Allen School News

The University of Washington’s Undergraduate Research Program has recognized six Allen School students for excelling in their area of research. Skyler Hallinan, Raida Karim and Ximing Lu were selected as Levinson Emerging Scholars and Jerry Cao, Jakub Filipek and Millicent Li were named Washington Research Foundation (WRF) Fellows. Both the Levinson Scholars, funded by Art (UW ‘72) and Rita Levinson, and the WRF Fellows are chosen for their innovative research in bioscience and other related fields. The scholarships… Read more →

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Our latest undergraduate student spotlight features Sammamish, Washington native Joe Spaniac, a second year computer science major admitted under the Allen School’s expanded Direct to Major admission pathway who is also majoring in drama. During his first quarter at the Allen School, he knew he wanted to be a part of Q++, a student organization for LGBTQIA+ members studying in the Allen School. He has served as a member of the board since then and currently co-chairs the group… Read more →

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As a student at Seattle’s Hamilton International Middle School, Leo Maddox Schneider demonstrated early mastery of mathematics and languages, was an avid gamer and athlete, and carved out a reputation as a budding conservationist. Enthusiastic about learning from an early age, Leo had already taken to heart his mother Sylvia Bolton’s advice to find something that he loved and was passionate about and to make that his profession. As she… Read more →

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Last spring, Newport High School student Sophia Lin of Bellevue, Washington, was eager to start coding. Having applied to several summer coding programs, she was ready to learn. Unfortunately, as the pandemic spread, they were all canceled. Seeing her younger sister’s disappointment, Allen School senior Elizabeth Lin decided to be her coding teacher. With the help of her twin sister Christin, a senior in the University of Washington’s Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, the two created… Read more →

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While the internet is so critical for employment, education and communication, millions of Americans in rural and urban areas still do not have access to affordable connections. This lack of access further contributes to digital and economic inequality, especially during a pandemic when many schools and jobs have been moved online. A team of University of Washington researchers led by professor Kurtis … Read more →

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Deep learning has been immensely successful in recent years, spawning a lot of hope and generating a lot of hype, but no one has really understood why it works. The prevailing wisdom has been that deep learning is capable of discovering new representations of the data, rather than… Read more →

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The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world’s largest general scientific society, has named Allen School professor emeritus Pedro Domingos and professor Daniel Weld among its class of 2020 AAAS Fellows honoring members whose scientifically or socially distinguished efforts have advanced science or its applications. Both Domingos and Weld were elected Fellows in the organization’s Information, Computing, and Communication section for their significant impact in artificial intelligence and machine learning research. Pedro Domingos Domingos was honored by… Read more →

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The robust impact that the Allen School and the University of Washington have in contributing to accessible technology was recognized at the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computer and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020) held virtually last month. Researchers from the Allen School and the UW contributed to the Best Student Paper, Best Artifact and the Best Paper.  A team led by UW Human Centered Design & Engineering alumna and Carnegie Mellon University postdoc Cynthia Bennett earned the Best Student Paper… Read more →

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Robots have traditionally been deployed for dull, dirty or dangerous tasks. What if robots instead could be used to support the sophisticated and iterative work of domain experts such as chemical engineers or synthetic biologists?  A University of Washington research project led by Allen School adjunct faculty member and Human-Centered Design and Engineering professor Nadya Peek and Allen School and Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Josh Smith, “NRI: FND: Multi-Manipulator Extensible Robotic Platforms,” received… Read more →

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In honor of the National First-Generation College Celebration on November 8, our latest Allen School spotlight highlights some of our own first-gen community members. Approximately 20 percent of the school’s undergraduate student body is the first in their family to pursue a four-year degree. Each is an academic trailblazer, navigating their way through the entire college experience as the first in their family to pursue a bachelor’s degree. Some are still finding their footing with the help of Gen1, a… Read more →

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