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��ɫ��Ƶ further solidifies ranking as top 20 graduate engineering program

Michael Kwolek — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 20:03:22 +0000

��ɫ��Ƶ further solidifies ranking as top 20 graduate engineering program Michael Kwolek Wed, 04/16/2025 - 14:03

��ɫ��Ƶ ranks number 11 among public university peers for its engineering graduate programs according to U.S. News and World Report Best Graduate Schools rankings for 2025-26.

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Biodegradable nails make manicures more sustainable

Michael Kwolek — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 16:30:54 +0000

Biodegradable nails make manicures more sustainable Michael Kwolek Thu, 04/03/2025 - 10:30

ATLAS researchers developed press-on nails that are biodegradable, colorful and endlessly customizable with open-source technology and low-cost biomaterials for a more sustainable fashion moment.

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ATLAS PhD Kate Starbird wins PECASE award for research on crisis informatics and disinformation

Michael Kwolek — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 17:50:44 +0000

ATLAS PhD Kate Starbird wins PECASE award for research on crisis informatics and disinformation Michael Kwolek Mon, 02/03/2025 - 10:50

Michael Kwolek

The ATLAS community is excited to learn that Kate Starbird, PhD (Technology, Media and Society ‘12) was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

The PECASE Award is the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on outstanding scientists and engineers beginning their independent careers. The awards are conferred annually at the White House following recommendations from participating agencies.

Now associate professor at the University of Washington in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering, Starbird came to ATLAS on the recommendation of Bobby Schnabel, Computer Science department external chair and professor. She had a BS in computer science and a desire to broaden her expertise. The ATLAS Technology, Media and Society program (now Creative Technology and Design) seemed the perfect fit.

Schnabel recalls, “I was fortunate to meet Kate in summer 2006 connected to a visit to Seattle for the National Center for Women & Information Technology. Kate had just finished her professional basketball career and was exploring options for grad school, and from our discussion it was clear the multidisciplinary ATLAS PhD was a great fit for her interests. We were thrilled that she chose to enroll at CU, where she was a star student, and her career has blossomed ever since.”

Starbird began her research career with Leysia Palen, professor, founding faculty, Department of Information Science, who was conducting pioneering research in crisis informatics. They studied the use of social media during crisis events and developed mapping techniques to make the data useful to those affected, officials and volunteers. Together, they published the paper Working and sustaining the virtual "Disaster Desk" in CSCW 2013.

Over the years, Starbird found that rumors and misinformation spread on social media had become a bigger part of crisis events. Originally much of this was accidental, but in time it became clear that intentional disinformation was sinking into the infrastructure of social media. This has since become the greater focus of her research.

Palen was effusive in describing Starbird’s impact: “Kate demonstrated early on in her PhD degree that she is not only a gifted scholar, but a generous one. I saw it then and I see it today: as the leading pioneer in disinformation research, Dr. Starbird offers the fruits of her talents in ways that are intended to protect and improve our society. She is beloved and needed.”

Starbird notes the importance of the interdisciplinary nature of her work. “We're blending this understanding of technology, this understanding of media—and media is vastly reconfigured by internet technology and how it's been used in the last 15 to 25 years—and then the impacts, not just individually, but on society at large.”

This overlap of disciplines is signature of what makes ATLAS special. Our community members apply elements of engineering, design, and the humanities to analyze problems and develop sophisticated responses to them.

Design thinking is a key aspect of this approach. Starbird notes, “There are all sorts of folks that come into the space of studying mis- and disinformation from political science or other [disciplines]. I'm looking at what it is about the design of these information spaces and how people are using [them] that are shaping not just how information flows, but all of these other broader phenomena. So I do think design is critical in my work.”

Many of us can feel overwhelmed or even hopeless when it comes to navigating the current media landscape. From her perspective as a leading expert in the field of mis- and disinformation, Starbird offers some advice for staying engaged and informed:

I would approach information spaces right now with a lot of humility in the sense of not being overconfident about what you're seeing. We all have a tendency to think that the problem is someone else, and yet we know that there's a lot of misinformation out there. There's a lot of propaganda out there that individuals play a role in spreading. Sometimes that's aligned with where you want the world to go and then also in some cases, we become pawns in somebody else's political game.
In terms of how we approach information spaces, try not to tune everything out—I don't think that's a good idea. We need to be aware of what's happening. Definitely take breaks—there's a lot coming out. It can be really depressing at the moment for some of us and understanding that you don't want to be spending 24/7 in some of these information spaces, but do spend half an hour, spend an hour and be intentional about it.
I also don't want people to be too skeptical because [if] we get too skeptical of everything, then we tune out. Focus on learning what we can trust rather than not trusting anything. Try to build up a set of sources that you really feel you can trust. Look them up, look at who funds them. Where did they come from? How long have they been around? Spend some time with those.
When you go to social media, you don't get to determine what comes at you, especially if you're on TikTok and some of these algorithmic [platforms]. Be critical there, but also learn to find information sources that you can trust.

For more information on Kate Starbird’s work, refer to her page on the University of Washington website.

Photo credit: Doug Parry / University of Washington Information School

Kate Starbird (ATLAS PhD) was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the U.S. government’s highest honor for early-career researchers. Now an associate professor at the University of Washington, Starbird’s groundbreaking research in crisis informatics and disinformation highlights the value of interdisciplinary engineering and design.

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Students collaborate on NSF NCAR exhibit that highlights surprising climate science

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 21:45:27 +0000

Students collaborate on NSF NCAR exhibit that highlights surprising climate science Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/07/2024 - 15:45

Michael Kwolek

It’s one thing to study how the relief and albedo of the ice sheets affected weather patterns during the Last Glacial Maximum 20,000 years ago. And it’s a whole other thing to develop an interactive, engaging museum exhibit on the subject for general audiences. But that’s just what teams from the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR), NOAA and ATLAS managed to do.

Millennia ago, ice sheets formed over huge swaths of North America that were nearly as tall as some of our continent’s highest mountains. They were so massive that they essentially created their own weather.

Former CIRES postdoc Dillon Amaya (now at NOAA’s Physical Sciences Laboratory) studied these weather phenomena along with Kris Karnauskas, CIRES fellow and associate professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, with NSF funding.

Researchers long hypothesized that the ice’s massive scale during the Last Glacial Maximum was enough to block the jet stream and change weather patterns sweeping in from the Pacific Ocean. For example, back then the area around what is today Southern California was much wetter while the Pacific Northwest was relatively drier. Today that is reversed.

Through advanced computer simulations, the CIRES team discovered that albedo creates a cooling effect that alters atmospheric circulation in ways that cannot be explained solely by the sheer size of ice sheets. Albedo is a measure of the amount of light reflected off of a surface—and ice sheets reflect a lot of sunlight, significantly impacting wind patterns. The research showed the Pacific Ocean was the driver behind the changes.

Translating Complex Research
In spring 2022, ATLAS offered a class called Design a Science Exhibit for ATLAS and Computer Science students. It centered on designing approachable museum exhibits that translate hard science for everyday people. Led by ATLAS director Mark Gross and adjunct faculty member Wayne Seltzer in collaboration with Eddie Goldstein from the Denver Nature and Science Museum, student teams partnered with researchers and museum specialists to prototype exhibitions that incorporated coding, materials selection, fabrication and storytelling.

Gross notes, “We should be teaching our engineers to communicate with broad audiences, particularly around climate change. We might do good science and engineering, but we’re not always good at communicating it to the public.”

A team of ��ɫ��Ƶ students formed a group to translate the CIRES ice sheet research into an exhibit prototype, including, ATLAS PhD student, David Hunter; Natasha Smith (MS Environment, Environmental Policy); and ATLAS undergraduate students Caileigh Hudson, Logan Turner and Julia Tung.

Seltzer explains, “The research paper that inspired this exhibit is not all that accessible to readers who are not climate scientists. The students focused on what they decided was essential knowledge—the factors that result in an ice age and how computer models can help us predict climate change.”

Experimenting with Form
The team originally conceived of a sandbox as the project medium. As you moved the sand around to build different topographies, visual projections overlaid from above would show how weather patterns change. The idea made sense in theory, but practical stipulations (sand can be challenging to manage in a museum space) pushed the team in a different direction.

Hunter details this evolution, “We made little blocks that represent [topographic features], and then you could put the blocks on top of each other so you could sculpt [a landscape.] As a team, we went about designing and building the whole rig and had a prototype by the end of the semester, and we got to show it alongside everyone else's work at NCAR.”

NSF NCAR science educators were so impressed with the prototype that they invited the team to work on a permanent installation.

Making it Real

The biggest challenge then became orchestrating all the different people and components involved in developing a functional exhibit that could live for the long-term with as little ongoing maintenance as possible. Hunter notes, “There’s the digital prototype building, but then there’s the physical make-this-real part as well as the education part and ensuring visitors would get the right message.”

After two years of iterative collaboration with scientists, curators, coders, fabricators and educators, the exhibit is now officially on permanent display at the Mesa Lab Visitor’s Center. Thousands of guests each year will be able to explore how massive ice sheets can alter the climate in surprising ways.

Amaya related, “This was probably one of the most gratifying experiences of my scientific career. It's not often that a piece of research like this leads to such tangible educational outcomes, so I'm super proud of our team for seeing it through! It's my hope that this exhibit can help illustrate some of these exotic climate interactions so that visitors can leave with a better physical intuition for how and why things were so wildly different.”

If you go:

NSF NCAR Mesa Lab Visitor’s Center
1850 Table Mesa Drive
Boulder, CO

Free Admission

Hours:
Monday - Friday: 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. MT
Saturday, Sunday & Holidays: 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. MT

An interdisciplinary team transforms complex research into an interactive museum exhibit on how ice sheets influenced weather millennia ago.

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ATLAS PhD Shanel Wu completes Open Hardware Creators fellowship

Anonymous — Tue, 31 Oct 2023 18:08:55 +0000

ATLAS PhD Shanel Wu completes Open Hardware Creators fellowship Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/31/2023 - 12:08

Michael Kwolek

ATLAS PhD Shanel Wu recently concluded their participation in the Open Hardware Creators in Academia Fellowship, an initiative run by the Open Source Hardware Organization (OSHWA).

The fellowship, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, brought together nine diverse, passionate researchers in the open hardware field to create assets to assist other academics studying the topic, support the movement, foster collaboration and amplify the power of open hardware in academia. Wu says, "I was excited to be part of OSHWA's work in building an academic community in open hardware, especially because the organization has been so involved with promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion."

As a member of the ATLAS Unstable Design Lab, directed by assistant professor Laura Devendorf, Wu centered their PhD research on making things that are both useful and beautiful, and exploring technical complexities through handcraft, including e-textiles, wearables and unique materials with embedded electronics. This culminated in their recently-published dissertation, Retooling E-Textiles for Coproduction: Weaving Circuitry as Cloth.

Wu embarked on an extensive set of research outputs through the course of the fellowship, including talks, essays, documentation and articles, with particular focus on Loom Pedals, an open-source customizable interface for a Jacquard loom, designed to promote improvisation and experimentation for makers. In this work, Wu relates, "I learned to trust in my ability to contribute to my field and to have confidence in my value as a researcher."

An open-source approach to research and tool development is particularly important to Wu as they “believe in sharing knowledge outside of traditional institutions as widely as possible, [as the] work will be more impactful if it is openly available.”

According to OSHWA, the fellowship program has achieved critical outcomes including:

Innovative Designs: Participants have designed cutting-edge open source solutions in fields ranging from robotics and electronics to museum studies and environmental monitoring.
Open Source Resources: A wealth of educational materials, guides and documentation has been created, making open source more accessible to the broader academic community and beyond.
Community Building: The program has fostered a global network of open source enthusiasts, encouraging collaborative research, idea exchange and support.
Increased Visibility: The fellowship has increased the visibility of open source research in academia, contributing to the global conversation about open science and technology in academia.

Wu has now embarked on post-doc research at Carleton College in Ottawa as Research Associate in the Creative Interactions Lab working on wearable technologies and accessibility. The lab, headed by professor and Associate Dean (Research), Audrey Girouard, studies computer-human interaction through the lens of deformable materials and flexible displays. On this new endeavor, Wu says, "Working in the HCI accessibility space will be a great opportunity to do more community-based research, while continuing to explore textiles and handcraft in wearables."

ATLAS PhD Shanel Wu recently concluded their participation in the Open Hardware Creators in Academia Fellowship, an initiative run by the Open Source Hardware Organization (OSHWA).

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Radically Interdisciplinary Research on Display at ATLAS Open House

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 20:51:30 +0000

Radically Interdisciplinary Research on Display at ATLAS Open House Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/11/2023 - 14:51

Michael Kwolek

The ATLAS Institute is one of 12 research centers at ��ɫ��Ƶ, each of which is uniquely positioned to cut across the vertical hierarchy of colleges, departments and programs. Institutes are deliberately interdisciplinary, drawing faculty from several departments to embark on unconventional lines of inquiry.

Some of the most valuable research takes place in the overlaps, intersections and margins. “We believe really interesting stuff happens in the spaces between disciplines,” says Mark D Gross, ATLAS Director. The institute aims to find and explore more of these often-overlooked areas as they tend to attract amazing people—those who could easily work in conventional departments, but whose interests are broader and more disparate.

At ATLAS, we have researchers from computer science, mechanical engineering, information science, music and the humanities working in close proximity. Gross explains, “As a community, our backgrounds are quite diverse, and you’ll see that as you visit our labs and meet our faculty and their students. I like to say that we breed and attract technology visionaries and virtuosos: people who have wild ideas and the technical ability to realize those ideas themselves.”

We’ve seen this approach pay dividends. Of our eight research-active faculty members, three have NSF CAREER grants, considered among the most prestigious awards for teacher-scholars.

The ATLAS community has also recently garnered national media attention for a number of projects. Carson Bruns, director of the Laboratory for Emergent Nanotechnology, has been recognized for his work on tattoos that embed new technologies in the skin. Michael Rivera, director of the Utility Research Lab, has been spotlighted for research on transforming spent coffee grounds into a compostable 3D printing medium.

In addition, ATLAS member-authored papers won awards at leading conferences this year including VIS 2023 and CHI 2023.

We make tangible and digital tools and methods that shape how people interact with the world: things you can hold, wear, hear and play with; materials designers can use to realize their own visionary ideas; systems that change the way you interact with computers and the way computers interact with you. This manifests in disparate ways—from complex woven forms to innovative biomaterials to haptics that respond with emotion-driven gestures to music improvisation with sonified brainwaves.