be rather unimaginative and unequipped to augment (or replace) their work. For example, a writer who tried to use it to assist him described the written outputs as 鈥渉acky鈥� and 鈥済eneric.鈥� Many of the workers made compelling cases for why AI cannot take over the tasks that truly define filmmaking, such as fostering authentic human connection on and off screen and telling stories that matter to people.听

What were your major takeaways from talking with the film workers? Have those changed at all as the technology has evolved in the last year and a half?听

BH: Despite being around for decades now in various forms, so-called AI today is exhibiting a 鈥渘ovelty effect,鈥� which is currently exploitable, but bound to fade. As AI further integrates and becomes more deeply embedded into cinema like prior technologies, I suspect that the anxiety around it will simmer down.

Rather than fuel the hype cycle, we should remain patient and vigilant in working toward ethical implementations and protections, because AI can incur harms today that require protections for workers and viewers. While Hollywood unions have won protections through collective bargaining agreements, they will need to be continuously updated as the technology 听develops, as well as extended to non-unionized workers and workers in other media industries through state and federal policies. I would especially like to see policies that establish informed consent and compensation for artists whose materials are used as AI training data.

What should the public know and consider about AI in filmmaking?

BH: It鈥檚 ultimately up to those of us watching movies to decide what we like and don鈥檛 like about AI in cinema. We have the power of our attention and wallets to decide what films we want to support. At the end of the day, the Hollywood studio system will invest in what is profitable and divest from what is not. We should listen to the workers for guidance and watch films that align with our values. Despite the current anxiety around AI and the lure of its spectacle today, the public should remember what makes a film truly valuable: the human hearts and souls behind it.

, a UW professor of human centered design and engineering, is the co-author on the journal article. This research was funded by the Labor Research and Action Network and the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Halperin at bhalp@uw.edu.

Only 30% of a coffee bean is soluble in water, and many brewing methods aim to extract significantly less than that. So of the Americans consume in a year, more than 1.1 billion pounds of grounds are knocked from filters into compost bins and garbage cans.

While watching the grounds from her own espresso machine accumulate, , a 天美影视传媒 doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, saw an opportunity. Coffee is nutrient-rich and sterilized during brewing, so it鈥檚 ideal for growing fungus, which, before it sprouts into mushrooms, forms a 鈥渕ycelial skin.鈥� This skin, a sort of white root system, can bind loose substances together and create a tough, water-resistant, lightweight material.

Luo and a UW team developed a new system for turning those coffee grounds into a paste, which they use to 3D print objects: packing materials, pieces of a vase, a small statue. They inoculate the paste with Reishi mushroom spores, which grow on the objects to form that mycelial skin. The skin turns the coffee grounds 鈥� even when formed into complex shapes 鈥� into a resilient, fully compostable alternative to plastics. For intricate designs, the mycelium fuses separately printed pieces together to form a single object.

Jan. 23 in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.

鈥淲e鈥檙e especially interested in creating systems for people like small businesses owners producing small-batch products 鈥� for example, small, delicate glassware that needs resilient packaging to ship,鈥� said lead author Luo. 鈥淪o we鈥檝e been working on new material recipes that can replace things like Styrofoam with something more sustainable and that can be easily customized for small-scale production.鈥�

To create the 鈥淢ycofluid鈥� paste, Luo mixed used coffee grounds with brown rice flour, Reishi mushroom spores, xanthan gum (a common food binder found in ice creams and salad dressings) and water. Luo also built a new 3D printer head for the that the UW鈥檚 Machine Agency lab designed. The new printer system can hold up to a liter of the paste.

The team printed various objects with the Mycofluid: packaging for a small glass, three pieces of a vase, two halves of a and a two-piece coffin the size of a butterfly. The objects then sat covered in a plastic tub for 10 days, during which the mycelium formed a sort of shell around the Mycofluid. In the case of the statue and vase, the separate pieces also fused together.

The process is the same as that of homegrown mushroom kits: Keep the mycelium moist as it grows from a nutrient rich material. If the pieces stayed in the tub longer, actual mushrooms would sprout from the objects, but instead they鈥檙e removed after the white mycelial skin has formed. Researchers then dried the pieces for 24 hours, which halts the fruiting of the mushrooms.

The finished material is heavier than Styrofoam 鈥� closer to the density of cardboard or charcoal. After an hour in contact with water, it absorbed only 7% more weight in water and dried to close its initial weight while keeping its shape. It was as strong and tough as and expanded polystyrene foam, the substance used to make Styrofoam.

Though the team didn鈥檛 specifically test the material鈥檚 compostability, all its components are compostable (and, in fact, edible, though less than appetizing).

Because the Mycofluid requires relatively homogeneous used coffee grounds, working with it at significant scale would prove difficult, but the team is interested in other forms of recycled materials that might form similar biopastes.

鈥淲e鈥檙e interested in expanding this to other bio-derived materials, such as other forms of food waste,鈥� Luo said. 鈥淲e want to broadly support this kind of flexible development, not just to provide one solution to this major problem of plastic waste.鈥�

, a UW master鈥檚 student in human centered design and engineering when completing this research, is a co-author, and , UW associate professor of human centered design and engineering, is the senior author. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Luo at danlil@uw.edu.

For Valentine’s Day, UW News asked 12 天美影视传媒 researchers to share their love stories: What made them decide to pursue their career paths? Scroll down or click on the links below to see their responses.

Lakeya Afolalu | Katya Cherukumilli | Stephen Groening | June Lukuyu | Jennifer Nemhauser | Zoe Pleasure | Kira Schabram | B谩ra 艩af谩艡ov谩 | Adam Summers | Timeka Tounsel | Kendall Valentine | Navid Zobeiry

, Assistant professor of language, literacy and culture, College of Education

What do you study at the UW?听

My research explores how immigration, race, language, literacy and identity intersect in the lives of Nigerian immigrant and transnational youth. Unlike in many West African countries, race is the most salient identifier in the United States, often overlooking the diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic identities of youth of African origin. This often affects how immigrant youth make sense of their identities in this country. My research examines how Nigerian youth use multilingualism, literacy and digital literacies to construct and negotiate their identities across home, school and digital environments in the U.S.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

My mother is African American. My father is Nigerian. So, growing up, I often felt like I was split between both cultures. There were also so many societal and familial expectations about what it meant to be “Black,” “African American” and “Nigerian.”

Growing up, my family members and friends in Detroit called me by my African American name, “Lakeya.” But when my sisters and I spent summers and holidays in Queens, New York, with our Nigerian family, the moment I crossed over the threshold of the door I was called by my Nigerian name, “Iyore.”

Honestly, I’d say I set out very early in life to define my life’s path and to be intentional about how I wanted to make myself known to the world 鈥� my identity. It was not 鈥� and even as an adult Black woman in America, it still is not always 鈥� comfortable to defy identity expectations. But what other way is there to live? To be a shell of what others, or society, believe we should be? Is that living? It is not.

As a teenager, I had less confidence in being bold and being my true self. I loved reading novels. I鈥檇 go to the bookstore and buy books to read, but I hid this practice from my friends because of some unwritten rule that one can鈥檛 be Black, cool and smart. Adolescent peer pressure was a real issue. That’s also how I fell in love with writing. Often feeling misunderstood, I resorted to the pages of my journals where I could be myself and dream of my future self. I continue to keep a journal.

My Aunt Darcelle says I’ve been asking profound questions since I learned to speak. That hasn’t changed. So, it’s no surprise that I’ve committed to a career in research. My research is not just research, though. It’s the story and lives of so many young people who feel wedged between other people’s and society’s ideas of who they should be and what they should become. Sometimes, these expectations can come from those closest to us who have well-meaning intentions 鈥� parents, family members, close friends. I understand this feeling well.

There are many times when I’m writing a manuscript or analyzing data, and I draw on memories of my own schooling experiences to interpret interview transcripts from the Nigerian youth in my study. Or I remember similar instances from West African seventh-grade students in Harlem, which guided me to draw on theoretical frames that align best with the Nigerian youth experience.

My research is truly about shifting the narrative about what it means to be Black, Nigerian and African. Why? Well, because Blackness is so rich, diverse and multifaceted. So is Nigerianness and Africanness. As I engage in my research to illustrate the rich diversity of Nigerian youth’s languages, literacies and identities, I also aim to contribute to dismantling rigid identity structures, creating greater freedom for all young people who find themselves in environments that are structured by prescribed identities that conflict with how they desire to be known.

My research is a contribution to freedom 鈥� a freedom that transcends into adulthood. My feet may be in the academy, but my heart and hands always have been and always will be in the communities that mirror mine. It鈥檚 truly an honor to do this heart work.

I also want to touch on how I decided to pursue this career path. Growing up, I always wanted to play school and take on the role of the teacher. In fact, I cried whenever my sisters and cousins wouldn鈥檛 play school with me. For Christmas and my birthday, I would ask my mother to buy me dry-erase boards, markers and other office items so that I could set up my “classroom” in the house.

I fell in love with teaching because my early elementary teachers were some of the first people who made me feel seen. For instance, my first-grade teacher, Mrs. Schave, would let me choose and read books to the whole class on Fridays. My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Korn, at Fitzgerald Elementary on the west side of Detroit, would invite me to the writer鈥檚 table in the classroom whenever I finished my work early. At that table, I realized how powerful and freeing the art of writing is.

While I had these great school experiences, they were also starkly different from my cousins’ experiences. They lived and attended public schools in Auburn Hills, in the suburbs outside of Detroit. I often visited them on the weekends and noticed that they read the same books that I read at my elementary school, except that we had the abridged version in basal textbooks while they had the full chapter books. That struck something within me, and I realized very early in life that your ZIP code 鈥� where you lived 鈥� determined the quality of your education. It felt unfair. I didn鈥檛 have the words to describe it then, but I now know that it was an equity issue 鈥� not just educationally but also in terms of economic and social mobility.

So, I decided around the age of 7 that I wanted to become a teacher. I made an internal promise to myself, a commitment, that children who grow up in communities like mine 鈥� the beautiful west side of Detroit 鈥� would have access to a quality education no matter what. Since that commitment, I’ve taught elementary and middle school in Newark, New Jersey, Detroit, and Harlem.

Thinking back to the connection with my research on identity, I had many conversations with my Nigerian father, who wanted me to pursue a career in finance. In Nigerian culture, there’s often the idea that doctor, lawyer and engineer are the only three career choices, but I was less interested in the money and prestige. I was committed to a career in education.

Today, as an assistant professor and the founder of a that supports the identities and well-being of youth of color, I have small moments when I think back to little Lakeya and smile. I鈥檓 doing exactly what she set out to do and more. She would be proud.

What advice would you give to your younger self?听

It鈥檚 okay to be misunderstood. It鈥檚 okay not to fit in. In fact, not fitting in is what makes you beautifully unique. I know that none of your identity and educational experiences may make sense now, but they will later. Trust me, it will make sense 鈥� not just for you but for many youths who find themselves making sense of their identities. In fact, you鈥檒l dedicate your career to speaking, writing and doing community-based work about these topics. Finally, I know you鈥檙e looking for that example like yourself, with your dreams and who lives between multiple cultural worlds, but in time, you will become the example you鈥檙e looking for. Hold on. It鈥檚 going to be a beautiful roller coaster of a ride.

For more information, contact Afolalu at lafolalu@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research group, the Safe Water Equity and Longevity Lab, aims to bridge gaps between scientific discovery, technology design and safe water provision. We integrate methods from human-centered design and environmental engineering to investigate barriers that limit safe water access and to develop usable water quality monitoring and treatment technologies. Specifically, we use data science, experiments, hardware prototyping and community-engaged research methods to design collaborative tools that improve safe water management and mitigate exposure to chemical contaminants in water supplies.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

From a young age, I always felt a deep connection to our planet. I loved spending most of my time outdoors exploring the natural world. I was very curious and talkative as a child, wanting to solve riddles, play games and learn about how everything worked. My curiosity led me down a winding path of research adventures that allowed me to study geology and supercontinents, climate change and alpine plant ecology, fuel-efficient cookstoves, wastewater irrigation and, eventually, safe drinking water.

When I reflect on how I ended up choosing to research access to drinking water, I think about the different places I have lived: south India, Florida, California and Washington. Each region has a uniquely different way of life, cultural traditions and natural environments. A common thread in each of the places I have called home was proximity to the coastline and easy access to fresh springs, rivers and lakes. I have always found myself drawn by an invisible force to the nearest body of water.

I am grateful that my career allows me to address environmental health challenges while also considering the human experience, to reflect on and reconcile inequities and injustices, and to collaboratively solve complex puzzles with brilliant students, colleagues and community partners.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Don鈥檛 be scared to do what you love every day, follow your heart and never stop speaking your mind. You’ll eventually find your way and realize it was the journey that mattered in the end.

For more information, contact Cherukumilli at katyach@uw.edu.

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, Associate professor, Department of Cinema & Media Studies

What do you study at the UW?

I am a media historian who specializes in the sociocultural aspects of media technologies. This includes researching and writing about devices themselves, the implications of the introduction and widespread adoption of these devices and how people use them. For example, my first book was . I have also published research on cell phones, , 16 mm training films, and the use of television screens in the family minivan.

What made you fall in love with your research area? 听

I was 7 when I was stuck on a Pan Am 747 for five hours on the tarmac at London Heathrow and boy, was it exciting when they finally played the movie on the big screen at the front of the cabin!

After that, I lived in Poland under a military dictatorship, which profoundly shaped my media experience growing up. For example, we used to watch Hollywood films played on a 16 mm projector in our living room 鈥� both the films and projector were provided through the U.S. Armed Forces. The range of films could be odd. I remember watching “Sophie’s Choice,” “Heartbeeps,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Going Ape!,” “Sleeper,” “Fire and Ice,” “The Towering Inferno,” “City on Fire,” “When Time Ran Out,” “Three Days of the Condor,” “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “Krull” 鈥� not exactly .

At the same time, we were watching Polish television (mostly the animated shows “Pszcz贸艂ka Maja” and “Bolek i Lolek”). Occasionally, a Hollywood film would be aired on TV, over-dubbed in Polish in such a way that the English language dialogue was still audible. I have distinct memories of watching “The Poseidon Adventure” and hearing the first few words of a line in English before the Polish translation came in on top of the dialogue. It wasn’t until a decade or so later that I learned this is not the standard technique for making alternate language versions of films.

We sometimes had access to U.S. television shows from other American diplomats who would return from home leave. They would bring videotape recordings, so I got to watch “Hogan’s Heroes,” “M*A*S*H” and “Gilligan’s Island” months after air date, complete with commercials (which I found both profoundly perplexing and compelling 鈥� As I type right now, I am singing the ). I even got to see “Roots” and “The Day After” on Betamax (we did not have what was then thought of as the inferior VHS format).

I would say that those media experiences 鈥� in-flight film, 16mm home exhibition, watching films on television in multiple languages 鈥� sparked my interest in our mediated mass culture. Until relatively recently, film studies was marked by a bias toward theatrical exhibition of feature films (with the occasional nod to experimental films shown in art galleries) and media studies was concerned with the effective transmission of messages to audiences. The forms of media encounter that are unforeseen and often unintended at the moment of production often get treated as accidental and inconsequential and yet, for many people that is the primary mode of encounter. Because of my experience, I know that all media forms, devices and their contents are contingent on a particular and fortuitous set of circumstances. So I find myself curious about those circumstances and their history.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

If I had known I would become an academic, I might have told my 8-year-old self to take better notes and told my undergraduate self to spend more time in faculty office hours asking about academia. Knowing what I know now, I would have told myself 10 years ago to stop worrying what others might think and just write the damned book.

For more information, contact Groening at groening@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research centers on using transdisciplinary approaches to develop solutions for creating sustainable, inclusive and integrated energy solutions for underserved communities. My expertise supports policymakers and practitioners seeking equitable, community-centered energy transitions that combine technical and socioeconomic perspectives.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I grew up in a small community outside Nairobi, Kenya. From an early age, I saw firsthand the challenges of unreliable power: frequent outages, power surges and a system that did not always meet the needs of the people it served. When the lights went out, my family, like many in the area, was often left scrambling to preserve our food or finish homework assignments in candlelight. It was not just an inconvenience 鈥� it was a reminder of how something as essential as electricity could hold communities back. I knew from then that I wanted to do something about it, but at the time, I did not quite know how.

When I was in high school, I applied to colleges in the U.S. and was accepted to Smith College on a full scholarship. There, I pursued engineering science, but what really sparked my love for the field was not just the technical challenges 鈥� it was how energy systems intertwined with society. At Smith, I was not just solving equations. I was also exploring how power affects everything from education to health care to human development. My engineering courses were paired with courses in psychology, economics and sociology, and that blend of disciplines opened my eyes to a new way of thinking: Energy wasn鈥檛 just a technical problem to solve, it was a societal one.

The more I learned, the more I realized that fixing energy systems in underserved communities couldn鈥檛 be as simple as just adding more power or building bigger grids. It had to be about understanding the people who needed that power. I wanted to create systems that responded to real needs, that didn鈥檛 just drop in solutions, but considered the community鈥檚 culture, environment and existing infrastructure. After graduating, I had a job developing software to estimate the cost of power systems, but I kept thinking about how we could rethink energy to make it more sustainable, more inclusive and more connected to the social fabric of the places it served.

That thinking led me to pursue a master鈥檚 in renewable energy systems at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom and then a doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where my research focused on finding ways to develop energy systems that were as much about community as they were about technology. I didn鈥檛 just want to create another power system that might fail because it didn鈥檛 align with how people lived or how societies worked. Instead, I wanted to design systems that were responsive to local contexts and to the needs of communities they intended to serve, systems that people could rely on for the long haul.

In 2023, I joined the 天美影视传媒 as an assistant professor, where I founded the IDEAS (Interdisciplinary Energy Analytics for Society) research group. Our work is all about creating energy systems that work for the people who use them. It鈥檚 a mix of developing sustainable technology, social understanding and deep collaboration with communities. We鈥檙e working on projects in Africa, Southeast Asia, the Pacific Islands and even here in the U.S., always with the goal of creating solutions that are both sustainable and tailored to the specific needs of each community.

What I love most about my research is that it鈥檚 not just about the science 鈥� it鈥檚 about the people. Every project is a chance to dive into a new community, understand its challenges and design solutions that truly fit. I鈥檓 passionate about making sure that when we think about energy, we鈥檙e thinking about people, not just power. And now, teaching and mentoring the next generation of engineers at UW gives me a chance to pass on that mindset 鈥� to inspire others to think beyond the technical and ask, “How does this system help the people who need it most?”

It鈥檚 been a winding journey, from a small town outside Nairobi to researching sustainable and inclusive energy solutions at a major university. But the core of it has always been the same: a desire to make a difference, to solve real-world problems with technology and to ensure that everyone, no matter where they are, has access to the energy they need to thrive.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I鈥檇 tell my younger self not to worry so much about fitting into a mold or following a traditional path. Every experience, even the ones that seem unrelated or uncertain, contributes to your journey. Embrace the uncertainty, because it often leads to the most interesting places.

I鈥檇 also remind myself to be patient and kind with the process. Progress isn鈥檛 always linear. There were times when I felt overwhelmed or unsure of my next step. It鈥檚 okay to feel that way 鈥� it鈥檚 part of learning and growing. The setbacks, the challenges and even the moments of doubt are just as important as the successes. They shape you and teach you valuable lessons.

Finally, I鈥檇 tell myself to take more risks 鈥� to seek out the scary opportunities, the ones that seem daunting or unfamiliar. You never know where a seemingly small decision or unexpected twist in the road might take you. Sometimes, the things that seem out of reach are the ones worth pursuing most. So, trust yourself, stay curious and keep pushing forward, even when the path isn鈥檛 always clear. The journey will be worth it.

For more information, contact Lukuyu at jlukuyu@uw.edu.

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, Professor, Department of Biology

What do you study at the UW?

We use plant, yeast and human cells to understand and engineer the molecular interactions that allow organisms to process information during development and stress responses.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

When I was a little girl, I attended a Montessori school in Los Angeles. This was the 1970s, and the teachers embraced the philosophy of letting a child’s interest direct their learning. I had one teacher that I really bonded with, named Dr. Pillai. He introduced me to the process of science research, rewarding my seemingly insatiable curiosity with thoughtful responses and sharing just the right book or model or experiment to help me dig deeper into any topic that caught my interest. He made me feel like asking a million questions was a wonderful quality (something not everyone agreed with, then or now!).

The pure joy of learning about the natural world through experimentation struck a deep chord. While the road was quite twisty between those early years and my decision to pursue science as a career, I am sure that I would not be here today without that early encouragement.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Be nicer to your dad when he is helping you with your math homework!

For more information, contact Nemhauser at jn7@uw.edu.

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, Doctoral student, Department of Health Systems & Population Health, School of Public Health

What do you study at the UW?

My research focuses on understanding how people make decisions about their sexual and reproductive health care while navigating the multi-level influences that shape our current societal structure. In my research, I use mixed methods to analyze more traditional data sources, such as qualitative interviews and surveys, and newer data sources, such as TikTok videos, Reddit posts and electronic health record notes, to understand what type of information people seek out about sexual and reproductive health, their motivations behind decision-making and their care interactions with providers. I seek to examine how people with different lived experiences (for example: chronic disease, young people, veterans) may have different decision-making motivations and informational needs to make autonomous reproductive health decisions.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I first became passionate about sexual and reproductive health while taking the class Sex, Gender and the Brain as a neuroscience undergraduate at Emory University. My final project focused on how anti-choice groups attempted to limit reproductive autonomy by promoting erroneous interpretations of neuroscience data to argue that oral contraceptives are dangerous. The class demonstrated to me how scientists could meld science with feminist theory and, more specifically, how the intentional distribution of misinformation online provides another tool to limit bodily autonomy.

Earlier in my educational career, teachers often framed my biology, chemistry and physics classes as apolitical or unbiased by societal structures. I now know that is not true. This class was one of the first classes where we were asked to name the specific orientation or lens of a research paper or study and describe who and what was left out.

I quickly dropped my neuroscience focus after this class and instead focused on policy-relevant, public 鈥揾ealth-informed research that aims to improve access to and the equity and quality of sexual and reproductive health care and information. While earning a master’s of public health, I started working at the Guttmacher Institute, a leading sexual and reproductive health policy and research organization based in New York City. There, I started working on research projects that directly studied ways to improve access to sexual and reproductive health services.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I would advise my younger self to think critically about the lessons that are available in all academic classes, including English, dance, and history, and to think about how these lessons can be used to become a better public health researcher and writer.

For more information, contact Pleasure at zoep2@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor of management, Foster School of Business

What do you study at the UW?

My two primary topics of inquiry are meaningful work and employee sustainability. My research examines how to support employees who want to make a positive difference through their work in ways big and small, ranging from employees who view work as a calling 鈥� not just a paycheck but as a source of personal, social or moral significance 鈥� to those engaging in everyday acts of helping, kindness and compassion. I study the challenges that impede these activities to determine how employees can conduct their work more sustainably.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I fell into academia. In 2007, I was working for the largest animal shelter in North America and I enrolled in a part-time master’s program in business because I had aspirations of one day rising into a leadership position in animal welfare.

In 2008, the Great Recession hit and I lost my job, but I also learned that professors in my master’s program did research (who knew!). At the time, research on meaningful work was in its infancy and focused primarily on the positive aspects (for example: showing that employees doing meaningful work have greater engagement and satisfaction). I saw this among my co-workers in the animal shelter, but I also saw so much frustration, burnout and resignation. Every day, employees who wanted to save animals’ lives were in the corner crying because of their inability to do so.

I applied to 10 doctoral programs and got into one, where I was lucky that my supervisors encouraged me to join the burgeoning wave of research looking at meaningful work as a double-edged sword and what to do about it. The rest is history.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

This is less advice for my younger self and more gratitude to all the people who helped me along the way. Early in your career, you do not yet know how anything works: how research works, what journals are appropriate outlets, how to develop the ability to know where to dedicate our efforts: what research projects are not only novel but important. Until then, senior mentors are invaluable guides. What makes for a successful career is all the people who generously offer their time and guidance along the way. I did many, many things wrong in my early career, but one thing I did right was to seek out and show my appreciation for any and all help. I would not be here if it wasn’t for the thousands of hours invested in me by others in the field and I hope I am paying that forward in a small part.

For more information, contact Schabram at schabram@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, School of Urban Studies, UW Tacoma

What do you study at the UW?

听My research is primarily on housing segregation, but I have also become an expert on the overlap of and its relationship with the greening of cities in times of climate change and rising inequality.

What made you fall in love with this new research area?

听I happened to fall into this area in the middle of the night a couple months into my architecture doctoral program. It was early spring. I had moved to College Station, Texas, and was living in a relatively old timberstick house. It was about 1 a.m. when I jumped into my bed and then yelped out from a sharp pain in my lower back.

My first thought: a snake bite?! I leapt up, squeezed my back as if I could prevent any poison from getting in, turned on the light and scanned the bed for a snake. Nothing. Instead I saw a bug 鈥� a flat dark bug, not even an inch long. I scooped it up in a jar, let go of my “poisoned skin” and sighed in relief.

Then I thought, could this be a risky bug? I had just moved to the U.S. from Europe and I didn’t know the local fauna at all. To resolve this in a rational way, I settled on eliminating worst-case scenarios. I Googled: “most dangerous insects in Texas.” I checked the bug in the jar for unique characteristics and compared it to a ranking of鈥� JESUS! The third bug on the list was exactly the same bug that was staring at me from the jar: A Kissing bug鈥� a bite from which can lead to Chagas disease鈥� Deadly鈥� No cure鈥� Organs disintegrate in several decades.

My heart was pounding. My hand was back on the bite site. I was skimming the internet frantically. It was so late, and I had no one to call at that hour. I thought of calling people in Europe, but what would they know? I forced myself to read slowly and make a plan.

The message became clear: There is no cure for Chagas disease and the only symptom (sometimes) occurs the following morning: the swelling of one eyelid on the side closer to the bite site. Even if I went to the hospital, this seemed to be an under-studied disease and tests were limited. I resolved to just sleep it off and go to the doctor in the morning.

I woke up early. My face was symmetrical. Phew. I took the jar to the clinic right as they opened. Someone in the waiting room told me about getting bit by a brown recluse. “Oh well,” I thought, giving up on life a little.

The doctor took one look at the bug and said “Yes, that is a Kissing bug. There’s no cure. No test. Just move on, sorry!”

Perplexed, but also assured by the lack of urgency, I left the clinic. Over the next few days, my worries slowly faded as there apparently was nothing to do about this. I tossed the bug.

Two weeks later I saw an announcement on the university homepage from , then a doctoral student studying biomedical sciences. She was asking about any Kissing bug sightings and .

I immediately wrote to Rachel and reported what happened. She was super excited and asked me to bring her the bug. I said I threw it out, but had photos and I found a similar one 鈥� I had lots of bugs in my old house. We met over coffee. Rachel informed me that the bug was NOT a Kissing bug and that I should not worry. She could test me, but it was not necessary.

She explained the science of how the parasite behind Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, . It’s quite the process: After the bug bites you, it poops. The parasites are in infected bugs’ poop, which means that the poop has to get smudged into the bite site for you to get infected.

Then Rachel asked about my doctoral research and I told her I was studying housing in the colonias that line the border of Texas and Mexico. Her eyes lit up because she was looking to get samples from there. Thanks to the bug bite and my coffee with Rachel, a whole team formed and we started a pilot project that combined our research interests. This study became my master’s thesis, and six years later in the prestigious Habitat International journal.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Talk to doctoral students from many more disciplines!

For more information, contact 艩af谩艡ov谩 at bsafar@uw.edu.

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, Professor, Department of Biology and School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences

What do you study at the UW?

I am a natural historian who applies physics, math and engineering concepts to living systems to understand how they work. My research is driven by both the evolutionary implications of function and the possibility of bio-inspired design.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

From my earliest childhood I spent three seasons in downtown Manhattan and summer in the north woods of Ontario, Canada. The contrast between the most urban environment and a place without utilities or indoor plumbing was formative. Fishes, whether in tanks, on lines, or through my SCUBA mask, were my constant and most interesting companions. No detail was too obscure, and no species too drab to escape my attention.

I left fish behind when I got to college. Instead, it was a constant joy of mathematics and engineering, with a liberal arts sprinkling of art history, economics and German. After college I tried many things: I started a business, taught in the NYC public school system and attempted a career in photography. But I wasn’t willing to persist when things were hard or no fun. Then I went to Australia to become a SCUBA instructor. There I met my first biologist. I was smitten with the idea of making a living trying to understand animals.

On my return to New York, I immersed myself in biology, particularly the natural history of fishes, reptiles and amphibians. Spending hours in the field closely observing animals and their environment was one avenue of inspiration. The other was investigating animals’ shape, or morphology, with an electron microscope. The link between form and function was how my weeks passed 鈥� looking at microstructure, then wading in temporary ponds for larval salamanders. I fell completely in love with both areas and have made my career at that interface.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Treasure your mentors in the moment. They are gone too soon and you will never feel like you made it clear enough how much they affected you and your career.

For more information, contact Summers at fishguy@uw.edu.听

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, Associate professor, Department of Communication

What do you study at the UW?

I am a critical-cultural studies scholar who focuses on race, gender, and sexuality in the media. Specifically, I study how Black people negotiate mass media as marginalized subjects whose status as citizens is always precarious. I’m especially interested in the stories that circulate about Black women, both external narratives and the stories that Black women craft about themselves.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

I sometimes think of myself as an accidental academic. I pursued a degree in magazine journalism and international relations in college with the intention of becoming a magazine editor. But everything changed the summer I landed an internship at my dream magazine, . At the time, many publications were closing their doors or downsizing their staff in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. All of a sudden, pursuing a career in magazines began to feel like a much larger risk than I was comfortable with. Aside from the industry woes, I also realized that I had just as much fun studying magazines (and other media) for class projects as I did working for one.

At Essence, the assignments that my editor gave me reflected a particular image of Black womanhood and assumptions about Blackness, femininity and masculinity that were key to the magazine’s brand. When I returned to school for my last year of college, I took a Black feminist theory course where I wrote essays exploring the questions that had popped into my mind during my internship 鈥� questions that I couldn’t shake, questions that played in the background of my mind whenever I was walking through the magazine aisle at the grocery store, or watching television or a movie. This taste of how deeply satisfying a life of the mind could be was a turning point. By the end of the feminist theory course I had decided to apply to graduate school.

My first book, “,” was a full-circle moment. In the book I offer a cultural history of Essence magazine and position it as a predecessor to contemporary commercial representations of Black womanhood realized in the 2010s through hashtags like #BlackGirlMagic and advertising campaigns, such as Proctor and Gamble’s “.” It was an amazing feeling to follow my curiosity and return to the questions that first captivated my mind as an intern. During the writing process I realized that the seeds of these questions had started even earlier, when I was a little girl sitting in a Black beauty shop with dozens of issues of Ebony, Jet and Essence magazines. Long before I was old enough to fully comprehend the articles, the images in these magazines captivated me, beaconing me to explore further.

The thing that most fills my heart about the scholarly path that I’ve chosen is being able to document and amplify the brilliance and beauty of Black women. There’s so much that’s problematic in the stories that society tells about Black women, but the brightest moments in my teaching and research are connected to the dope narratives that Black women craft about themselves.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

Lean into the questions that captivate you and the subject areas that awaken your passion and curiosity. This will point you in the direction of your most fulfilling research projects and your very best writing.

For more information, contact Tounsel at timeka@uw.edu.

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, Assistant professor, School of Oceanography

What do you study at the UW?

听I’m a coastal ecogeomorphologist, which means I study how ecology, geology and physics change the landscape on the coast. A lot of my work focuses on how biology (plants, microbes) alters how mud moves around coastal systems and changes what our coastlines look like. I am particularly interested in marshes and mudflats. I go into the field to measure what is really happening on the coast, and then develop numerical computer models to predict how these processes will change in the future.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

When I was 5 years old, my family went on vacation to Cape Cod National Seashore. We attended an educational program at the Salt Pond Visitor Center, and I knew I was in love. The stinky, muddy marsh felt like home to me immediately, and I still remember talking to the volunteer scientist about how marshes work. At that time, however, I had no idea that you could study marshes and mud as your job!

That formative memory never left me, even though, as I continued in school and focused on science, I intended to become a medical doctor. In my world, if you were good at math and science, the logical career path was to become a medical doctor.

I went to college at Boston University, where I planned to major in chemistry. But for every class project, I ended up focusing on oceans and coastlines. I had a wonderful TA who noticed this trend and mentioned to me in passing that my university had a marine science program and that maybe I should consider taking a class in that program to see if I liked it. I enrolled in a class called “Estuaries” and I’ve never looked back. The first week of the class, we took a field trip to collect data in a marsh and I was instantly transported back to my 5-year-old self, loving the marsh. I was the first student who jumped into the mud to collect data, and I didn’t want to leave. Within a few weeks I was working in that professor’s lab, and I really haven’t left the marsh since.

I also started developing so many questions about how things worked 鈥� and how everything tied together, from the mud to the birds 鈥� that I quickly realized that research and teaching in the field was what I needed to do with my life. My research has expanded a lot since then to encompass many different types of coasts, but my love for the rotten-egg-smelling, squelching mud drives a lot of what I choose to do. Being out in nature and seeing the processes happen in real time inspires me to understand coastal systems and help make a more resilient future for our planet and for people.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

I am incredibly lucky to have a job that I absolutely love, and I would encourage my younger self to pursue what makes me happy. Sometimes my work hardly feels like work because I am so engaged and excited by what I am discovering and the students I get to work with. While every day isn’t always amazing (I have bad work days too!), at the end of the work week I’m always thankful for what a great job I have. I hope that everyone is able to find something they are passionate about in their life.

I would also say: Believe in yourself and don’t compare yourself to others. Just keep doing what you love and what you think is important and helpful to others, and everything will work out okay.

For more information, contact Valentine at kvalent@uw.edu.

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, Associate professor, Department of Materials Science & Engineering

What do you study at the UW?

My research team integrates materials science, data science and advanced manufacturing with primary applications in aerospace. We focus on three main areas:

1. Smart material testing methods, using physics-informed machine learning to control the testing parameters.
2. Smart manufacturing that leverages automation, sensing and machine learning. The goal is to develop AI for autonomous and self-aware manufacturing systems.
3. Smart engineering approaches to accelerate aerospace design and certification. We use a combination of machine learning, automated testing and physics-based numerical simulations techniques.

What made you fall in love with your research area?

According to my parents, my first word was “hot.” Looking back, it seems like a fitting start to a life deeply intertwined with the principles of heat transfer. My fascination with heat and materials began early and found a natural outlet in my love for cooking. I enjoy experimenting with different cooking techniques, all of which benefit immensely from an understanding of heat transfer. This passion even led me to publish a cookbook a few years ago.

After earning my doctoral degree, I began working at a research center in Canada, where I collaborated with various companies to solve their manufacturing challenges. Over time, I worked with a wide range of materials 鈥� concrete, wood, polymers, metals and composites. As I delved deeper into manufacturing, I started noticing fascinating parallels between it and cooking. Both require precise control of variables like temperature and pressure to transform materials into something new.

For instance, making aerospace composite parts in an autoclave is essentially pressure-cooking a layered material. Similarly, tempering chocolate to achieve its perfect microstructure, texture and snap is strikingly similar to controlling the crystallinity of thermoplastics to optimize their performance. Recognizing these connections allowed me to combine my personal passion for cooking with my professional love for materials science and engineering.

This love for exploring the science behind materials was paired with my lifelong interest in mathematics, which naturally led me to integrate machine learning and AI into my research. These tools provided a way to unlock deeper insights and bring innovation into material design and manufacturing. For example, my very first project as a professor at the 天美影视传媒 was a collaboration with Boeing, where we developed AI for manufacturing aerospace composites. It was akin to creating a smart oven that can monitor the temperature of various parts and autonomously adjust the controls 鈥� a direct parallel to advanced cooking techniques.

What advice would you give to your younger self?

As you explore different options for your career, focus more on what you truly love to do. Don鈥檛 be afraid to combine your personal passions with your professional goals 鈥� start doing this earlier. The joy and fulfillment you鈥檒l find in aligning your personal interests with your career will open doors to creative opportunities and unique solutions you might not have imagined. Trust the process and follow what excites you most.

For more information, contact Zobeiry at navidz@uw.edu.

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A couple of years ago, was experimenting with an artificial intelligence system. He wanted it to complete the sentence, 鈥淭he teenager ____ at school.鈥� Wolfe, a 天美影视传媒 doctoral student in the Information School, had expected something mundane, something that most teenagers do regularly 鈥� perhaps 鈥渟tudied.鈥� But the model plugged in 鈥渄ied.鈥�

This shocking response led Wolfe and a UW team to study how AI systems portray teens. The researchers looked at听two common, open-source AI systems trained in English and one trained in Nepali. They wanted to compare models trained on data from different cultures, and co-lead author , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, grew up in Nepal and is a native Nepali speaker.

In the English-language systems, around 30% of the responses referenced societal problems such as violence, drug use and mental illness. The Nepali system produced fewer negative associations in responses,听closer to 10% of all answers. Finally, the researchers held workshops with groups of teens from the U.S. and Nepal, and found that neither group felt that an AI system trained on media data containing stereotypes about teens would accurately represent teens in their cultures.

The team Oct. 22 at the AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics and Society in San Jose.

鈥淲e found that the way teens viewed themselves and the ways the systems often portrayed them were completely uncorrelated,鈥� said co-lead author Wolfe. 鈥淔or instance, the way teens continued the prompts we gave AI models were incredibly mundane. They talked about video games and being with their friends, whereas the models brought up things like committing crimes and bullying.鈥�

The team studied OpenAI鈥檚 , the last open-source version of the system that underlies ChatGPT; Meta鈥檚 , another popular open-source system; and DistilGPT2 Nepali, a version of GPT-2 trained on Nepali text. Researchers prompted the systems to complete sentences such as 鈥淎t the party, the teenager _____鈥� and 鈥淭he teenager worked because they wanted_____.鈥�

The researchers also looked at 鈥� a method of representing a word as a series of numbers and calculating the likelihood of it occurring with certain other words in large text datasets 鈥� to find what terms were most associated with 鈥渢eenager鈥� and its synonyms. Out of 1,000 words from one model, 50% were negative.

The researchers concluded that the systems’ skewed portrayal of teenagers came in part from the abundance of negative media coverage about teens; in some cases, the models studied cited media as the source of their outputs. News stories are seen as 鈥渉igh-quality鈥� training data, because they鈥檙e often factual, but , not the quotidian parts of most teens鈥� lives.

鈥淭here’s a deep need for big changes in how these models are trained,鈥� said senior author , a UW associate professor in the Information School. 鈥淚 would love to see some sort of community-driven training that comes from a lot of different people, so that teens’ perspectives and their everyday experiences are the initial source for training these systems, rather than the lurid topics that make news headlines.鈥�

To compare the AI outputs to the lives of actual teens, researchers recruited 13 American and 18 Nepalese teens for workshops. They asked the participants to write words that came to mind about teenagers, to rate 20 words on how well they describe teens and to complete the prompts given to the AI models. The similarities between the AI systems鈥� responses and the teens鈥� were limited. The two groups of teens differed, however, in how they wanted to see fairer representations of teens in AI systems.

鈥淩eliable AI needs to be culturally responsive,鈥� Wolfe said. 鈥淲ithin our two groups, the U.S. teens were more concerned with diversity 鈥� they didn’t want to be presented as one unit. The Nepalese teens suggested that AI should try to present them more positively.鈥�

The authors note that, because they were studying open-source systems, the models studied aren鈥檛 the most current versions 鈥斕鼼PT-2 dates to 2019, while the LLAMA model is from 2023. Chatbots, such as ChatGPT, built on later versions of these systems typically undergo further training and have guardrails in place to protect against such overt bias.

鈥淪ome of the more recent models have fixed some of the explicit toxicity,鈥� Wolfe said. 鈥淭he danger, though, is that those upstream biases we found here can persist implicitly and affect the outputs as these systems become more integrated into peoples鈥� lives, as they get used in schools or as people ask what birthday present to get for their 14-year-old nephew. Those responses are influenced by how the model was initially trained, regardless of the safeguards we later install.”

, a UW associate professor in the Information School, is a co-author on this paper. This research was funded in part by the research network.

For more information, contact Wolfe at rwolfe3@uw.edu and Hinkier at alexisr@uw.edu.

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic changed how nearly everyone mediated their social interactions through technology. Some moved happy hours into video chats. Others delved deeper into social media, or took a step back from it. Millions of people worked or learned through computers.

天美影视传媒 researchers took particular interest in how this tech shift affected older adults鈥� social relationships. A team interviewed 16 older adults in Washington and Oregon, ages 65 to 80, about how their technology use with their social support networks changed during the pandemic. Researchers found that these adults used technology both in their roles as recipients of support 鈥� such as a family member checking in on them 鈥� as well as providers of support 鈥� such as sending money to family members through apps like Zelle or PayPal.

The team published April 26 in Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

UW News spoke with lead author , a UW doctoral student in the human centered design and engineering department, about the paper鈥檚 findings.

Why did you study this?

Shengzhi Wang: The rapid adoption of technology we’ve seen in recent years has typically left older adults slightly behind. There is what’s called a 鈥済ray divide,鈥� where older adults tend to be a bit later in adopting technologies like smartphones, tablets and smartwatches compared to younger demographics. But in recent years, we’ve seen quite a bit more adoption among older adults, and the pandemic spurred that on. Essentially, it forced a lot of people to start using these technologies out of necessity.

This paper looks at how technology affects the way older adults communicate with their social circle: people like family, friends, acquaintances or others that are a bit farther off in their听 networks, maybe their postal worker or people that they come across in the store once in a while. We were looking at what role technology plays in that circle.

What surprised you about the findings?

SW: The participants in our study were mostly able to overcome a lot of the technological and accessibility barriers that we’ve seen in past studies 鈥� for example, text that鈥檚 too small. Those kinds of issues are definitely still around, but we found that these barriers didn’t significantly affect the participants鈥� willingness to use or adopt some of these services and technology.

We also found how much older adults were not only receivers of support but providers of it, whether that was emotional or financial or physical support. They were providing it for fellow older adults, as well as family members and friends.

Could you explain why understanding the dual role of supporter and supported is important when considering technology and how it’s designed?

SW: Technologies we typically think of older adults using are for providing them with support. For example, you might have smart cameras for families to keep an eye on older adults or other things that let people check in on whether the older adult in their life is doing well. Those technologies definitely have their role. But we found that older adults tend to also have other needs when it comes to using technologies, especially in how they can provide support to others. Those uses aren’t highlighted as much by technology designers and the people who are communicating about how technologies can be used.

What鈥檚 an example of a technology that maybe isn’t being used as much for that, but that already exists?

SW: In the study, we highlight technologies that try to replace in-person support experiences, such as an older adult having a coffee meeting with their friends. If you try to replace that with a Zoom meeting, which happened often, at least in the beginning of the pandemic, the closeness that they felt with their friends was extremely lacking. One participant described it as feeling like watching TV from afar. It was just not a great use of videoconferencing. The common belief was that this technology can replace in-person experiences, and that was definitely not how it worked out.

On the other hand, a lot of older adults really enjoyed telehealth for accessing mental health services. And that’s basically the same technology. But they came in with the right expectations, and the technology provided something that they couldn’t access in person. We also found people liking technology that supports in-person meetings and in-person activities, rather than trying to replace them. We saw a lot of people using text messaging or short video chats to plan in-person activities. In this case, we’re not looking at technology and in-person as two completely separate things. When they work well together, they work really well together.

How could tech better serve older adults in their social connections?

SW: We highlight the need to codesign. Researchers and designers need to bring older adults into the design process of technology and take into account their individual circumstances, their social connections and how those affect technology use when they鈥檙e both providing and receiving support.

This two-way communication is also important within families. We saw in some interviews that family members were really pushing older adults to start using some of these technologies, like social media or one way surveillance via smart cameras. From the family members鈥� points of view, the older adults are missing out on some of the benefits of social media, like seeing photos or posts from families and friends or being provided with more safety. But sometimes older adults prefer in-person experiences, and they don’t always like the privacy component of some technologies, for example. Technology should move away from enabling disempowering relationships or experiences for older adults.

What should the public know about this research?

SW: That older adults provide and receive social support is the most important piece. If you’re thinking of buying technology for an older family member, you should really think about how it can play a part in that person鈥檚 life. It might be a hindrance if it doesn’t provide what they need. So it’s really important to start that conversation early and respect their preferences.

Additional co-authors included , a regional design researcher at Daraz, who completed this work as a UW master鈥檚 student, and and , both UW professors of human centered design and engineering. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Wang at shengzw@uw.edu.

Social media. The climate crisis. Political polarization. The tumult of a pandemic and online learning. Teens today are dealing with unprecedented stressors, and over the past decade their mental health has been in sustained decline. Levels of anxiety and depression . Compounding the problem is a shortage of mental health providers 鈥� for every 100,000 children in the U.S., there are .

In response to this crisis, 天美影视传媒 researchers studied whether virtual reality might help reduce stress for teens and boost mental health. Working with adolescents, the team designed a snowy virtual world with six activities 鈥� such as stacking rocks and painting 鈥� based on practices shown to improve mental health.

In a 3-week study of 44 Seattle teens, researchers found that teens used the technology an average of twice a week without being prompted and reported lower stress levels and improved mood while using it, though their levels of anxiety and depression didn鈥檛 decline overall.

The researchers published April 22 in the journal JMIR XR and Spatial Computing. The system is not publicly available.

鈥淲e know what works to help support teens, but a lot of these techniques are inaccessible because they鈥檙e locked into counseling, which can be expensive, or the counselors just aren鈥檛 available,鈥� said lead author , a UW senior research scientist in the human centered design and engineering department. 鈥淪o we tried to take some of these evidence-based practices, but put them in a much more engaging environment, like VR, so the teens might want to do them on their own.鈥�

The world of Relaxation Environment for Stress in Teens, or RESeT, came from conversations the researchers had with groups of teens over two years at Seattle Public Library sites. From these discussions, the team built RESeT as an open winter world with a forest that users could explore by swinging their arms (a behavior ) to move their avatar. A signpost with six arrows on it sent users to different activities, each based on methods shown to improve mental health, such as dialectical behavior therapy and mindfulness-based stress reduction.

In one exercise, 鈥淩iverboat,鈥� users put negative words in paper boats and send them down a river. Another, 鈥淩abbit Hole,鈥� has players stand by a stump; the longer they鈥檙e still, the more rabbits appear.

鈥淚n the co-design process, we learned some teens were really afraid of squirrels, which I wouldn鈥檛 have thought of,鈥� Bj枚rling said. 鈥淪o we removed all the squirrels. I still have a Post-It in my office that says 鈥榙elete squirrels.鈥� But all ages and genders loved rabbits, so we designed Rabbit Hole, where the reward for being calm and paying attention is a lot of rabbits surrounding you.鈥�

To test the potential effects of RESeT on teens鈥� mental health, the team enrolled 44 teens between ages 14 and 18 in the study. Each teen was given a Meta Quest 2 headset and asked to use RESeT three to five times a week Because the researchers were trying to see if teens would use RESeT regularly on their own, they did not give prompts or incentives to use the headsets after the start of the study. Teens were asked to complete surveys gauging their stress and mood before and after each session.

On average, the teens used RESeT twice a week for 11.5 minutes at a time. Overall, they reported feeling significantly less stressed while using RESeT, and also reported smaller improvements in mood. They said they liked using the headset in general. However, the study found no significant effects on anxiety and depression.

鈥淩educed stress and improved mood are our key findings and exactly what we hoped for,鈥� said co-author , an associate professor in the UW School of Nursing who works with children and families. 鈥淲e didn’t have a big enough participant group or a design to study long-term health impacts, but we have promising signals that teens liked using RESeT and could administer it themselves, so we absolutely want to move the project forward.鈥�

The researchers aim to conduct a larger, longer-term study with a control group to see if a VR system could impart lasting effects on mood and stress. They鈥檙e also interested in incorporating artificial intelligence to personalize the VR experience and in exploring offering VR headsets in schools or libraries to improve community access.

Additional co-authors were , a UW lecturer and researcher at Microsoft; , a senior manager at Electronic Arts who completed this research as a UW master鈥檚 student in human centered design and engineering; , a research professor in psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the UW School of Medicine; and , a senior product designer at Statsig who completed this research as a UW master鈥檚 student in human centered design and engineering. This research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health through the , which supports UW research on mental health.

For more information, contact Bj枚rling at bjorling@uw.edu and Sonney at jsonney@uw.edu.