Allen School News

While the Allen School’s annual Research Showcase and Open House highlights both the breadth and depth of computing innovation at the state’s flagship university, the 2024 event at the University of Washington last week had a decidedly AI flavor. From a presentation on advances in AI for medicine, to technical sessions devoted to topics such as safety and sustainability, to the over 100 student research projects featured at the evening poster session, the school’s work to advance the foundations of AI and its ever-expanding range of applications took center stage. Read more →

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When it comes to the field of human-computer interaction, University of Washington professor Shwetak Patel aims, in his own words, “to think outside the box and challenge existing assumptions.” Patel has repeatedly put that philosophy into practice, inventing entirely new areas of research — and even new industries — in the process. Last week, the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Computer Human Interaction inducted Patel into the SIGCHI Academy in honor of his trailblazing contributions in health, sustainability and interaction research. Read more →

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New approaches to finetuning large language models that decrease computational burden while enhancing performance. A robotic arm that safely delivers a forkful of food to someone's mouth. A system that combines wireless earbuds and algorithms into a low-cost hearing screening tool. These are just a sample of the nearly 60 projects that were on display during the Allen School’s Research Showcase and Open House last week. The display capped off a day-long celebration of computing innovations that are advancing the field and benefiting society. Nearly 300 Industry Affiliate partners, alumni and friends participated in the event, which included sessions devoted to computer science ethics, intelligent transportation, computing for sustainability, computing for health, natural language processing and more. Read more →

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The National Science Foundation (NSF) recognized seven Allen School students as part of its 2023 Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) competition. The NSF GRFP supports students for their potential to demonstrate excellence and innovation in teaching and research early in their careers. The students — six graduate students and one undergraduate student — were recognized in the Comp/IS/Eng or Engineering categories.  Read more →

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Six Allen School students were recently named to the 2023 class of the Husky 100, an honor recognizing undergraduate and graduate students who are making the most of their time at the University of Washington. Husky 100 students make connections in and out of the classroom, making a positive impact on campus and in their communities. This year’s Allen School inductees are living those values, proving Huskies are stronger when in a pack.  Read more →

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According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, one out of every three adults in the United States have prediabetes, a condition marked by elevated blood sugar levels that could lead to the development of type 2 diabetes. The good news is that, if detected early, prediabetes can be reversed through lifestyle changes such as improved diet and exercise. The bad news? Eight out of 10 Americans with prediabetes don’t know that they have it... Read more →

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The Computing Research Association recently honored Allen School undergraduates Michael Duan and Anas Awadalla as part of its Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Awards program for 2023. The annual program highlights exceptional undergraduate students from across North America for their contributions to the computing field.  Duan, who works with professor and advisor Jon Froehlich in the Makeability Lab, was selected as a finalist for his work on Scaling Crowd+AI Sidewalk Accessibility Assessments and Sidewalk Gallery: An Interactive, Filterable Image … Read more →

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Nearly a decade ago, well before mixed reality and the metaverse went mainstream, a team of researchers from the University of Washington’s UbiComp Lab and Microsoft Research were making noise within the human-computer interaction community with a novel approach to on-body sensing. Their technique, which leveraged transdermal ultrasound signals, turned the human body into an input surface for pressure-aware continuous touch sensing and gesture recognition without requiring extensive, not to mention expensive, instrumentation. Last week, that same team collected the… Read more →

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After a pandemic-enforced hiatus, last week the Allen School welcomed industry partners, alumni and friends to its 2022 Research Showcase this week to celebrate the groundbreaking work of its students and faculty. The typically annual event, which is hosted by the Industry Affiliates Program, welcomes industry partners and alumni to engage with the school’s research and learn more about… Read more →

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When COVID consigned doctor-patient interactions from the clinic to a computer screen, Allen School Ph.D. candidate Xin Liu already had his finger on the pulse of that paradigm shift. Since his arrival at the University of Washington in 2018, Liu has worked with professor Shwetak Patel in the UbiComp Lab to combine mobile sensing and machine learning to real-world problems in health care, with a focus on developing non-contact, camera-based physiological screening and monitoring solutions that are accessible by all… Read more →

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