A new era of astronomy and astrophysics began Monday when the first images captured by the NSF–DOE were released, demonstrating the extraordinary capabilities of the new telescope and the world’s largest digital camera.

Officials in Washington, D.C., unveiled large, ultra-high-definition images and videos, as well as discoveries of thousands of new asteroids. Astronomers and researchers around the world watched along at viewing parties, including at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý’s Planetarium.

The images offer a preview of the most comprehensive census of the solar system scientists have ever conducted, and a peek into the exponential increase in discoveries and understanding of the cosmos this new telescope will make possible.

The UW was one of the founding members of Rubin’s ambitious undertaking and will play a key role in making sense of the discoveries. UW scientists and engineers were critical in advocating for the project, designing the observatory and developing the software that will analyze the petabytes of data from Rubin’s telescope, including the asteroid discovery algorithms.

“����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý faculty recognized early on that dreaming big about Rubin’s capabilities and leading the scientific charge would shape our knowledge of the solar system and propel innovation in data science not only in astrophysics but also across disciplines,” said UW Provost Tricia R. Serio. “We often talk about the impact the UW is making here and around the world. This project will take us far into space and give us information about the very origins of the universe and set the stage for future discoveries we can’t even imagine today.”

From its peak in the Chilean Andes, Rubin’s Simonyi Survey Telescope will scan the sky with its 8.4-meter mirror and enormous 3,200-megapixel camera, the largest digital camera in the world. The telescope’s sight path, the pace and frequency of observations and the vast field of vision required a new type of discovery algorithm to reliably make sense of the troves of data collected. Scientists and researchers at the UW worked across disciplines to evolve data science and computer science to meet Rubin’s demands.

In 2017, the UW — with founding support from the Charles and Lisa Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences — established the , or DiRAC. The Institute, part of the , aims to be an interdisciplinary hub to address fundamental questions about the origins and evolution of the universe. Leaders recognized that the future of astrophysics relied on using software as the chief instrument for this exploration. Combined with the UW’s and the deep connections to the Pacific Northwest’s tech community, DiRAC has developed a global reputation for working toward new discoveries.

As the Rubin sets out on a 10-year mission to conduct the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), software created at the UW will be pivotal as scientists advance understanding of the cosmos and the origins of the solar system. UW’s faculty, students and staff have played key roles in the construction of this new facility They’ve also been pivotal in developing the algorithms that keep the telescope image sharp and creating the codes for mapping the solar system and discovering the most energetic and rarest phenomena in what astrophysicists call the ” UW’s , a professor of astronomy, is the director of the federally-funded Rubin Construction Project.��

Unlike other telescopes — which tend to focus and “zoom in” on a few objects of interest — Rubin is alone in the capability to quickly and repeatedly map the entire visible sky.��

“Rubin has the unprecedented capacity to capture the cosmos,” said , a professor of astronomy and director of UW’s . He’s also the co-principal investigator of the supported LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing (LINCC) Frameworks program to develop state-of-the-art analysis techniques capable of meeting Rubin’s scale and complexity.

“Rubin will deliver the largest map the universe ever made: tens of billions of galaxies, billions of stars and millions of new small bodies in our own solar system. It’s a data analysis endeavor of epic proportions,” Connolly said.��

For each object Rubin observes, there will be much more than a static image, the technology will produce a thousand-frame movie: trillions of measurements of billions of objects, said , a research associate professor and the science lead of Rubin’s time-domain software team.

“With these data, scientists will better understand the universe, chronicle its evolution, and delve into science ranging from dangerous asteroids to the mysteries of dark energy,” Bellm said.

For example, the UW’s team helped create simulation software to predict Rubin’s discoveries. The research found that the telescope will map more than 5 million main-belt asteroids, 127,000 near-Earth objects, 109,000 Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit, 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects and about 2,000 Centaurs, or orbit-crossing objects.��

These objects, revealed in color and in more detail than was previously possible, help tell the story of the solar system’s origins, said , a professor of astronomy and the principal investigator of UW’s Rubin team.

Juric said that Rubin will help answer some fundamental questions: How did the planets form? Is there an unknown planet hiding in the outskirts of our solar system? Did comets bring water to the Earth? Or asteroids? And are there any that could still collide with us today?

“The first look we share today is a glimpse into the transformational capacity Rubin will bring to answer questions like these,” Juric said.

The work to support the Rubin Observatory hasn’t been limited to UW faculty. Numerous UW undergraduate and doctoral students have played contributing roles, authoring important journal articles, developing simulation software and writing complex computer codes.��

Exposure to the LSST has helped prepare students to succeed post graduation, whether applying for work in industry or moving onto advanced academic degrees.

“Developing cloud-based analytics platforms, or building pipelines to process large amounts of imaging data, are skills that allow one to do not just cutting-edge astronomy but also any other data-intensive problem,” said Steven Stetzler, who recently completed doctoral work at UW and now holds a postdoctoral appointment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

For more information, contact Juric at mjuric@uw.edu or James Davenport at jrad@uw.edu.��

Three new faculty books from the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý cover the recipes and culture of the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, traditional ecological knowledge of Indigenous peoples and data science for neuroimaging researchers.

UW News spoke with the authors to learn more.

Documenting history and rituals of Syrian cuisine

When was invited to Zaatari, the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp, she noticed that stories of the camp rarely included women’s voices. As she learned more about their lives, she had the idea to create a cookbook to counter the effects of domicide – the deliberate destruction of housing and basic infrastructure – and carve a space for the women to share their cultural knowledge with the world.

Published by Goose Lane Editions, “,” brings to life stories and traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation. Fisher wrote the book in collaboration with over 2,000 refugees. All royalties return to the people of Zaatari, which is located near Jordan’s border with Syria.

“The book was a way to increase global awareness about war and refugees, and to show how important food and other aspects of the culture are in human survival and in telling the human story,” said Fisher, a UW professor in the Information School and an adjunct professor of communication.

The women in the camp were excited when Fisher approached them with the idea – even though many of them had never seen a cookbook.

“Part of why our book is so fascinating is that it focuses on tacit knowledge and the social nature of cooking,” Fisher said. “You learn to cook by cooking alongside somebody else.”

With over 130 recipes, some of which have never been written down before, the book documents the history and rituals of Syrian cuisine and how they have been adapted to life in a refugee camp. It also chronicles camp culture.

“We cannot lose our connections with humanity,” Fisher said. “Just because someone is a refugee living in a camp halfway around the world, doesn’t mean that their lives don’t have value. They are important within the global world that we live in and are all part of the history of humanity. All of these things need to be preserved and supported.”

Because they are war refugees, the people involved in the project were all credited with aliases. The photographs of the women were also taken from behind to protect their identities and as part of Islamic practice.

“The Zaatari book is just a powerful example of the UW community-engaged research, of working with a refugee community and agencies inside a high security closed refugee camp,” Fisher said. “It was just incredible what we were able to do.”

For more information, contact Fisher at fisher@uw.edu.��

Collection highlights Indigenous environmental knowledge

In “,” presenters from the discuss best practices for traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK, which refers to evolving knowledge acquired by Indigenous peoples through direct contact with the environment.

(enrolled Haliwa Saponi/descendant Eastern Band Cherokee), who is an associate professor and chair of Social and Historical studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý Tacoma, edited the book. She brought together speakers from the Indigenous Speakers Series and multigenerational Indigenous peoples to share how TEK aids in environmental justice efforts and why it should be adapted into Western sciences.

Launched by Montgomery in 2015, the Indigenous Speaker Series is a multi-purpose platform that promotes community partnerships, amplifies the voices of Indigenous people and dialogues about Indigenous people’s cultural and traditional lived experiences.

“Part of the Indigenous Speaker Series is about bringing in multigenerational voices to talk about all sorts of topics that relate to sustainability, because sustainability isn’t just about ecosystems or STEM initiatives,” Montgomery said. “It’s also about culture, identity, all those sorts of things. This project is about me really being passionate about decolonizing and indigenizing the narrative.”

As the founder and director of the Indigenous Speaker Series and “a humble, forever student,” Montgomery wanted to give back to the community by helping people share their stories.

“Culturally, I’m taught that my wealth is determined by how many people can say I contributed when asked,” Montgomery said. “Did I give back? How many people did I uplift as I made it on the journey? Being an editor, it sounds like a position of unique power. But to me, it was a humbling opportunity to reach out to people and to say, ‘I believe in your voice. Let me create a platform so you can share it.’”

Storytelling is about empowerment and justice, Montgomery said. Published by University Press of Colorado, the book is a multi-tribal collection and a space for people from all walks of life to share interdisciplinary knowledge through their stories.

“The reason why it’s important for me to always uplift the voices and the storytelling of people is that I want people to feel comfortable in their identity and the walk that they walk,” Montgomery said. “If you save spaces to tell their story, erasure doesn’t happen.”

For more information, contact Montgomery at montgm2@uw.edu.��

A new guide on data science for researchers

“,” recently published by Princeton University Press, serves as a guide to broadly relevant data science skills with specific application to neuroimaging research.

Written by , research associate professor of psychology at the UW and data science fellow at the UW eScience Institute, and , the book fills the need for an authoritative resource on data science for neuroimaging researchers.

“We’re both neuroimaging researchers and both of us painstakingly acquired data science skills by learning from mentors and peers and teaching ourselves,” Rokem said. “What we wanted to do was make that process a lot easier, especially for early-career researchers in our field.”

In 2016, Rokem and Yarkoni established a summer school focused on data science and neuroimaging. They’ve received funding from the National Institutes of Mental Health since 2017 to run the course, which is now called . Over the years, they identified gaps in existing training and worked to fill them.

In June, The Organization for Human Brain Mapping (OHBM) awarded Rokem the , which is given to an OHBM member who has made significant contribution to education and training in the field of neuroimaging. Rokem was recognized for the work that led to the book, among other accomplishments.

Formal training programs don’t typically cover topics like data management and programming topics in machine learning, Rokem said. The book provides a source that students, teachers and instructors can use to learn and teach about these skills.

“Neuroimaging and neuroscience research, much like many other fields, is inundated in data,” Rokem said. “The instruments that we use to make neuroimaging measurements and the datasets that we have available to us are all becoming larger, more complicated.”

Researchers who are mentoring students don’t always have experience with the current magnitude of available datasets. “Data Science for Neuroimaging: An Introduction” helps bridge the gap.

There is also a growing concern about reproducibility in the neuroimaging field, Rokem said.

“One of the ways to mitigate concerns about reproducibility is to automate everything, track the progress of the research and then make the research openly available in a way that others can inspect what we’re doing,” Rokem said. “This is part of a larger movement around open science and reproducible research that the eScience Institute has been advancing here at the UW. Part of what we write about in the book is, what are the tools and techniques for making research accessible to and reproducible by others?”

The book, which allows users to run code examples and experiment with them hands-on, is also openly.

For more information, contact Rokem at arokem@uw.edu.

A single brain is unfathomably complex. So brain researchers, whether they’re looking at datasets built from or from , are now dealing with so much information that they must also come up with new methods to comprehend it. Developing new analysis tools has become as important as using them to understand brain health and development.

A team including researchers at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý recently used new software to compare MRIs from 300 babies and discovered that myelin, a part of the brain’s so-called white matter, develops much slower after birth. The researchers Aug. 7 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

UW News spoke with senior author , a UW research associate professor in the psychology department and a data science fellow in the eScience Institute, about the paper and his research approach.

What topics do you research and how?

Ariel Rokem: My group works in neuroinformatics, which focuses on building methods and software for analyzing neuroscience data. We focus specifically on MRI measurements in human brains. A brain is made out of a big network of connections between different areas. Within our brains, we have these big bundles of connections called white matter that contain lots of axons, which are the long, branching parts of neurons that let them talk to each other across pretty large distances. So we use MRI to find these bundles in every person in a study and then make sense of the tissue within these bundles. From that, we can find differences between people who have certain diseases and those who don’t, or differences in development or cognitive abilities.

How does this approach differ from how brain research was practiced historically?

AR: For many years, researchers would take test subjects over to their local hospital or MRI center and collect some data. And people still do this. In fact, we have one of these scanners at the new , which I am part of. But more recent approaches involve collecting much larger amounts of data. For example, it would be hard for anyone here in the department at the UW to collect data from more than 1,000 individuals. But a few years ago, the National Institutes of Health funded what’s called the to do exactly that — get a sample of 1,200 healthy, grown-up people, and collect pretty large amounts of data on each of them. In neuroinformatics we take those kinds of datasets and develop the tools to study them.

What discoveries have these methods led to within brain science?

AR: Our recent paper is a good example. Our team used a large, openly available dataset from the , which collects data from newborn infants in the first few days of life. We were looking at how white matter develops in these scans of more than 300 babies. My collaborator and lead author , at the Philipps University of Marburg, had previously taken software for finding white matter bundles in adults and adapted it to work on babies’ brains. In this study, we scaled her approach up using cloud computing. We were looking at how myelin, a fatty sheath that insulates axons, grows in white matter.

We know from other studies that abnormal myelin development is associated with many developmental and mental health disorders, from . But before this study we still didn’t know how birth changes the course of myelin development.

We had several hypotheses that we wanted to test. One is, well, that it doesn’t matter when exactly you were born; it just matters how much time passed from conception to when you’re scanned. Another was that it matters only how long after conception you were born, and it didn’t matter how long after birth you were scanned. And we had a third hypothesis that says both of these things matter: how long the baby spent gestating in the mother’s womb, and how much time passed from birth until the time of the scan. So we were comparing scans from babies who were born at different gestational ages, ranging from very early premature birth, up to babies who were born a couple of weeks after the full term of 40 weeks. Because we had this large dataset to work with, we could really chart how babies’ brains change in the first few days and weeks of life.

We found that the data supports that both the gestational age at birth and the gestational age at time of scan mattered, but there’s an inflection point right at birth. Right then, development of these bundles that we were looking at slows down dramatically. It’s a basic fact, but we didn’t know this until now, and we found it by examining publicly available data. This has implications for our basic understanding of early-life brain development, and implications for the ways that we might mitigate the adverse effects of premature birth. Perhaps, for instance, creating a “womb-like” environment after birth could offset this slowed development and give the brains of premature babies more time to develop.

What are you looking to investigate with these methods moving forward?

AR: We’re starting to ask questions about brain connections related to autism spectrum disorder and to schizophrenia. We’re also now part of the UW’s , or the Adult Changes in Thought Study. It’s been around for , following a large cohort of people in the Seattle area as they are aging. In the recent round of that study, we’ve added MRI measurements. We’re developing methods to make inferences about white matter bundles in people who are aging.

Additional co-authors on this paper are , a former UW post-baccalaureate student in the psychology department; , a UW doctoral student in the psychology department; , a former UW postdoctoral researcher in the psychology department; and at Philipps University of Marburg; and and at Stanford University. This research was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Eye Institute.

For more information, contact Rokem at arokem@uw.edu.

Seven professors at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý are among 25 new members of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, according to a . Joining the academy is a recognition of “their outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the Academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the State of Washington.”

Twenty of the incoming members for 2022 were selected by current WSAS members, while the other five were chosen by virtue of recently joining one of the National Academies.

UW faculty selected by current Academy members are:

• , the Robert G. and Jean A. Reid Executive Dean of Nursing, “for pioneering research in cultural competence, conducting international collaborative research with professionals and family caregivers of older adults with dementia, advancing assessment of cultural awareness and its impact on healthcare, and supporting establishment of UW’s Center for Global Health Nursing and the first Center for Anti-Racism in Nursing.”
• , the Harry and Catherine Jaynne Boand Endowed Professor of Chemistry, co-associate chair of the Department of Chemistry, and associate vice provost for research cyberinfrastructure, “for a body of work that supercharges computational chemistry, including pioneering work in time- dependent electronic structure theory and quantum mechanical techniques,” and “for exemplary collaborative efforts, as well as leadership in developing educational pathways for underrepresented minority students in STEM.” Li is also a faculty member in the UW Clean Energy Institute and the UW Molecular & Engineering Sciences Institute.
• , the Steven and Connie Rogel Endowed Professor of Chemical Engineering, professor of chemistry, and chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, “for pioneering contributions that advanced the frontiers of molecular simulation, impacting the prediction of enzyme activity in ionic liquids, peptide interactions with surfaces and molecular design.” Pfaendtner is also a faculty member in the Clean Energy Institute and the Molecular & Engineering Sciences Institute, as well as a senior data fellow with the UW eScience Institute and staff scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
• , the Klaus and Mary Ann Saegebarth Endowed Professor of Chemistry, “for pioneering fundamental and applied studies in mass spectrometry, physical chemistry, and newborn screening” as well as “propagation of science, science education, and technical expertise contributions to startup companies in Washington state.”
• , the Kyocera Professor in Materials Science & Engineering and vice dean of the College of Engineering, “for pioneering contribution to the discovery of new thermoelectric and energy storage materials for clean energy, and for exceptional leadership to promote interdisciplinary collaboration among academia, industry, and national laboratories for creating transformational and sustainable impact for Washington.” Yang is also a faculty member in the Clean Energy Institute and the Molecular & Engineering Sciences Institute.
• Dr. , professor of radiology and director of the UW Medicine Image-Guided Bio-Molecular Intervention Laboratory, “for work as an internationally prominent physician-scientist in the field of image-guided minimally invasive interventional therapies” and “for pioneering contributions and outstanding achievements in developing innovative and cutting-edge medical imaging and interventional radiology for effective management of life-threatening diseases, such as atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and cancer.”

In addition, Dr. , UW professor of genome sciences, investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and faculty member in the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute, was selected by virtue of his election to the National Academy of Sciences “for pioneering a variety of genome sequencing and analysis methods, including exome sequencing and its earliest applications to gene discovery for Mendelian disorders and autism; cell-free DNA diagnostics for cancer and reproductive medicine; massively parallel reporter assays; saturation genome editing; whole organism lineage tracing; and massively parallel molecular profiling of single cells.”

New members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences will be formally inducted in September.

A novel algorithm developed by ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý researchers to discover asteroids in the solar system has proved its mettle. The first candidate asteroids identified by the algorithm — known as Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery, or — have been confirmed by the International Astronomical Union’s .

The Asteroid Institute, a program of , has been running THOR on its cloud-based astrodynamics platform — Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping, or ADAM — to identify and track asteroids. With confirmation of these new asteroids by the Minor Planet Center and their addition to its registry, researchers using the Asteroid Institute’s resources can submit thousands of additional new discoveries.

“A comprehensive map of the solar system gives astronomers critical insights both for science and planetary defense,” said Matthew Holman, dynamicist and search algorithm expert at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and the former director of the Minor Planet Center. “Tracklet-less algorithms such as THOR greatly expand the kinds of datasets astronomers can use in building such a map.”

THOR was co-created by , a UW associate professor of astronomy and director of the UW’s , and , a UW graduate student in astronomy. They and their UW collaborators unveiled THOR in a published last year in The Astronomical Journal. It links points of light in different sky images that are consistent with asteroid orbits. Unlike current state-of-the-art codes, THOR does not require the telescope to observe the sky in a particular pattern for asteroids to be discoverable.

The Asteroid Institute’s ADAM platform is an that runs astrodynamics algorithms at large scale using Google Cloud, in particular the scalable computational and storage capabilities in Google Compute Engine, Google Cloud Storage and Google Kubernetes Engine.

“The work of the Asteroid Institute is critical because astronomers are reaching the limits of what’s discoverable with current techniques and telescopes,” said Jurić, who is also a senior data science fellow with the UW . “Our team is pleased to work alongside the Asteroid Institute to enable mapping of the solar system using Google Cloud.”

Researchers can now begin systematic explorations of large datasets that were previously not usable for discovering asteroids. THOR recognizes asteroids and, most importantly, calculates their orbits well enough to be recognized by the Minor Planet Center as tracked asteroids.

Moeyens searched a 30-day window of images from the NOIRLab Source Catalog, a collection of nearly 68 billion observations taken by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory telescopes between 2012 and 2019, and submitted a small initial subset of discoveries to the Minor Planet Center for official recognition and validation. Now that the computational discovery technique has been validated, thousands of new discoveries from the catalog and other datasets are expected to follow.

“Discovering and tracking asteroids is crucial to understanding our solar system, enabling development of space and protecting our planet from asteroid impacts,” said Ed Lu, executive director of the Asteroid Institute. “With THOR running on ADAM, any telescope with an archive can now become an asteroid search telescope. We are using the power of massive computation to enable not only more discoveries from existing telescopes, but also to find and track asteroids in historical images of the sky that had gone previously unnoticed because they were never intended for asteroid searches.”

The B612 Foundation recently to advance these efforts.

The collaborative efforts of Google Cloud, B612’s Asteroid Institute and the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý’s DiRAC Institute make this work possible.

For more information, contact Jurić at mjuric@uw.edu and Moeyens at moeyensj@uw.edu.

Adapted from a e by the B612 Foundation.

The ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý and Carnegie Mellon University have announced an expansive, multiyear collaboration to create new software platforms to analyze large astronomical datasets generated by the upcoming , or LSST, which will be carried out by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in northern Chile. The open-source platforms are part of the new LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing — known as LINCC — and will fundamentally change how scientists use modern computational methods to make sense of big data.

Through the LSST, the Rubin Observatory, a joint initiative of the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy, will collect and process more than 20 terabytes of data each night — and up to 10 petabytes each year for 10 years — and will build detailed composite images of the southern sky. Over its expected decade of observations, astrophysicists estimate the Department of Energy’s will detect and capture images of an estimated 30 billion stars, galaxies, stellar clusters and asteroids. Each point in the sky will be visited around 1,000 times over the survey’s 10 years, providing researchers with valuable time series data.

Scientists plan to use this data to address fundamental questions about our universe, such as the formation of our solar system, the course of near-Earth asteroids, the birth and death of stars, the nature of dark matter and dark energy, the universe’s murky early years and its ultimate fate, among other things.

“Tools that utilize the power of cloud computing will allow any researcher to search and analyze data at the scale of the LSST, not just speeding up the rate at which we make discoveries but changing the scientific questions that we can ask,” said , a UW professor of astronomy, director of the and former director of the Institute — commonly known as the DiRAC Institute.

The Rubin Observatory will produce an unprecedented data set through the LSST. To take advantage of this opportunity, the LSST Corporation created the LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing, whose launch was announced Aug. 9 at the Rubin Observatory Project & Community Workshop. One of LINCC’s primary goals is to create new and improved analysis infrastructure that can accommodate the data’s scale and complexity that will result in meaningful and useful pipelines of discovery for LSST data.

“Many of the LSST’s science objectives share common traits and computational challenges. If we develop our algorithms and analysis frameworks with forethought, we can use them to enable many of the survey’s core science objectives,” said , professor of physics and member of the at Carnegie Mellon.

Connolly and Mandelbaum will co-lead the project, which will consist of programmers and scientists based at the UW and Carnegie Mellon, who will create platforms using professional software engineering practices and tools. Specifically, they will create a “cloud-first” system that also supports high-performance computing systems in partnership with the , a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, and the National Science Foundation’s . The LSST Corporation will run programs to engage the LSST Science Collaborations and broader science community in the design, testing and use of the new tools.

The LINCC analysis platforms are supported by , a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt that “bets early on exceptional people making the world better.” This project is part of Schmidt Futures’ work in astrophysics, which aims to accelerate our knowledge about the universe by supporting the development of software and hardware platforms to facilitate research across the field of astronomy.

“Many years ago, the Schmidt family provided one of the first grants to advance the original design of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. We believe this telescope is one of the most important and eagerly awaited instruments in astrophysics in this decade. By developing platforms to analyze the astronomical datasets captured by the LSST, Carnegie Mellon University and the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý are transforming what is possible in the field of astronomy,” said Stuart Feldman, chief scientist at Schmidt Futures.“The software funded by this gift will magnify the scientific return on the public investment by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy to build and operate Rubin Observatory’s revolutionary telescope, camera and data systems,” said Adam Bolton, director of the Community Science and Data Center at NSF’s NOIRLab. The center will collaborate with LINCC scientists and engineers to make the LINCC framework accessible to the broader astronomical community.

Through this new project, new algorithms and processing pipelines developed at LINCC will be able to be used across fields within astrophysics and cosmology to sift through false signals, filter out noise in the data and flag potentially important objects for follow-up observations. The tools developed by LINCC will support a “census of our solar system” that will chart the courses of asteroids; help researchers to understand how the universe changes with time; and build a 3D view of the universe’s history.

“Our goal is to maximize the scientific output and societal impact of Rubin LSST, and these analysis tools will go a huge way toward doing just that,” said Jeno Sokoloski, director for science at the LSST Corporation. “They will be freely available to all researchers, students, teachers and members of the general public.”

Northwestern University and the University of Arizona, in addition to the UW and Carnegie Mellon, are hub sites for LINCC. The University of Pittsburgh will partner with the Carnegie Mellon hub.

Twenty scientists and engineers at the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý are among the 38 new members elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2021, according to a July 15 . New members were chosen for “their outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the Academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.”

Current academy members selected 29 of the new members. An additional nine were elected by virtue of joining one of the National Academies.

New UW members who were elected by current academy members are:

• , professor and Port of Tacoma Chair in Environmental Science at UW Tacoma, director of the and science director of the , “for foundational work on the environmental fate, behavior and toxicity of PCBs.”
• , professor of psychology, “for contributions in research on racial and gender inequality that has influenced practices in education, government, and business” and “for shifting the explanation for inequality away from individual deficiencies and examining how societal stereotypes and structures cause inequalities.”
• , professor of chemistry and member faculty at the , “for leadership in the innovative synthesis and chemical modification of nanoscale materials for application in light emission and catalysis.”
• , professor of global health and of environmental and occupational health sciences, and founding director of the , “for work on the health impacts of climate change, on climate impact forecasting, on adaptation to climate change and on climate policy to protect health.”
• , professor of environmental and forest sciences and dean emeritus of the College of the Environment, “for foundational studies of regional paleoenvironmental history and sustained excellence in academic leadership to catalyze and sustain transformative research and educational initiatives.” Graumlich is also president-elect of the American Geophysical Union.
• Dr. , the Joseph W. Eschbach Endowed Chair in Kidney Research and co-director of the , “for pioneering contributions and outstanding achievements in the development of the novel wearable artificial kidney, as well as numerous investigator-initiated clinical trials and multi-center collaborative studies.”
• , professor of environmental chemistry and chair of the Physical Sciences Division at UW Bothell, “for leadership in monitoring and understanding the global transport of atmospheric pollutants from energy production, wildfire, and other sources, as well as science communication and service that has informed citizens and enhanced public policy.”
• , professor and chair of psychology, “for contributions demonstrating how psychological science can inform long-standing issues about racial and gender discrimination” and “for research that has deep and penetrating implications for the law and societal efforts to remedy social inequities with evidence-based programs and actions.”
• , the Leon C. Johnson Professor of Chemistry, member faculty at the and chair of the Department of Chemistry, “for developing new spectroscopy tools for measuring energy flow in molecules and materials with high spatial and temporal resolution.”
• , professor of astronomy, “for founding the and leading the decades-long development of the interdisciplinary modeling framework and community needed to establish the science of exoplanet astrobiology” and “for training the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists who will search for life beyond Earth.”
• , professor and chair of aeronautics and astronautics, “for leadership and significant advances in nonlinear methods for integrated sensing and control in engineered, bioinspired and biological flight systems” and “for leadership in cross-disciplinary aerospace workforce development.”
• , associate professor of chemistry and member faculty with the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute, “for exceptional contributions to the development of synthetic polymers and nanomaterials for self-assembly and advanced manufacturing with application in sustainability, medicine and microelectronics.”
• Dr. , Associate Dean of Medical Technology Innovation in the College of Engineering and the School of Medicine, the Graham and Brenda Siddall Endowed Chair in Cornea Research, and medical director of the UW Eye Institute, “for developing and providing first class clinical treatment of severe corneal blindness to hundreds of people, for establishing the world premier artificial cornea program in Washington, and for leading collaborative research to translate innovative engineering technologies into creative clinical solution.”
• Dr. , professor of medicine and director of the , “for global recognition as an authority on drug and vaccine development for viral and parasitic diseases through work as an infectious disease physician and immunologist.”
• Dr. , professor of pediatrics and of anesthesiology and pain medicine, and director of the , “for outstanding leadership in pediatric anesthesiology and in the care of children with traumatic brain injury” and “for internationally recognized expertise in traumatic brain injury and direction of the Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center for the last decade as an exceptional mentor and visionary leader.”

UW members who will join the Washington State Academy of Sciences by virtue of their election to one of the National Academies are:

• , professor of biostatistics, “for the development of novel statistical models for longitudinal data to better diagnose disease, track its trajectory, and predict its outcomes” and “for revolutionizing how dynamic predictors are judged by their discrimination and calibration and has significantly advanced methods for randomized controlled trials.” Heagerty was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2021.
• , the Bill and Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science and Engineering, “for foundational contributions to the mathematics of computer systems and of the internet, as well as to the design and probabilistic analysis of algorithms, especially on-line algorithms, and algorithmic mechanism design and game theory.” Karlin was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , professor emeritus of applied mathematics and data science fellow at the , “for inventing key algorithms for hyperbolic conservation laws and transforming them into powerful numerical technologies” and “for creating the Clawpack package, which underpins a wide range of application codes in everyday use, such as for hazard assessment due to tsunamis and other geophysical phenomena.” LeVeque was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , the Benjamin D. Hall Endowed Chair in Basic Life Sciences and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, “for advancing our physical understanding of cell motility and growth in animals and bacteria” and “for discovering how the pathogen Listeria uses actin polymerization to move inside human cells, how crawling animal cells coordinate actomyosin dynamics and the mechanical basis of size control and daughter cell separation in bacteria.” Theriot was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.
• , professor and chair of biological structure, “for elucidating cellular transformations through which neurons pattern their dendrites, and the interplay of activity-dependent and -independent mechanisms leading to assembly of stereotyped circuits” and “for revelations regarding the fundamental principles of neuronal development through the application of an elegant combination of in vivo imaging, physiology, ultrastructure and genetics to the vertebrate retina.” Wong was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2021.

New members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences are scheduled to be inducted at a meeting in September.

The coronavirus doesn’t spread uniformly through a community.

But in the world of disease modeling, many projections take a high-level approach to a geographic area, like a county or state, and forecast based on a general idea that a virus will take root and spread at an equal rate until it reaches its peak of infection.

A research team led by UC Irvine and the ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý has created a new model of coronavirus diffusion through a community. This approach, Sept. 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,  factors in network exposure — whom one interacts with — and demographics to simulate at a more detailed level both where and how quickly the coronavirus could spread through Seattle and 18 other major cities.

The team used U.S. Census Bureau tract demographics, simulation techniques and COVID-19 case data from spring 2020 to estimate a range of days for the virus to spread within a given city.

The result: Some neighborhoods peak sooner than others. And in every city, the virus sticks around far longer than some might expect.

“The most basic takeaway from this research is risk. People are at risk longer than they think, the virus will last longer than expected, and the point at which you think you don’t need to be vigilant means that it just hasn’t happened to you yet,” said co-author , an assistant professor of sociology at the UW.

Almquist and the team took on their study with two basic premises: Account for the social and geographic connections within a tract that could affect the course of the virus; and assume no vaccine or other major intervention alters its path. Then, based on actual COVID-19 and demographic data, project a likely scenario for spread over time.

Take Seattle. The study’s map of the city outlines each census tract and provides a color-coded range of days each tract could take to reach peak infection before the virus goes into a low remission. The overall range is vast, from neighborhoods with the fastest peak — 83 days — to those that take more than 1,000. That’s more than three years, assuming there is no significant intervention to stem the spread.

Denser neighborhoods in Seattle, such as Capitol Hill or the University District, reach peak infection rate earlier. But simulations predict that even nearby neighborhoods won’t reach peak infection until weeks or even years later. These models predict more “burst-like” behavior of the virus’ spread than standard models — with short, sudden episodes of infection across the city, Almquist said.

In the study’s model of Washington, D.C., census tracts also appear to reach peak infection rates at different times.

Again, denser areas tend to peak sooner. But the network connections can cause “bursty” peak infection days, with some areas seeing early peak infections and others seeing it much later based on the neighborhoods’ relative connections with each other, Almquist said.

Projecting the path of the virus can help estimate the impact on local hospitals. Researchers predicted this in several ways, such as modeling the number of cases per hospital over time and the number of days a hospital is at peak capacity.

The model of projected hospital cases shows how the geographic variations in the timing in peak COVID-19 infections could affect hospitals in different areas. Without outside intervention, some hospitals would remain at capacity for years, especially those farthest from major population centers.

These types of models are important because they provide a more detailed and nuanced prediction of an unknown like the novel coronavirus, said Almquist. Gauging how the virus might spread throughout a city and strain its hospitals can help local officials and health care providers plan for many scenarios. And while this study assumes no major interventions will rein in the virus, it’s reasonable to believe the virus will linger to some degree, even with solutions such as a vaccine, according to Almquist.

“If you project these models for what it means over the country, we might expect to see some areas, such as rural populations, not see infection for months or even years before their peak infection occurs,” Almquist said. “These projections, as well as others, are beginning to suggest that it could take years for the spread of COVID-19 to reach saturation in the population, and even if it does so it is likely to become endemic without a vaccine.”

Co-authors are Loring Thomas, Peng Huang, Fan Yin, Xiaoshuang Iris Luo, John Hipp and Carter Butts, all of UC Irvine. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and UC Irvine.

For more information, contact Almquist at zalmquist@uw.edu.

The ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý’s , or CSDE, along with partners in the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences and the , is among eight awardees across the country selected to develop training programs in advanced data analytics for population health through the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research.

This five-year, $1.8 million training program at the UW will fund 25 academic-year graduate fellowships, develop a new training curriculum and contribute to methodological advances in health research at the intersection of demography and data science.

The new training program will be led by , assistant professor of sociology, and will build on CSDE’s graduate certificate in demographic methods by integrating training in advanced statistics and computational methods.

The inaugural cohort will begin the program in October and is composed of graduate students Ian Kennedy, Neal Marquez and Crystal Yu, all in sociology; Emily Pollock in anthropology; and Aja Sutton in geography.

“Our faculty are at the forefront of research programs grounded in advanced data analytics,” said Robert Stacey, dean of the UW’s College of Arts and Sciences. “This grant recognizes the important interdisciplinary work happening across the UW, and particularly in the social sciences, to build this knowledge into much-needed education and training programs.”

, associate professor of sociology and statistics, and , professor of statistics and biostatistics, led the grant application with support from , director of the CSDE and a professor of international studies, public policy and sociology, along with faculty affiliated with CSDE, CSSS and the eScience Institute.

The NIH review praised UW’s plans. “The leadership team has well-established credentials, complementary expertise, and a strong track record and the proposed program builds on an existing program with demonstrable record of success,” noted reviewers. “The curriculum – which offers coursework in statistical methods, machine learning, coding, databases, data visualization and data ethics – is well-thought-out and will provide trainees with numerous immersive opportunities.”

This funding was designed to fill educational gaps and needs in the behavioral and social sciences research community that are not being addressed by existing educational opportunities, according to the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. The other institutions awarded similar grants include Emory University; Johns Hopkins University; Stanford University; University of Arkansas Medical Center; the University of California, Berkeley; UC San Diego; and UC San Francisco. More information about the national initiative can be found .

For more information, contact Curran at scurran@uw.edu or Almquist at zalmquist@uw.edu.

Adapted from information provided by the UW Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology.

A new ����Ӱ�Ӵ�ý study of evictions around the state shows that more women are evicted than men, and in the state’s two most populous counties, eviction rates among black and Latinx adults are almost seven times higher than for white adults.

The disparities are among the findings in the , created by a team of UW researchers and led by , a former UW postdoctoral researcher now at the University of California, Berkeley. Based on eviction filings from each of Washington’s 39 counties, the report and its series of interactive maps illustrate where, and to whom, evictions hit hardest.

The surrounding narrative addresses why, and what may be done about it.

“By collecting all this data, we wanted to provide the public with an in-depth look at eviction trends at a geographical level in the region,” said , a data scientist at the UW eScience Institute and the university’s lead on the Evictions Study. “The hope is that the information sheds light on a problem happening in people’s backyards, and that folks begin having a discussion about solutions while not ignoring evictions and their intersection with race and social class.”

Eviction — the forcible removal of a tenant, usually due to unpaid rent — starts with a filing in court by a landlord. The process of notification, response and hearing before a judge is generally the same across the country, but how much time tenants are given to respond, for example, can .

Eviction data are not easily accessible. A few localized studies in other communities are tackling eviction trends, and a national effort, the at Princeton University, has attempted to assemble data from 48 states. However, several states, such as Washington, are undercounted in these efforts. The Evictions Study fills in the gaps using data science to mine court records, demographic estimations to enumerate individuals, and sociological theory to explain trends.

The UW effort involved drilling down on evictions in specific areas through multiple sources of data, starting with Washington state. The city of Baltimore is next, and researchers have begun work with advocacy organizations in Connecticut, Cincinnati and Chicago.

The team first turned to eviction filings in Washington State Superior Court to obtain eviction counts by county. To put the numbers in context and analyze other potentially contributing factors, researchers used population, rental, income and housing market data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, as well as information from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the annual regional Point in Time counts of homelessness.

Armed with the most detail from four counties — King, Pierce, Snohomish and Whatcom — the research team released for those counties and hopes to produce more as additional data becomes available. Users can filter by geography (census tract, municipality or county) and race to see a variety of data sets, including the percentage of renters, median household income and eviction counts.

For example, a look at the municipality view of King County and the eviction rate by race reveals higher rates of eviction among people of color in South King County.

“Our research shows that evictions are pervasive, where between 2013 and 2017, 1 in 55 Washington adults were named in an eviction filing — over 400,000 adults between 2004 and 2017,” said Thomas. “The most concerning finding is the severe over-representation of black adults in the Western Washington eviction filing process. In Pierce County, 1 in 6 black adults were named in a filing between 2013 and 2017, and 1 in 11 in King County during that same time. For whites, it’s 1 in 55 and 1 in 100, respectively. This severe racial disparity makes evictions a civil rights issue, requiring new laws to intervene.”

The growing homelessness crisis in Seattle has focused attention on where and how people are living on the street, what services and programs can provide permanent solutions, and who will pay to fix the situation.

But what’s often missing in the discussion, Thomas and the research team agree, are the factors that contribute to homelessness in the first place. Studies have shown that a person who is evicted has a 1 in 5 chance of ending up homeless; the UW study points to the connections among housing affordability, evictions and homelessness.

According to the study, in 2017, 46% of Washington households were “rent burdened,” meaning that almost a one-third of household income was spent on rent. In 2019, the average monthly rent statewide reached $1,000, so a tenant would need to make $40,000 to pay that bill. In King County, however, the average rent is often more than twice the statewide average: To avoid rent burden, then, a tenant would need to make $90,000 to pay a $2,250 bill.

But evictions tend to occur in neighborhoods that are the most racially diverse and where rents are lower, especially if those neighborhoods are near higher-income areas, Thomas said. There, landlords may be willing to get rid of tenants who fall behind in rent, because there’s likely to be another tenant ready to take their place.

Among the Evictions Study’s findings:

• Across Washington state, 1.8% of adults were evicted between 2013 and 2017. That compares to , according to the Eviction Lab.
• The relative risk of eviction — the probability of an eviction in a given county versus the rest of the state — is higher in Pierce, Cowlitz and Benton counties.
• In counties with fewer than 700 evictions annually — the majority of counties in Washington — women are evicted 11% more than men.
• Black adults in King and Pierce County make up a disproportionate number of the eviction filings relative to their population. Between 2013 and 2017, 9% of King County’s black adults faced an eviction, but made up 5.5% of the county’s total population; in Pierce, 18% of black adults faced an eviction, while they made up 6.6% of the population.
• In both counties, when eviction data is broken down by race and ethnicity, Asian adults had the fewest evictions.

The disparities are significant, Thomas said, because they relate to historic patterns of discrimination.

“Most of King County’s eviction filings occur in South King County, where households of color have been displaced from Seattle. In Pierce County, some of the highest risks of eviction occur in formerly redlined neighborhoods,” Thomas said. “This link between evictions, the legacy of segregation, and gentrification can’t be ignored and requires further investigation.”

As the study was in the works last year, Thomas worked with regional housing advocates and Democratic legislators to successfully promote eviction reform in Olympia. Senate Bill 5600 extended the “pay-or-vacate” deadline for tenants to pay rent, from three to 14 days.

In recent weeks, Evictions Study data was part of a regional report, the , produced by the King County Bar Association’s Housing Justice Project and the Legal Counsel for Youth and Children. UW research found that 4% of King County renters between the ages of 18 and 24 have faced an eviction; among the report’s recommendations are improved access to legal services for young people, and more resources to educate them on their rights as tenants.

Co-authors on the Evictions Study are , a lecturer in the UW Information School; , a graduate student in sociology, and , a graduate student in geography, both at the UW; and , a data scientist at Octave Bioscience who worked on the study while a postdoctoral fellow at the UW.

The study was funded by Cascade Urban Analytic Cooperative, the eScience Institute, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Microsoft Research, and Enterprise Community Partners, with technological support from the UW Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology.

For more information, contact Hernandez at joseh@uw.edu or Thomas at timthomas@berkeley.edu.