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ISCRM and MoIES Scientific Exchange Fosters Cross-Institute Collaboration

February 3, 2026

Collaboration among mission-driven scientists from multiple disciplines and perspectives is a way of life in the University of Washington research community and a recognition that the greatest challenges our world faces are bigger than any single lab or institute can solve alone. In that spirit, more than 60 faculty and trainees from two of the largest multidisciplinary research institutes at the UW recently gathered in Foege Hall for the inaugural ISCRM – MolES Scientific Exchange – a meeting of the minds between the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine and the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute. [...]

Building batteries better

January 26, 2026

Looking beyond incremental innovations in energy storage technology, Jie Xiao wants to catalyze a robust domestic battery industry — from mining to manufacturing. Build a better mousetrap, the old saying goes, and the world will beat a path to your door. Build a better battery… and the multitudes should arrive in an endless stream of autonomous electric vehicles. Only, it’s not that simple with energy storage. Most battery innovations begin in academic environments that are designed for discovery rather than the cost, time and scale pressures of industry. [...]

UW ECE Professor Lih-Yuan Lin named National Academy of Inventors Fellow

January 22, 2026

The University of Washington Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (UW ECE) congratulates Professor Lih-Yuan Lin, who has been elected into the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) 2025 Class of Fellows. This distinction recognizes her outstanding work and lasting impact in nanotechnology, photonics, and optoelectronics — fields that are shaping the future of technology. Lin is one of only 10 UW faculty members to ever receive this honor. She will be formally inducted as an NAI Fellow and presented with a medal by a senior official of the United States Patent and Trademark Office at the NAI 15th Annual Conference on June 4, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. [...]

Microfluidics for the masses

January 5, 2026

In his new book, “How the World Flows,” Albert Folch explores the miniature liquid networks that power natural phenomena, essential innovations and advanced biomedical devices. Rainbows and rubber trees. Aquifers and fountain pens. Gauze pads and glucose strips. Candle wicks and carburetors. Pregnancy tests and 3D printers. Dialysis machines and DNA sequencers. What’s the common denominator? Each is enabled by microfluidics, miniature networks of liquids whose stable properties, at tiny scale, are essential to powering the natural world — and much of the manufactured world, too. And each is explored in Albert Folch’s new book, “How the World Flows,” which invites readers to peer through the microscope into what he calls the “Lilliputian world of fluids at small scales.” [...]

UW team uses extreme ultraviolet photolithography to create next-generation integrated circuits

November 19, 2025

November 19, 2025 Semiconductor devices are a critical component of the many electronics that power our daily lives. The technological innovations that have driven their widespread success have relied on manufacturing smaller and smaller integrated circuits to build more powerful devices. The next generation of integrated circuit development will require features smaller than 10 nanometers, [...]

Plenty of Beauty at the Bottom: UW engineers create 2025’s Most Stunning microscope image at the MAF

November 6, 2025

November 5, 2025 | Nano-Engineered Systems Institute “Foam in Bloom”, by UW mechanical engineering graduate students Santhosh Sridhar (Microcellular Plastics Lab), Ankush Nandi (Vashisth Research Lab), and Shaunak Deshpande (Meza Research Group) was named the Most Stunning image in the 2025 Plenty of Beauty at the Bottom image contest hosted by the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure (NNCI). Sites from across the NNCI contributed stunning, unique, [...]

Advancing water treatment for a sustainable future

October 6, 2025

UW Chemical Engineering graduate student Joelle Scott, from the Bergsman Research Group, is working toward a more sustainable and equitable future through advanced materials research, testing new methods to remove toxic forever chemicals and other contaminants from wastewater. [...]

MolES students honored with top awards for research, service

September 22, 2025

September 22, 2025 The University of Washington’s Institute for Molecular Engineering and Sciences recognized outstanding graduate students in the spring with distinguished dissertation, scientific achievement and service awards. The awards were presented at the MolES graduation ceremony in June, where our Ph.D. graduates were also celebrated. Distinguished Dissertation Awards Sarah Wait, advised by Professor of [...]

UW MOLES welcomes 16 students to its 2025 Ph.D. cohort

September 11, 2025

The University of Washington Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute (MolES) is excited to introduce the newest cohort of Ph.D. candidates to the Molecular Engineering program. Get to know our new students. [...]

20250625_Green Concrete Roumeli Lab_0120_shrunk

Seaweed-infused cement could cut concrete’s carbon footprint

August 7, 2025

The modern world is built with concrete: Humans use more concrete annually than any other material besides water. Yet cement, the key component of concrete, is the source of as much as 10% of all carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. To address this problem, researchers at the University of Washington and Microsoft developed a new type of [...]

Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert elected to Washington State Academy of Sciences

July 23, 2025

Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert, professor of bioengineering and Vice Dean of Research and Graduate Education in the UW School of Medicine, for “national leadership in biomedical research, research policy, and graduate education, including pioneering novel drug delivery approaches for regenerative medicine applications in the nervous system and other tissues such as bone, cartilage, tendon and skin.” [...]

Characterization of Materials at the MAF

July 10, 2025

The Molecular Analysis Facility (MAF) is a state-of-the-art characterization facility that provides high end characterization tools to all users in the Pacific Northwest and beyond. The MAF Characterization Workshop, Aug. 4-5, includes lectures in the morning and instrument demonstrations in the afternoon. Due to the capacity of our lab space, the registration number is limited. The [...]

2025 MolES Pilot Awards fund three groundbreaking research initiatives

June 3, 2025

June 3, 2025 Three UW faculty teams received the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute’s (MolES) new Pilot Awards. These awards, sponsored by MolES, aim to seed new research initiatives and support preliminary data generation. A committee of MolES faculty chose the projects. Each team will receive up to $10,000 in funding to kickstart their work. [...]

Through Chemistry and 3D Printing, New Materials Emerge

April 1, 2025

April 1, 2025 Imagine a building material that becomes stronger when stress is applied. Imagine being able to produce medications on demand, anywhere, with a 3D printer. Imagine biodegradable plastics with the same durability — but more adaptability — than their petroleum-based counterparts. [...]

Chemical engineering professor and MolES member wins 2024 AVS Thin Film Young Investigator Award

March 20, 2025

David Bergsman, UW assistant professor of chemical engineering, has been named the 2024 recipient of the American Vacuum Society (AVS) Thin Film Division Paul Holloway Young Investigator Award. [...]

Xiaodong Xu awarded the National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Discovery

February 28, 2025

Xiaodong Xu, professor of physics in the College of Arts & Sciences and MolES member, was awarded the NAS Award for Scientific Discovery. [...]

Dianne Xiao named Sloan Fellow

February 18, 2025

Three University of Washington faculty members have been awarded early-career fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, including MolES member and assistant professor of chemistry, Dianne Xiao. [...]

Corie L. Cobb elected as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors

December 16, 2024

Corie L. Cobb, ME professor and Washington Research Foundation Innovation Professor in Clean Energy, has been named a 2024 Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI). NAI Fellowship is the highest professional distinction awarded solely to inventors. Those chosen for induction have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic inventors. [...]

MolES launches Pilot Awards to fuel groundbreaking interdisciplinary research

November 4, 2024

Nov. 4, 2024 Four UW faculty teams received the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute’s (MolES) new Pilot Awards. These awards aim to seed new research initiatives and support preliminary data generation. They are sponsored by MolES with matching funds from the Sepsis Center of Research Excellence (SCORE) and Kidney Research Institute (KRI). A four-member committee [...]

Revolutionizing Sustainable Materials: Strain Learning Metamaterials Inspired by Nature

October 30, 2024

Imagine a material that can be stretched and pulled out of shape that not only returns to its original shape but also grows stiffer and stronger each time. University of Washington researchers have developed a new “strain learning” metamaterial. Inspired by how nature strengthens materials—like how bones repair themselves or how spider silk becomes stronger when stressed—this innovation could significantly impact industries that rely on durable, adaptable materials, especially medicine. Their work, “Strain learning in protein-based mechanical metamaterials,” has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS). [...]