Recently, students in the 天美影院鈥檚 noticed a trend on social media: People were using generative artificial intelligence to make short science videos. The trouble was that these people weren鈥檛 scientists, which, given AI鈥檚 proclivity to be convincingly wrong, could accelerate the spread of misinformation. So the lab wondered how to enable scientists and other researchers to better adapt to platforms like TikTok.听

鈥淭he alternative is that science is being talked about without scientists,鈥� said co-lead author , a 天美影院doctoral student in human centered design and engineering.

Those discussions led the team to build , an AI tool that helps users turn research papers into 45-second videos. A researcher uploads a paper to the tool, which uses Google Gemini to write a short script explaining the paper. The researcher can then iteratively edit the transcript and resulting video clip.

The team April 17 at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Barcelona.

鈥淔or several reasons, most people don鈥檛 read research papers,鈥� said senior author , a 天美影院professor in human centered design and engineering. 鈥淚 still have challenges reading papers in fields I’m not familiar with. So we wanted to find a way to quickly turn papers into a format that laypeople would want to engage with, and we wanted to study how they engaged with it.鈥�

Currently, PaperTok is only accessible to users with a paid Google Gemini subscription. Those users can go to the and upload a research paper. The system then presents four options to use as a hook in the video. For instance, a PaperTok video on PaperTok itself begins, 鈥淓ver get overwhelmed reading a dense academic paper?鈥�

鈥淭o start, we interviewed eight science communicators and content producers about how to make engaging, credible videos,鈥� said co-lead author , a 天美影院doctoral student in human centered design and engineering. 鈥淲e found that hooks are integral to shortform videos. Because you’re competing with other videos online, you have only a few seconds to grab someone鈥檚 attention.鈥澨�

After picking a hook, PaperTok generates a script, which users can edit. In the storyboarding phase, the script is broken into scenes 鈥� much like a movie storyboard. Users can keep refining their scripts and video clips. When they鈥檙e happy with the result, they can add a byline, which appears at the end along with the paper鈥檚 authors.听

The team asked 100 online participants and 18 academic participants to compare video from PaperTok with videos from two other PDF-to-video generators. They found PaperTok easy to use and its videos more engaging than those from the other systems. But some had concerns that it was 鈥渢oo AI-ish鈥� 鈥� because of AI signs like nonsense text 鈥� to want to share publicly, because that may diminish their scholarship鈥檚 credibility.听

The team plans to keep working on ways to customize the AI-generated video, such as allowing users to draw on specific parts of a scene so that elements change based on their intent.听

鈥淭he main motivation behind PaperTok was, 鈥楬ow can we enable researchers to create engaging short-form videos?鈥欌�� Cristobal said. 鈥淏ecause with generative AI tools, anyone can generate a video from a PDF in minutes, and that presents all sorts of problems 鈥� misinformation, AI slop. So we wanted to build a tool that keeps humans, ideally experts, involved. If anything, we hope that PaperTok highlights how important people are in science communication.鈥�

Co-authors include, a 天美影院doctoral student in human centered design and engineering; of Boson AI, who contributed to this research as a 天美影院master鈥檚 student;, a 天美影院doctoral candidate in human centered design and engineering;, a 天美影院doctoral student in human centered design and engineering; and, a 天美影院student in computer science. This research was supported by Microsoft AI and the New Future of Work Award, the Google PaliGemma Academic Program GCP Credit Award, and the National Science Foundation CISE Graduate Fellowships.

For more information, contact Hsieh at garyhs@uw.edu, Shin at dhoon@uw.edu and Cristobal at meziah@uw.edu.

President Robert J. Jones, Provost Tricia Serio and more than two dozen new 天美影院 faculty toured Washington state last week on the annual Faculty Field Tour.

The five-day bus tour departed from the Burke Museum in Seattle on June 15 and made stops at historic sites, the state capitol, health clinics, vineyards, farms, cities and towns throughout the state.

Jones met the group in Richland to participate in a fireside chat. The following day, the 天美影院president joined them at Schoesler Farms, the Ritzville wheat farm owned by Sen. Mark Schoesler, a Republican, and his family. Jones, an agronomist, was delighted to spend time with new faculty, meet Schoesler and get a hands-on tour of the wheat farm.

鈥淲e are a state university. We have an obligation on both sides of the mountains,鈥� Jones said. 鈥淲e have breadth that runs the entire state. And on this tour, these relatively new faculty members have a chance to experience that.鈥�

UW鈥檚 Faculty Field Tour began more than 30 years ago to foster connection between new faculty and communities statewide. While making a counterclockwise loop around Washington, the participants learn about Washington鈥檚 varied economies, diverse geography and the places where their students grew up. The tour typically stops in Tacoma, Olympia, Mt. St. Helens, Vancouver, Toppenish, Tri-Cities, Ritzville, Spokane, Grand Coulee and Leavenworth before returning to Seattle.

Held the week following Commencement, the tour is open to faculty from all three 天美影院campuses. This year鈥檚 cohort included an oceanographer from the College of the Environment, a writing studies professor from 天美影院Tacoma, an economist from the College of Arts & Sciences, and 天美影院Bothell鈥檚 executive vice provost for academic affairs, among others.

鈥淥ur students come from all over the state, right? Certainly not just Seattle,鈥� said , a 天美影院assistant professor in the Information School who was on the tour. 鈥淚f you want to be an effective educator, you need to understand where your students come from and what their communities are like.鈥�

The 2027 Faculty Field Tour is scheduled for the week of June 14.

Data spanning nearly half a century shows that endangered southern resident killer whales are spending less time in inland waters, whereas their larger cousins, Bigg鈥檚 killer whales, are increasingly present in Puget Sound.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration southern resident killer whales as endangered in 2005 after rapid population decline in the late 1990s. Now, , split into three pods: J, K and L. Bigg鈥檚 鈥� sometimes referred to as transients 鈥� are more common, but difficult to count because they travel in smaller groups over wider ranges.

Looking at data from 鈥檚 Sightings Archive between 1978 and 2022, 天美影院 researchers modeled migratory trends based on observations from researchers, recreational boaters and whale watchers. They found that K and L pods are visiting Puget Sound less often, but the J pod remains well represented. The data on Bigg鈥檚 corroborates recent results showing a steady increase in inland waters.

The results in PLOS One.

鈥淲e do see increasing transient presence over time, but we don鈥檛 see a definitive decline or overall increase for the southern residents. Their presence here is much more variable,鈥� said lead author , a 天美影院postdoctoral researcher of marine and environmental affairs.

Key behavioral and subtle physical differences . The southern residents eat salmon, while Bigg鈥檚 prey on seals, porpoises and other marine mammals. Seals and sea lions rebounded in Washington after the Mammal Protection Act, which may have drawn Bigg鈥檚 killer whales to inland waters, but that doesn鈥檛 explain the changing distribution of southern residents.

Because southern residents are organized into tight matriarchal societies led by female elders, researchers believe that social cues may play an important role.

鈥淒oes J pod know something that K and L don鈥檛? Or vice versa? We like to think about which pods have really old grandmas left and who’s teaching them where to go,鈥� said co-author , a marine mammal specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), West Coast Regional office.

Policies to protect southern residents typically apply to all pods. With K and L spending more time in coastal waters, NOAA for southern residents in 2021 to include 16,000 square miles of marine waters between the U.S. and Canada border and Point Sur, California.

Measures like the , which encourages commercial ships to slow down where whales are present, aim to mitigate the impact of noise. Boats are also of the southern residents.

Indications of changing habitat have prompted some to question the need for such regulations in Puget Sound, but these results underscore their continued importance.

鈥淓ven though we鈥檙e seeing less of K and L pods, we still have to think about how our actions impact J pod. They鈥檙e still hanging around,鈥� Koehn said.

The study also notes that southern residents and Bigg鈥檚 are sharing habitat more often, though it isn鈥檛 clear whether they mingle or avoid each other. This raises questions about their relationship and underscores the importance of accounting for both in management decisions.

鈥淗aving more transients around could be good for the southern residents, because they eat marine mammals that also eat salmon,鈥� Rand said.

But if the southern residents avoid the transients, their increased presence could be disruptive. Researchers are actively studying threats to the southern residents 鈥� including prey availability 鈥� to support the imperiled population.

This analysis wouldn鈥檛 have been possible without consistent contributions from citizen scientists. People who report whale sightings using apps like Whale Alert help researchers provide data to policymakers, which can be consequential for the whales.

鈥淭his study quantitatively shows things that people have been suspecting,鈥� Rand said. 鈥淭here are more transients here in Washington, but the southern resident鈥檚 story is a bit more complicated.鈥�

Additional co-authors include of the Whale Museum and of NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center.

This study was funded by Washington Sea Grant, NOAA Fisheries West Coast and the Puget Sound Partnership.听

For more information, contact Rand at zrand@uw.edu.

At the end of every presidential term, the preserves that administration鈥檚 web presence as a vast trove of documents and webpages. The archive began in 2008, with George W. Bush鈥檚 second term, and runs up to 2024, collecting images, text, graphs, redacted pages and other media. So while it contains important public information, finding that information in the glut can prove difficult.

A 天美影院-led research team created , an efficient search system for PDFs from the End of Term Web Archive. Users can look up exact keywords, like 鈥淔AFSA,鈥� or use a semantic search, which finds documents on a topic even if the exact search terms don鈥檛 appear on the page. A visual search option lets them query for qualities like 鈥渞edacted documents,鈥� “aerial photographs鈥� or 鈥減ie charts.鈥� The system can currently search the 10 million PDFs hosted online during Donald Trump鈥檚 first term; the team plans to expand it to the whole archive.听

Because researchers used highly efficient artificial intelligence models to read the documents, processing all the PDFs costs less than $1,500, or about $1 per 47,000 pages. By comparison, Google might charge consumers .听

The team will July 5 at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics in San Diego.听

鈥淭he End of Term Web Archive is immensely important to historians, journalists and the American public,鈥� said senior author , a 天美影院assistant professor in the Information School. 鈥淏ut many of these digital archives are getting so big 鈥� just announced its trillionth page archived 鈥� that finding information is the real challenge.鈥�

The team worked with PDFs because they are a ubiquitous file format and can contain text, charts and images 鈥� a mix that is challenging for existing search systems but makes the documents ideal candidates for GovScape鈥檚 multimodal search.听

鈥淛ust as library classification systems group books on similar topics on the same shelf, these embeddings group similar pages with one another based on their visual and textual content,鈥� Lee said.

Researchers then built different indexing systems for the three kinds of search. The keyword search uses a basic index 鈥� similar to a book index 鈥� for all the text. If a user types in 鈥淔AFSA,鈥� the system finds all the pages the word appears on.听

For semantic and image searches, the system takes the user鈥檚 search term and creates an embedding. It then compares this embedding with the indices created from the embeddings of PDF pages and identifies the closest matches, which are returned as search results.听

鈥淥ur next goal is to cover all of the 70 million PDFs in the entire End of Term Web Archive 鈥� everything from 2008 to 2024,鈥� Lee said. 鈥淥ne of the challenges moving forward is how to efficiently search at that scale.鈥澨�

Because government archives contain 鈥渆very file type under the sun,鈥� Lee said, future work might expand to documents such as spreadsheets, images and HTML pages.听

鈥淚’m really excited about the prospects for better access to government information with projects like GovScape,鈥� Lee said. 鈥淏eing able to actually find relevant information is vital to the health of democracy and to the functioning of society.鈥�

Co-authors include of Boston University, who completed this research as a doctoral student in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering; and , who completed this research as 天美影院master鈥檚 students in the Information School;,,, , and , all students in the Allen School; of Harvard University; of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; of the University of North Texas; and of the American Institute of Physics.听

For more information, contact Lee at bcgl@uw.edu.

Project Name: UWMC Outpatient Medical Center Expansion

Proponent/Lead Agency: 天美影院

Comment Period Closes: July 6, 2026

Description: The project is intended to modernize and expand the existing medical center by remodeling four existing and developing four new operating rooms, including upgrades and additions to associated support spaces (approx. 9,700 sq.ft. expansion). SEPA checklist: https://facilities.uw.edu/committees/sepa

Location: The proposal is located at 10330 Meridian Avenue N in the Northgate neighborhood of Seattle. The site is generally bound by multi-family residential buildings to the north, Interstate-5 to the east, an apartment complex and undeveloped, natural areas to the south, and Meridian Avenue N to the west.

Contact Person: Julie Blakeslee, 天美影院Planner; 天美影院Facilities; Box 359571; Seattle, WA听 98195-9571; jblakesl@uw.edu

Over the past five years, the national conversation around health and nutrition has become 鈥� Most prominently, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.鈥檚 blames these foods for a host of chronic health issues and has to remove some UPFs from the food supply.听

But there鈥檚 a glaring problem: Nobody can agree on how, exactly, to define ultra-processed foods. The lack of a clear definition has stymied legislative and regulatory efforts to curb UPF consumption, and caused confusion for people evaluating their own diets.听

This spring, a panel of 14 nutrition, food science, policy and legal experts gathered to create a more practical and operational definition. The panel鈥檚 final report, , suggests an ingredient-based approach to identify ultra-processed foods, while also recommending a series of policies to reduce people鈥檚 exposure to them.听

The panel was co-chaired by , clinical professor emeritus of health systems and population health at the 天美影院and executive director of the nonprofit group . 天美影院News sat down with Krieger to discuss the new definition, the debate around ultra-processed foods and how people can limit their consumption.

How have we traditionally defined ultra-processed foods, and where does that definition fall short?听

Jim Krieger: The ultra-processed food concept was developed by who’s a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Sao Paolo in Brazil. He was trying to understand an increase in obesity and chronic disease rates, particularly in kids and young adults, and noticed some important changes in the diet that weren’t fully explained by just the usual nutrient profiling 鈥� like fat, sugar, salt. Monteiro came up with this concept of ultra-processed foods. The categorization system is called , which means 鈥榥ew鈥� in Portuguese, and classifies foods across a spectrum beginning with unprocessed ingredients and ending in ultra-processed. Ultra-processed foods are the ones that are the most highly processed industrial products, basically.听

The Nova definition is geared toward research, to really examine the effects of ultra-processed foods on a range of health outcomes. Using it, numerous studies have found ultra-processed foods to be associated with a whole host of health problems, like diabetes and heart disease and depression. That鈥檚 the basis to say, well, there鈥檚 probably sufficient evidence to figure out what we can do to reduce exposure to ultra-processed foods by reducing sales and consumption. That requires policy, and to have policy you need to have a definition of ultra-processed food that鈥檚 suitable for regulation or legislation, and that鈥檚 where the rub comes. The definition for research doesn鈥檛 really work in a policy context, because the Nova research definition uses multiple factors, including ingredients, processing techniques, and other factors to identify products as ultraprocessed. Applying Nova can require individual-level review of ambiguous products by skilled nutrition experts that may not be feasible in policy contexts.

You co-chaired a panel of 14 experts who came up with a new definition. What did that work look like, and what鈥檚 your new definition?

JK: We tried to come up with a simple definition that could be used in practice. We said the starting point, scientifically, is Nova, because that鈥檚 where there鈥檚 evidence linking UPFs to harms. But we wanted to come up with a way to identify products that would meet Nova classification using only ingredients on nutrition labels, which is a much more feasible approach compared to the method used in research studies.

We went through a fairly technical process. We got a database of all packaged foods in the U.S., looked at all the ingredients in there and cross-referenced them with technical functions that are listed in Nova鈥檚 definition 鈥� emulsifiers, coloring agents, sweeteners, things like that. We also considered a bunch of nonculinary ingredients, which are the ones you wouldn鈥檛 use in your kitchen, like hydrolyzed protein and modified starches. This let us develop a list of 鈥渕arker鈥� ingredients found in UPFs.

Under our definition, if a product has just one of these marker ingredients, then it is ultra-processed food. Now in reality, very few ultra-processed foods ended up having only one marker. Most had three, four, five or more. We also found that this approach successfully identified 98% of all UPFs.

One criticism of the movement against UPFs has been that some foods that are technically ultra-processed are actually quite nutritious. I鈥檓 thinking of products like yogurts, whole-grain breads and tofu. How does your definition account for that?

JK: You want your definition to be sensitive enough to pick up most UPFs, but also specific 鈥� that is, not capture foods that are not truly UPFs or even those that can be part of a healthy diet. The way we addressed that was the FDA, a couple years ago, developed criteria for what they call a . If a company wants to say its products are healthy and put that on the package, it has to meet .听

We decided that even if a product is ultra-processed, if it meets the FDA鈥檚 criteria for a 鈥楬ealthy鈥� food, then it should be exempted from policy. That cuts out edge cases 鈥� healthier foods that are also UPFs.

Your final report also dives into policy and makes recommendations for lawmakers to consider. What is the current status of ultra-processed food policy across the U.S.?听

JK: Over the last couple of years there has been a flurry of activity, particularly at the state legislative level. Some states say they鈥檙e getting rid of ultra-processed foods in school meals, for example, but they have a somewhat random list of ingredients or additives they don鈥檛 like.听

A few states have tried to take a more evidence-based approach. The best example of that is California, where they passed . They used the same kind of ingredient-list approach that we recommend, simplified a little bit. However, for a food to be a UPF under California鈥檚 definition, it must also be high in fat, sugar or salt, which raises a problem 鈥� about 35% of all ultra-processed foods do not have those levels. Proposed legislation in states like Pennsylvania have avoided this problem by sticking with the Nova-based definition, as recommended by our expert panel, rather than adding on fat, sugar and salt criteria.听听

There鈥檚 also been a huge amount of movement in a couple of countries, especially in Latin America. Furthest along is , where the government just issued a regulation to require ultra-processed food labels on packages. They鈥檙e basically using the Nova definition as well.

There are policies moving now, which is why we felt it was important to say, use a good definition of ultra-processed for what you鈥檙e doing, and then think about certain policy ideas as the best bets for doing something about the problem. For us, those ideas include requiring labels on packages identifying a product as ultra-processed and removing UPFs from food served in schools, childcare and in government facilities.听

Many of the factors that lead people to choose ultra-processed foods are systemic. As an example, food deserts leave some people without easy access to affordable fresh foods. How did the panel consider those factors in making your policy recommendations?

JK: Increasing access to healthy foods gets into another set of policies that are well-described and, to varying extents, are being put into place. Our panel focused specifically on UPF policies. We did assess whether any of our policy recommendations would have unintended consequences of making food less available or affordable for people with low incomes and then we figured out strategies for mitigating those effects.听

A great example would be if you tax even a subset of ultra-processed foods, that鈥檚 going to make them less affordable, and that鈥檚 a challenge. We recommend that the tax revenues raised from these policies go toward vouchers or incentives for people with lower incomes that they can cash in for fruits and vegetables at a more affordable price.听

We also rejected some policy ideas. One was restricting the use of SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps) benefits for purchasing ultra-processed foods. We felt that would have too much of a negative impact on food affordability for people using SNAP, so we did not recommend that.听

What comes next for this research?听

JK: Our next step is to share this definition with as many policymakers as we can, and then offer them technical support if they want to figure out how to use this in legislation or regulation. The second thing is if any legislators, policymakers or advocates want to pursue policies, we鈥檙e available to provide technical support and assistance.听

There鈥檚 also a bunch of additional research that would be useful. We have some of those recommendations at the end of the report, but as an example, there鈥檚 controversy right now over different subgroups of UPFs and whether some are more harmful than others. The research that鈥檚 been done so far has been somewhat confusing and flawed. There鈥檚 also research on how, exactly, ultra-processed foods cause all these problems. There are a lot of great, interesting hypotheses, but I wouldn鈥檛 say any of them are definitive.听

As an expert in this field, how do you approach ultra-processed foods in your own life, and how would you recommend people think about reducing their own consumption?听

JK: Right now, about 60% of the calories that Americans consume are ultra-processed foods. Starting there, small and incremental steps are great. You can鈥檛 totally change your diet overnight, so the bottom-line message is to think about small things you can do.听

The first challenge is identifying UPFs, which is where we started this conversation. If there are ingredients in food that you don鈥檛 have in your kitchen, it鈥檚 likely going to be a UPF, and if it鈥檚 a long ingredient list that looks like a chemistry lab, it鈥檚 probably a UPF. Then you can consider what the food looks like. If it鈥檚 super bright, like Froot Loops or Doritos, that probably means it鈥檚 a UPF.听

But then once you鈥檝e identified ultra-processed foods, what do you do? Let鈥檚 think about one thing you want to do. Say you drink a lot of sweetened beverages. You can think of what you can swap in that works for you, like sparkling water that doesn鈥檛 have a lot of additives, or coffee or tea.

As for me, I don鈥檛 eat many ultra-processed foods. When I started doing this work, when my kids were younger, I fed them all sorts of UPFs. I certainly wouldn鈥檛 do that now and wish I had known better. But if I want to have something that鈥檚 ultra-processed, that鈥檚 fine, it鈥檚 not going to kill you to have just a little bit. As long as your , then that鈥檚 great.听

The panel was co-chaired by Krieger and Lindsey Smith Taillie of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and convened by Mary Story and Megan Elsener Lott of Duke University. A full list of panel members is included in the panel鈥檚 This work was funded by Healthy Eating Research and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.听

For more information or to contact Krieger, email Alden Woods at acwoods@uw.edu.听

The 天美影院 recently was ranked highly among its global peers in both the and the . Both rankings were released in mid-June.

According to U.S. News, the 天美影院is No. 12 in the world on the 2026-27 rankings, No. 3 among U.S. public institutions. The 天美影院also placed in the top 10 globally in six subject areas.

On the QS World University Rankings, the 天美影院is among the top 100, landing at No. 92, or No. 7 among U.S. public universities.

More about the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities ranking:

The U.S. News ranking methodology 鈥� based on data and metrics provided by Clarivate 鈥� weighs factors that measure a university鈥檚 global and regional research reputation and academic research performance. For the overall rankings, this includes bibliometric indicators such as the number of publications, citations and international collaboration.

The overall Best Global Universities ranking encompasses 2,250 institutions spread across 105 countries.

Here are the 天美影院fields of study that are in the top 10 in U.S. News鈥� subject rankings:

• Public, environmental and occupational health 鈥� No. 4
• Molecular biology and genetics 鈥� No. 6
• Microbiology 鈥� No. 7
• Biology and biochemistry 鈥� No. 7
• Infectious diseases 鈥� No. 7
• Clinical medicine 鈥� No. 8

More about the QS World University Rankings:听

This is the 23rd edition of the global higher education ranking by the analyst firm QS Quacquarelli Symonds. The 天美影院placed No. 92 in the world and No. 23 in America. The 天美影院is in the top 10 among U.S. public universities, landing at No. 7. This year’s ranking features more than 1,500 universities across 106 higher education systems, including 184 in the U.S.

The QS World University Rankings are based on a weighted index of indicators including research and discovery, employability and outcomes, global engagement, learning experience and sustainability.

Why is it important to study mosquitoes?听

Willem Laursen: Mosquitoes have been an enduring scourge of humanity for millennia. Their bites are a nuisance to humans and animals alike, and ancient texts describe illnesses consistent with mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria, long before the source of transmission was understood.

Globalization and climate change are expanding the geographic range of many mosquito species, and their increasing resistance to insecticides threatens the long-term effectiveness of current control strategies. As a result, we urgently need new approaches for controlling mosquito-borne disease.

If we can better understand the genetic and sensory basis of mosquito behavior, we might be able to find new opportunities to disrupt disease transmission. Critical behaviors such as host seeking and blood feeding are highly specialized and difficult to model in other organisms, making it essential to study these mechanisms directly in mosquitoes themselves.

Andrea Durant: These mosquito-related problems are not just for humans. Warmer winters and early-season snowmelt have led to massive swarms of mosquitoes coinciding with wildlife migration, which changes foraging patterns in the Arctic tundra and forces animals like caribou to use precious energy reserves on evading these mosquito-blackened skies. Mosquito swarms are also a big problem for agriculture, particularly cattle herds.

What do you study?

AD: My lab studies how mosquitoes maintain a stable internal environment when faced with changing external conditions. Mosquitoes start their life as an egg that is deposited in or near water, and the larval, or juvenile, stages are aquatic. Unlike the terrestrial flying adult mosquito that has agency in its choice of residence, a mosquito larva is tied to wherever it hatches 鈥� it must survive and develop there, or die.

Sometimes the aquatic reservoirs where an adult female has selected to lay her eggs can be quite extreme, such as very polluted freshwater and seawater. We study specialized adaptations that allow these larvae to survive 鈥� most mosquito species require clean freshwater for larval development. Our goal is to reveal how mosquitoes have been able to successfully expand their habitats to places like urban sewage systems and salty coastal habitats.

WL: In my lab, our research focuses on understanding how mosquitoes sense things at the cellular level. We are trying to determine what proteins mosquitoes use to detect human-associated cues, such as heat and humidity. By identifying the cellular and molecular machinery mosquitoes use to find hosts, food sources, mates and egg-laying sites, we hope to better understand how specialized behaviors, such as blood feeding, evolve, and to uncover new targets for controlling the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

Jeffrey Riffell: My lab studies the 鈥渉ow鈥� of mosquito biting behavior. We also study how they visit flowers and plants 鈥� yes, they can pollinate certain plants! 鈥� to understand their natural behaviors. By learning more about mosquito physiology and behavior, we would like to develop new tools for traps and ways to control mosquitoes around people’s homes.

Tell us what it’s like to be someone who studies mosquitoes.

JR: Mosquitoes, all day and all the time. Although we try to minimize the potential for mosquito biting in the lab and in our field sites, you have to grin and bear it when dealing with these little vampires.听

WL: Being around large swarms of mosquitoes all day does desensitize me a bit. Sometimes I will be out hiking or camping with family members and I won’t be paying much attention until I start hearing complaints about the mosquitoes. Working with mosquitoes also leads me to do funny things, such as collecting sweat or wearing a nylon stocking for days to collect human odors for behavioral assays.

Rearing transgenic mosquitoes in the lab is a bit like ranching: We have to keep track of large herds of animals. Because the life stages live in different environments, we have to constantly shuttle them around between water-filled trays, for the larvae/pupae, and cages, for the terrestrial adults. We also have to move the adults around on a specific schedule to make sure they have access to our artificial blood feeders. Some lab members jokingly put a sign on the door that says “Welcome to The Ranch.”

AD: Willem is to a rancher as I am to a protagonist in “Swamp People.” We often venture outside of the lab to hunt mosquitoes in their natural habitat in urban and peri-urban areas. Sometimes we find ourselves in picturesque places like the beautiful pillow basalt coastlines of the San Juan Islands. Most often, I can be found headfirst in a nutrient-rich septic system in someone’s backyard filled with mosquito larvae or marching into the fray of massive swarms of saline-tolerant mosquitoes that await in tidal marshlands and mangrove forests.

What is the coolest mosquito fact you know?

WL: There are over 3,500 species of mosquitoes, with vastly different appearances, life histories and host preferences. Many are generalists. A few strongly prefer humans and some feed from cold-blooded animals like frogs or earthworms. The large amber-encased Toxorhynchites elephant mosquito shown in the movie “Jurassic Park” feeds on other mosquito larvae and doesn鈥檛 actually drink blood at all.

JR: I like These mosquitoes are very pretty, and they shoot their eggs into tree holes.

What鈥檚 one thing you wish people understood about mosquitoes?

AD: The incalculable misery that mosquitoes exert on humans and other animals certainly overshadows any appreciation for the importance of mosquitoes in nature. Many species of mosquitoes are critical to biodiversity and are actually fundamental to the food chain. There are numerous examples of areas with reduced breeding success and animal survival because there have been effective vector control programs and non-targeted mosquito eradication efforts.

For more information, contact Laursen at wlaursen@uw.edu, Durant at durantan@uw.edu and Riffell at jriffell@uw.edu.

Seven 天美影院 students and recent alumni were awarded听听scholarships for the 2026鈥�27 academic year, joining about 2,000 students and recent graduates from around the country to pursue graduate study, conduct research and teach English abroad.

The Fulbright scholarship program is the largest U.S. international exchange opportunity for students to pursue graduate study, advanced research and teaching in elementary and secondary schools worldwide.

The Fulbright awards speak to the talent, curiosity and global commitment of 天美影院 students, said 天美影院Vice Provost for Global Affairs Ahmad Ezzeddine.

鈥淔ulbright remains one of our nation鈥檚 most powerful platforms for learning across cultures, and it gives students the opportunity to pursue ambitious research, teaching and study while building meaningful relationships around the world,鈥� Ezzeddine said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e grateful for the State Department鈥檚 continued investment in this program and proud to see 天美影院students representing our university 鈥� and the best of higher education 鈥� as thoughtful ambassadors engaged in work that will have lasting impact.鈥�

Among this year鈥檚 recipients are four 天美影院undergraduate students or recent alumni who plan to travel to Europe and Asia to take part in graduate study, research and teaching assistantships. Three graduate-level students, including one recent alumnus, plan to travel to Asia, Europe and South America.

The 天美影院also had five undergraduate students selected as alternates.

This year鈥檚听听awardees are:

• Katherine Guild: English teaching award, South Korea
• Tin Pak: Master鈥檚 degree program award, Taiwan
• Sofia Regan-Bon茅: English teaching award, Spain
• Wendi Zhou: Study award, Germany

This year鈥檚听 awardees are:

• Vecksle Drake: English teaching award, Mongolia
• Tessa Marks: Research award, Honduras
• Justin Zeitlinger: Study award, Netherlands

The Fulbright program, funded by the U.S. Department of State, provides round-trip travel, health insurance, a housing stipend and visa assistance to awardees. Awardees may, from time to time, decline the Fulbright scholarship to pursue other opportunities.

Read more about this year鈥檚 天美影院Fulbright Student Program finalists and the projects they will pursue abroad at the Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships & Awards听and the Graduate School鈥檚听.

If you shop on Google Flights, you get a quick comparison for different itineraries: One flight鈥檚 carbon emissions may be average, while another鈥檚 are 14% higher. But if you go shopping for a new laptop, you likely won鈥檛 find quick, comprehensible information on different models鈥� sustainability bonafides, despite the of producing and discarding electronics. In part, that鈥檚 because understanding a device鈥檚 emissions is difficult and time-consuming, even for experts.听

天美影院 researchers developed an artificial intelligence system that automatically estimates the environmental impacts of making different electronic devices. The system uses AI agents 鈥� programs that perform tasks autonomously 鈥� to comb through publicly available data and conduct life cycle assessments, or LCAs. The system achieves an average error rate of 5%-19%, similar to the accuracy of LCAs conducted by experts.

The team June 12 in Nature Electronics.听

AI agents have recently grown increasingly capable of performing complex tasks. Today’s agents can search the web and pull information about electronic parts from product descriptions, images and documents.听

鈥淪ome of our previous research made me curious about how LCA experts perform environmental assessments 鈥� and whether that process could be automated,鈥� said lead author , a 天美影院doctoral student in the Allen School. 鈥淪o to understand the bottlenecks firsthand, and then built a system that emulates these interactions with two AI agents. Each of them mimics different roles in the LCA process.鈥�

One agent acts as a sort of analyst, defining what information needs to be gathered and how it will fit together. It also reviews results for accuracy. The second agent is more like an engineer. It scrapes publicly available data for information on an electronic device鈥檚 components. That might entail sifting through spreadsheets, or looking up images of the insides of devices and taking chip information from them 鈥� including from sources not typically used for LCAs, such as and posts on.听

The two agents work in a loop. The first sets the scope, the second gathers information. The first then looks that information over and might send the second agent searching again, and so on. The agents then reference to convert the complete list of parts to carbon estimates.

The team also developed a new method to bypass this detailed data collection and directly estimate carbon footprints. For common devices like laptops and smartphones with publicly available carbon footprint reports, they found that products with similar specs like screen size and processors clustered around similar carbon values, because only a handful of companies make specialized parts for all these devices. So an unknown device’s footprint can be represented as a weighted average of similar products.听

They also use this to estimate the carbon for materials not in LCA databases. For example, a new type of sustainable plastic could be estimated based on plastics with similar properties and chemistry.

鈥淲e tried this 鈥榥earest-neighbors鈥� approach and found that for materials, it鈥檚 actually better than the standard approach of a human picking the single closest entry,鈥� said Zhang. 鈥淲hen estimating missing emissions factors in a test, the average error for our method was 23%. Human experts had an average error of 143%.鈥澨�

The authors note that while the aim of the system is to help reduce carbon emissions overall, running AI models requires energy, so they鈥檝e taken several steps to mitigate its impact. They use small AI models that aren鈥檛 as energy-intensive as general-purpose models. They also start the process by running a search to see if the device鈥檚 estimated emissions have already been calculated. If so, it can stop there. If the system does need to call its AI models repeatedly, estimating a device鈥檚 carbon footprint is currently on par with the emissions generated by brewing a cup of tea.

The team plans to collaborate with companies in the future to help automate their workflows.听

鈥淎 lot of big companies have sustainability teams that perform these LCAs,鈥� Iyer said. 鈥淥ur hope is that automating this will actually free up their time, so they can spend their time reducing the carbon footprint of the products themselves, instead of hunting down elusive stats.鈥澨�

Co-authors include , a 天美影院student in the Allen School;, , a 天美影院postdoctoral researcher in the Allen School; , a 天美影院doctoral student in the Allen School; , a 天美影院professor in the Allen School; of Wesleyan University, who completed this research as a 天美影院doctoral student in the Allen School; of the University of Notre Dame; of Northeastern University; and of Brown University, who completed this research as a 天美影院assistant professor in the Allen School.听

This research was funded by Amazon Research Awards and the National Science Foundation. Zhang was supported by the .

For more information, contact Iyer at vsiyer@uw.edu and Zhang at zzhihan@cs.washington.edu.