Most computer scientists seek to empower machines. Pedro Domingos would rather empower people. “You may not be interested in technology, but technology is interested in you,” he says, using a witting corruption of Leon Trotsky’s famous quip about politics to underscore why he believes it’s increasingly important for people to take an active interest in how artificially intelligent technology is coming to influence everyday life. A professor [...]

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The moment Bruce McCormick was first moved to dance, the dancers hardly moved at all. “I remember just looking up and all the dancers all looked so tall and were smiling and I was completely in awe,” McCormick says, recalling the feeling of standing at the foot of the stage as a 7-year-old during a dress rehearsal [...]

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Somewhere along the way to hauling yet another five-liter jug of water up to her second-floor room in a small village high in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, Kristi Straus decided enough was enough. She paused and looked around, reflecting on the community of subsistence farmers with whom she’d spent the past two years as a 22-year-old Peace Corps volunteer. “The people [...]

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Much as museums might make it seem, the past is not static. Its inhabitants no less frozen in amber or suspended in action poses as part of some done-up diorama than the scene outside your window at this very moment. Indeed, if there is one constant throughout history, it’s that humans move. In the process, [...]

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Upon earning her Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University, what Wadiya Udell wanted most was to give back to first-generation students in a small liberal arts college atmosphere like the one she had experienced as an undergraduate at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts. She had her eye on just the place. Perched high atop [...]

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If you want something done, do it yourself. But if you want something done right, do it together. That’s the driving ethos behind Zoe Barsness’ work as chair of the Faculty Senate, the legislative body of faculty consisting of 122 elected senators who, together with the president, formulate regulations and procedures that govern and guide [...]

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Will DePaolo studies bacteria, but his science goes viral. The associate professor of medicine’s videos exploring the bacterial science behind everyday objects have amassed millions of hits on BuzzFeed and led to appearances on The Today Show, but DePaolo, the director of the University of Washington’s new Center for Microbiome Sciences and Therapeutics (CMiST), says he [...]

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Growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Kathryn Topper thought she wanted to be an astronaut or astrophysicist. That was until tenth grade, when she fell in with a different crowd. This group made a habit of gathering late into the night to talk, sing, and drink—sometimes making a competition of flinging dregs of wine [...]

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Naomi Macalalad Bragin teaches dance. But you won’t find her teaching only steps. She’s more interested in what’s happening off-stage—underground and in the street. The assistant professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at the University of Washington Bothell is a performance ethnographer whose work places her at the convergence of dance, pop [...]

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To deliver the perfect presentation, prepare to embrace your mistakes. That’s the philosophy Tim Essington brings to Applied Improvisation for Science Communication, a course the professor of aquatic and fishery sciences developed to help scientists more confidently and effectively communicate their research. “Giving a good talk isn’t just what you put on your slides, it’s [...]

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For Michelle Martin, the Beverly Cleary Professor for Children and Youth Services at the University of Washington’s Information School, reading’s best lessons aren’t found in the book, but in the binding. “Sharing books is as much about relationship building as it is about skill development,” she says of literature’s connective quality. “There’s a difference between [...]

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Anaid Yerena’s textbook is out of date. But the assistant professor at University of Washington Tacoma’s School of Urban Studies wouldn’t have it otherwise. Yerena teaches the course “Housing in America” and the text in question, Introduction to Housing, was last published in 2006. “I need you to be reading this book within the context [...]

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