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‘Take advantage of the doors that open’: Allen School celebrates the Class of 2023

Closeup of graduates in regalia from behind, focused on a black undergraduate cap with gold tassel decorated by hand with fabric flowers, gold cord and beads, and glitter and the words "there's a great big beautiful tomorrow" written in script

On Friday, June 9, more than 4,000 family and friends from near and far gathered on the University of Washington campus to celebrate the Allen School’s 2023 graduates. The celebration commenced with a casual open house and meet-and-greet with faculty and staff in the Paul G. Allen Center and Bill & Melinda Gates Center. It culminated in a formal event in the Hec Edmundson Pavilion at the Alaskan Airlines Arena, where graduates made the brief journey across the stage to mark the start of a new journey as Allen School alumni. Read more →

June 22, 2023

Allen School’s Husky 100 honorees give back to the UW community and beyond as scientists, educators, entrepreneurs and leaders

The word "Washington" in University of Washington font in white on a purple fabric banner mostly obscuring campus buildings, backed by a pale blue sky and a burst of sunlight above the "o"

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 →

May 8, 2023

“Go ahead and take that adventurous route”: Allen School professor Yejin Choi named 2022 MacArthur Fellow

Yejin Choi in a black leather jacket over a black shirt

Yejin Choi (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation)

Yejin Choi, a professor in the Allen School’s Natural Language Processing group, was selected as a 2022 MacArthur Fellow by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to advance her work “using natural language processing to develop artificial intelligence systems that can understand language and make inferences about the world.” The MacArthur Fellowship — also known as the “genius grant” — celebrates and invests in talented and creative individuals… Read more →

October 12, 2022

NLP for all: Professor and 2022 Sloan Research Fellow Yulia Tsvetkov is on a quest to make natural language tools more equitable, inclusive and socially aware

Less than a year after her arrival at the University of Washington, professor Yulia Tsvetkov is making her mark as the newest member of the Allen School’s Natural Language Processing group. As head of the Tsvetshop — a clever play on words that would likely stymie your typical natural language model — Tsvetkov draws upon elements of linguistics, economics, and the social and political sciences to develop technologies that not only represent the leading edge of artificial intelligence and natural… Read more →

April 4, 2022

Allen School’s Amy Zhang and Franziska Roesner win NSF Convergence Accelerator for their work to limit the spread of misinformation online

Amy Zhang (left) and Franziska Roesner

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has selected Allen School professors Amy Zhang, who directs the Social Futures Lab, and Franziska Roesner, who co-directs the Security and Privacy Research Lab, to receive Convergence Accelerator funding for their work with collaborators at the University of Washington and the grassroots journalism organization Hacks/Hackers on tools to detect and help stop misinformation online. The NSF’s Convergence Accelerator program is unique in that its structure… Read more →

October 5, 2021

“Hey, check out this 450-pound dog!” Allen School researchers explore how users interact with bogus social media posts

Is that a superstorm over Sydney, or fake news?

We’ve all seen the images scrolling through our social media feeds — the improbably large pet that dwarfs the human sitting beside it; the monstrous stormcloud ominously bearing down on a city full of people; the elected official who says or does something outrageous (and outrageously out of character). We might stop mid-scroll and do a double-take, occasionally hit “like” or “share,” or dismiss the content as fake news. But how… Read more →

March 19, 2020

Uncle Phil, is that really you? Allen School researchers decode vulnerabilities in online genetic genealogy services

Marco Verch/Flickr

Genetic genealogy websites enable people to upload their results from consumer DNA testing services like Ancestry.com and 23andMe to explore their genetic makeup, familial relationships, and even discover new relatives they didn’t know they had. But how can you be sure that the person who emails you claiming to be your Uncle Phil really is a long-lost relation? Based on what a team of Allen School researchers discovered when interacting with the largest third-party genetic genealogy service, you… Read more →

October 29, 2019

Allen School’s latest faculty additions will strengthen UW’s leadership in robotics, machine learning, human-computer interaction, and more

The Allen School is preparing to welcome five faculty hires in 2019-2020 who will enhance the University of Washington’s leadership at the forefront of computing innovation, including robot learning for real-world systems, machine learning and its implications for society, online discussion systems that empower users and communities, and more. Meet Byron Boots, Kevin Lin, Jamie Morgenstern, Alex Ratner, and Amy Zhang — the outstanding scholars set to expand the school’s research and teaching in exciting new directions while building on… Read more →

August 16, 2019

Allen School and AI2 researchers unveil Grover, a new tool for fighting fake news in the age of AI

What makes Grover so effective at spotting fake news is the fact that it was trained to generate fake news itself.

When we hear the term “fake news,” more often than not it refers to false narratives written by people to distort the truth and poison the public discourse. But new developments in natural language generation have raised the prospect of a new potential threat: neural fake news. Generated by artificial intelligence and capable of adopting the particular language and… Read more →

June 11, 2019

Yejin Choi recognized with Borg Early Career Award

Yejin Choi, a professor in the Allen School’s Natural Language Processing research group, has earned a 2018 Borg Early Career Award from the Computing Research Association’s Committee on the Status of Women in Computing Research (CRA-W). The annual award, which is named in honor of pioneering computer scientist Anita Borg, recognizes women in computing who have made significant contributions to the field through their research and activities that promote diversity. When Choi joined the Allen… Read more →

June 15, 2018

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