The ������Ƶ and Microsoft have announced the expansion of their long‑standing partnership uniting world-class academic research with world-leading technology. UW and Microsoft aim to accelerate AI discovery, prepare students and workers for an AI-driven economy, and help communities understand and use AI responsibly.

The announcement, made today by UW President Robert J. Jones and Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith during an event at the UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, will increase the University’s access to the most advanced AI computing power, expand internship and applied research opportunities for its students, and develop community AI literacy programs, including a foundational AI course for working Washingtonians.

“Our long-standing partnership with Microsoft demonstrates what’s possible when universities and industry come together to support students and our society, and we are grateful for their continued support,” Jones said. “Together, we’re expanding students’ access to hands-on learning, advancing AI research and strengthening our workforce.”

This announcement builds on Microsoft’s decades-long support of the University, including $165 million of investments in student scholarships and enhancements to the UW’s world-leading computer science and engineering programs. In tandem with ongoing state and federal support, these investments have helped increase access to education and contributed to the state’s highly skilled workforce.

“President Jones has outlined a bold vision for the ������Ƶ, one that expands access and affordability in higher ed, forges radical partnerships and strengthens civic health,” Smith said. “It’s essential that this vision includes broad access to AI technology and the skills to use it, so students, workers and communities across Washington are prepared for this new era of computing and can share fully in its benefits.”

The timing of the announcement comes as forecasts predict a need to fill 1.5 million job vacancies in Washington by 2032 — about 640,000 new jobs and 910,000 openings due to retirements, according to Partnership for Learning. Up to 75% of those vacancies will require post-secondary credentials, with four-year and advanced degrees in highest demand. If current trends hold, experts predict a shortfall of nearly 600,000 credentialed workers in Washington over the decade.

“It’s critical that industry, colleges and universities, and policy makers continue to work together to maintain the region’s economy and climate of innovation and discovery,” Smith said. “That includes avoiding going backward by making cuts to core state funding that would make a college degree less accessible to our state’s students.”

The budgets proposed by the Washington State Legislature’s majorities would keep funding for the UW largely stable. Historically, the Legislature has created a fertile environment for workforce growth and training through the Washington Workforce Education Investment Act (WEIA) and the Washington State Opportunity Scholarship (WSOS).

Since passage in 2019, with support from Microsoft and other business leaders, the WEIA has generated more than $2 billion in dedicated funding to expand higher education access in Washington.�� WSOS — a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership in which private employers contribute philanthropic dollars that are matched by the State of Washington to expand access to higher education in high-demand fields — has delivered nearly $150 million in total scholarships statewide, combining private donations and state matching funds. One-third of WSOS scholars attend the UW.

“These new elements of our partnership with Microsoft continue to position the UW and our state as leaders in access to higher education and at the forefront of the emerging technologies that can drive broad-based prosperity,” Jones said.

Microsoft and the UW’s expanded partnership will:

• Provide faculty, researchers and students with access to advanced computing capabilities that enable modern AI training, experimentation and research, and instruction. Microsoft is supplementing this effort by donating Microsoft Azure cloud computing credits to help accelerate the development of a research cloud computing platform.
• Launch a new initiative to connect UW faculty, visiting professors and students with real-world research opportunities at Microsoft. This is based on a new “research marketplace” that will be established and supported by Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab. It will be complemented by 10 additional graduate student-researcher slots per year — eight through the Microsoft Research organization and two in the AI for Good Lab.
• Support undergraduate students as they become civic leaders, helping them build ethical judgment, digital citizenship and agency to co-design how emerging technologies, including AI, will serve communities and democracy.
• Join forces with UW’s Continuum College, an institution serving more than 50,000 learners annually through 400 programs serving young people, working adults and senior citizens. The UW and Microsoft will develop programming that helps Washingtonians navigate AI-related workforce transitions with confidence and purpose. This collaboration will result in new courses and other learning pathways focused on career resilience, evolving job demands and navigating the challenges that accompany shifting career identities.
• Beginning this fall, the UW and Microsoft will launch a new collaboration on Microsoft’s Redmond campus that reimagines how universities and industry work together. This part of the work will deepen workforce‑connected education and applied learning. The collaboration will support the co‑development of select courses and learning experiences for Microsoft employees navigating rapid AI‑driven change, while enabling UW students to learn alongside industry professionals and gain real‑world insight as part of their academic experience. Additional details will be announced later this year.

Since becoming the UW’s 34th president in August 2025, President Jones has set out three key priorities for the University: increasing access to education, including through the goal of making a UW degree debt-free for Washington undergraduates; spurring radical collaborations with businesses and communities to advance positive change; and eliminating any artificial barriers between the University and the communities it serves.

Along with strategic planning underway at the UW, Jones is engaging with corporate and civic leaders, as well as organizations throughout the region, to expand existing partnerships with the UW. Through these relationships, he aims to support access and affordability for students and the economic vitality and social fabric of Washington state and beyond.

For more information, contact Victor Balta at balta@uw.edu.

The ������Ƶ’s incoming classes were welcomed Sunday at the University’s 42nd annual New Student Convocation inside Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.�� The ceremony was attended by thousands of students, family and friends.

Welcome, ������Ƶ! Thousands of incoming @uofwa.bsky.social students gathered for an annual 'W' formation today after kicking off the school year with a convocation ceremony. #newhuskies2025 #uwdawgdazeMedia assets: drive.google.com/drive/folder…

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Preliminary figures show the incoming freshman class will be about 7,175 students, with around 4,550 from Washington.�� An additional 1,650 transfer students are expected to arrive this fall, including 1,375 of whom will be from Washington community colleges, according to preliminary university data. All figures are approximate. Official census information is announced later in the quarter.

New Student Convocation is one of two landmark occasions where the University president, the Board of Regents, the deans of the schools and colleges and the faculty gather for an academic ceremony focused on students. The other, of course, is the graduation ceremony, Commencement. These two events are the seminal “bookend” events of a college career.

Following the early morning ceremony, incoming students formed a giant block “W” on the field inside Husky stadium.

UW professor of aeronautics and astronautics took a ride Wednesday morning aboard a U.S. Navy Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet — better known as one of the Blue Angels flight demonstration squadron.��

Shortly before 9 a.m., the Blue Angel jet with Hermanson aboard roared above the UW. Back safely on the ground, Hermanson said he enjoyed talking with the pilot and encountering firsthand what it’s like to to fly aboard high-performance jet aircraft. He experienced an afterburner takeoff, very tight turns and flying up-side down.

“The actual maneuverings are really something,” Hermanson said. “We got up to 7.5 Gs during one of those turns.”

Hermanson is known for his decades of research on topics related to jet and spacecraft propulsion, but this was his first time flying at about 700 mph in a Navy jet. During his time at UW, Hermanson’s been a big supporter of the Navy at the UW: He has hosted high-ranking Navy officials and helped showcase many Navy career opportunities for students.��

During Wednesday’s flight, Hermanson told the pilot that he teaches students about acceleration, wing loading and other principles, but his time flying with the Blue Angels will add a deeper dimension.

“I could tell students what it is actually like, the high level of technology, the teamwork needed to make the flight possible and the importance of the Navy to our nation,” Hermanson said.

Former UW President Mark Emmert, who left the UW in 2010, was the last UW faculty member invited to fly aboard the Blue Angels.

The Blue Angels are in Seattle for the annual Seafair Weekend Festival and the Boeing Seafair Air Show.

A new era of astronomy and astrophysics began Monday when the first images captured by the NSF–DOE were released, demonstrating the extraordinary capabilities of the new telescope and the world’s largest digital camera.

Officials in Washington, D.C., unveiled large, ultra-high-definition images and videos, as well as discoveries of thousands of new asteroids. Astronomers and researchers around the world watched along at viewing parties, including at the ������Ƶ’s Planetarium.

The images offer a preview of the most comprehensive census of the solar system scientists have ever conducted, and a peek into the exponential increase in discoveries and understanding of the cosmos this new telescope will make possible.

The UW was one of the founding members of Rubin’s ambitious undertaking and will play a key role in making sense of the discoveries. UW scientists and engineers were critical in advocating for the project, designing the observatory and developing the software that will analyze the petabytes of data from Rubin’s telescope, including the asteroid discovery algorithms.

“������Ƶ faculty recognized early on that dreaming big about Rubin’s capabilities and leading the scientific charge would shape our knowledge of the solar system and propel innovation in data science not only in astrophysics but also across disciplines,” said UW Provost Tricia R. Serio. “We often talk about the impact the UW is making here and around the world. This project will take us far into space and give us information about the very origins of the universe and set the stage for future discoveries we can’t even imagine today.”

From its peak in the Chilean Andes, Rubin’s Simonyi Survey Telescope will scan the sky with its 8.4-meter mirror and enormous 3,200-megapixel camera, the largest digital camera in the world. The telescope’s sight path, the pace and frequency of observations and the vast field of vision required a new type of discovery algorithm to reliably make sense of the troves of data collected. Scientists and researchers at the UW worked across disciplines to evolve data science and computer science to meet Rubin’s demands.

In 2017, the UW — with founding support from the Charles and Lisa Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences — established the , or DiRAC. The Institute, part of the , aims to be an interdisciplinary hub to address fundamental questions about the origins and evolution of the universe. Leaders recognized that the future of astrophysics relied on using software as the chief instrument for this exploration. Combined with the UW’s and the deep connections to the Pacific Northwest’s tech community, DiRAC has developed a global reputation for working toward new discoveries.

As the Rubin sets out on a 10-year mission to conduct the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), software created at the UW will be pivotal as scientists advance understanding of the cosmos and the origins of the solar system. UW’s faculty, students and staff have played key roles in the construction of this new facility They’ve also been pivotal in developing the algorithms that keep the telescope image sharp and creating the codes for mapping the solar system and discovering the most energetic and rarest phenomena in what astrophysicists call the ” UW’s , a professor of astronomy, is the director of the federally-funded Rubin Construction Project.��

Unlike other telescopes — which tend to focus and “zoom in” on a few objects of interest — Rubin is alone in the capability to quickly and repeatedly map the entire visible sky.��

“Rubin has the unprecedented capacity to capture the cosmos,” said , a professor of astronomy and director of UW’s . He’s also the co-principal investigator of the supported LSST Interdisciplinary Network for Collaboration and Computing (LINCC) Frameworks program to develop state-of-the-art analysis techniques capable of meeting Rubin’s scale and complexity.

“Rubin will deliver the largest map the universe ever made: tens of billions of galaxies, billions of stars and millions of new small bodies in our own solar system. It’s a data analysis endeavor of epic proportions,” Connolly said.��

For each object Rubin observes, there will be much more than a static image, the technology will produce a thousand-frame movie: trillions of measurements of billions of objects, said , a research associate professor and the science lead of Rubin’s time-domain software team.

“With these data, scientists will better understand the universe, chronicle its evolution, and delve into science ranging from dangerous asteroids to the mysteries of dark energy,” Bellm said.

For example, the UW’s team helped create simulation software to predict Rubin’s discoveries. The research found that the telescope will map more than 5 million main-belt asteroids, 127,000 near-Earth objects, 109,000 Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit, 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects and about 2,000 Centaurs, or orbit-crossing objects.��

These objects, revealed in color and in more detail than was previously possible, help tell the story of the solar system’s origins, said , a professor of astronomy and the principal investigator of UW’s Rubin team.

Juric said that Rubin will help answer some fundamental questions: How did the planets form? Is there an unknown planet hiding in the outskirts of our solar system? Did comets bring water to the Earth? Or asteroids? And are there any that could still collide with us today?

“The first look we share today is a glimpse into the transformational capacity Rubin will bring to answer questions like these,” Juric said.

The work to support the Rubin Observatory hasn’t been limited to UW faculty. Numerous UW undergraduate and doctoral students have played contributing roles, authoring important journal articles, developing simulation software and writing complex computer codes.��

Exposure to the LSST has helped prepare students to succeed post graduation, whether applying for work in industry or moving onto advanced academic degrees.

“Developing cloud-based analytics platforms, or building pipelines to process large amounts of imaging data, are skills that allow one to do not just cutting-edge astronomy but also any other data-intensive problem,” said Steven Stetzler, who recently completed doctoral work at UW and now holds a postdoctoral appointment at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

For more information, contact Juric at mjuric@uw.edu or James Davenport at jrad@uw.edu.��

������Ƶ President Ana Mari Cauce inspired graduates at the UW’s 150th Commencement ceremony on Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium on Saturday.

Cauce delivered her final address before ending her 10-year run as president and returning to the faculty.

“Graduates — right here, right now you stand on the edge of possibility, and you will be confronted with choices, challenges and opportunities that none of us can begin to imagine,” Cauce said. “That’s why all of us on this stage and in the audience are not only proud of your achievements, we are grateful — because the world urgently needs your voices and efforts.”

More than 7,400 UW graduates of the Class of 2025 — the most ever to pre-register — participated. About 50,000 family members and friends cheered the graduates from the Husky Stadium grandstands.

UW Tacoma held its commencement June 13 at the Tacoma Dome. UW Bothell’s graduation ceremonies are scheduled for June 15 at Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

See highlights from Husky Stadium, Hec Edmundson Pavilion and the Tacoma Dome in the photo gallery below.

President Cauce presented nearly 18,833 degrees to the Class of 2025 across all three UW campuses’ ceremonies. Members of the UW Board of Regents, deans and other representatives of the University’s 24 colleges and schools across all three campuses also will participate in the ceremonies.

The following data, drawn from preliminary information broken down by campus and prepared by the Office of the University Registrar, was presented at the Board of Regents’ June 12 meeting:��

• For work completed at the��Seattle��campus, about 15,412 degrees will be conferred, specifically: 8,712 bachelor’s degrees, 5,161 master’s degrees, 589 professional degrees, 17 Educational Specialist degrees, and 933 doctoral degrees.��
• ������UW Bothell, about 1,663 degrees will be conferred, including 1,425 bachelor’s degrees and 238 master’s degrees.��
• And at��UW Tacoma,��students will receive about 1,758 degrees, including 1,393 bachelor’s degrees, 350 master’s degrees, 12 Educational Specialist degrees and three doctoral degrees.��

Degrees are awarded to those who have completed academic requirements during the 2024-2025 academic year. Many colleges and schools also hold separate graduation programs and investiture ceremonies.��

An associated video has been removed from this post.

As Baby Boomers hit retirement, about is now over the age of 65. The number of Americans living with dementia is — but the proportion of older Americans who develop dementia has actually decreased. The exact reason why is uncertain, but various lifestyle and environmental factors can of cognitive decline.����

One recently discovered risk is air pollution. exposure to a type of air pollution called fine particulate matter, or PM2.5, with an increased risk of developing dementia, and researchers suspect that some sources of PM2.5 may pose a greater risk than others.��

New research led by the ������Ƶ found that wildfire smoke is especially hazardous. An analysis of the health care records of 1.2 million Southern California residents found that higher long-term smoke exposure was associated with a significant increase in the odds that a person would be diagnosed with dementia.������

The researchers at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in July and

“There have been studies that have found total PM2.5 is related to people developing dementia, but no one had looked specifically at wildfire PM2.5,” said lead author , a UW associate professor of environmental & occupational health sciences. “Wildfire smoke is a different animal, in that it’s much spikier. There are many days where there’s no wildfire smoke, and there are some days where exposure is really, really extreme.”��

Researchers analyzed the health records of 1.2 million members aged 60 and older of Kaiser Permanente Southern California between 2008 and 2019, all of whom were free from dementia at the start of the study period. They estimated each person’s long-term exposure to both wildfire and non-wildfire PM2.5 as a three-year rolling average, and then identified people who received a dementia diagnosis.��

Researchers found that for every 1 microgram per cubic meter (µg/m3) increase in three-year average wildfire PM2.5 concentration, the odds of a dementia diagnosis increased by 18%. Exposure to non-wildfire PM2.5 also increased a person’s risk of dementia, but to a much lesser degree.����

“One microgram per meter cubed might sound fairly small, but we have to think about how people are exposed to wildfire smoke,” Casey said. “Most days they aren’t exposed at all, so this might represent a few days of exposure at a concentration of something like 300 µg/m3, where the AQI is over 200 in someone’s community. When you think about it, it’s actually a few really severe wildfire smoke days that might translate into increased risk.”��

That risk further increased among racialized people and those living in high-poverty census tracts, following long-term trends in which vulnerable populations often experience disproportionate effects of environmental hazards. The authors suggested that disparities might be related to lower-quality housing, which can increase the amount of smoke that enters people’s homes, or lower-income families’ inability to afford air filtration systems.����

The study period does not include the summers of 2020 and 2021, which produced the most recorded in California. The climate crisis has the frequency and severity of wildfires across the American West, introducing “smoke season” in many West Coast regions The influx of smoke has at air quality improvements made over the last century.��

“The main culprit here is climate change,” Casey said. “It’s a global problem. While individuals can protect themselves with air filters and masks, we need a global solution to climate change. It’s going to have to be many-pronged��— many people have to be involved to solve this highly complex problem.”��

Co-authors on this study are Holly Elser of the University of Pennsylvania; Timothy Frankland of the Kaiser Permanente Hawaii Center for Integrated Health Research; Chen Chen and Tarik Benmarhnia of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego; Sara Tartof and Gina Lee of Kaiser Permanente Southern California; Elizabeth Rose Mayeda of UCLA; Dr. Alexander Northrop of Columbia University; and Jacqueline Torres of UC San Francisco. This research was funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences.��

The ������Ƶ welcomed its incoming class and their families on Sunday at the University’s annual New Student Convocation, which was held in Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

The incoming class is expected to consist of about 7,150 students. Official information about class size and make up is announced later in the quarter.

Welcome, ������Ƶ! Thousands of incoming students gathered at Husky Stadium for an annual ‘W’ formation today after kicking off the school year with a convocation ceremony.

— UW News (@uwnews)

, associate professor, Comparative History of Ideas, was the featured speaker. A Scottish immigrant and first-generation college grad, Mackenzie, who uses they/she pronouns, joined the UW in 2002. In 2024, they received the University’s Distinguished Teaching Award, given to faculty who exemplify a commitment to inclusive teaching and serve as mentors to other faculty.

UW President Ana Mari Cauce, members of the Board of Regents, the deans of the 16 schools and colleges, and faculty members were�� in attendance.

and are also welcomed students back to campus with a string of activities, including Convocation ceremonies.

Husky Kickoff was held at Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium, where incoming students participated in the anticipated annual tradition of forming a giant block “W” on the field.

Fast facts:

• Preliminary figures show the incoming��freshman class��is expected to be about��7,150��students.
• Around��4,625��freshmen will be from Washington state.
• An additional 1,550 transfer students are expected to arrive this fall, about 1,300 of whom will be from Washington community colleges.
• UW Bothell and UW Tacoma also welcomed their incoming classes with about 1,170 and 700 freshmen, and about 630 and 715 transfer students expected, respectively.

Mild fall temperatures this week helped welcome the first group of students who moved into ������Ƶ residence halls and apartments. More than 10,000 students are expected to live in UW housing this year, including more than 77.5% of the freshman class. This year’s incoming class is expected to be around 7,150, according to preliminary information.

Given the high volume of move-ins, UW Housing & Food Services coordinated efforts to make the process run smoothly, including assigned move-in appointments and detailed instructions for families on how to get students unloaded and settled into their rooms.

“We want our students and their families to know that we’re expecting them. And we’re really excited that they’re here,” said Pamela Schreiber, assistant vice president for Student Life and executive director of UW Housing & Food Services. “We are very proud of the residential experience that we offer students, and we know that it adds to their success and their connection to the university, as well as their connection with others, which is so important.”

UW President Ana Mari Cauce greeted students Tuesday afternoon near Denny Field, and Provost Tricia Serio will welcome more students Thursday morning. Move-ins are scheduled to take place through the end of the week.

It’s once again mini fridge season at the as students move into campus housing and prepare for the new academic year. 💜💛

— UW News (@uwnews)

The week will culminate with the New Student Convocation ceremony, which will include an official Husky welcome to the new class from President Cauce and other campus leaders, including the Board of Regents and deans of all 16 UW schools and colleges. The ceremony will start at 10 a.m. Sunday in Alaska Airlines Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion and be live streamed . Later in the afternoon, new students are invited to participate in forming a giant “W” on Alaska Airlines Field at Husky Stadium, as part of the annual Husky Kickoff celebration.

Fall quarter classes begin Wednesday, Sept. 25. ����

For more information on move-in week, contact Jackson Holtz at jjholtz@uw.edu.

One of the drawbacks of fitness trackers and other wearable devices is that their batteries eventually run out of juice. But what if in the future, wearable technology could use body heat to power itself?

UW researchers have developed a flexible, durable electronic prototype that can harvest energy from body heat and turn it into electricity that can be used to power small electronics, such as batteries, sensors or LEDs. This device is also resilient — it still functions even after being pierced several times and then stretched 2,000 times.

The team published Aug. 30 in Advanced Materials.

“I had this vision a long time ago,” said senior author , UW assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “When you put this device on your skin, it uses your body heat to directly power an LED. As soon as you put the device on, the LED lights up. This wasn’t possible before.”

Traditionally, devices that use heat to generate electricity are rigid and brittle, but Malakooti and team so that it can conform to the shape of someone’s arm.

This device was designed from scratch. The researchers started with simulations to determine the best combination of materials and device structures and then created almost all the components in the lab.

It has three main layers. At the center are rigid thermoelectric semiconductors that do the work of converting heat to electricity. These semiconductors are surrounded by 3D-printed composites with low thermal conductivity, which enhances energy conversion and reduces the device’s weight. To provide stretchability, conductivity and electrical self-healing, the semiconductors are connected with printed liquid metal traces. Additionally, liquid metal droplets are embedded in the outer layers to improve heat transfer to the semiconductors and maintain flexibility because the metal remains liquid at room temperature. Everything except the semiconductors was designed and developed in .

In addition to wearables, these devices could be useful in other applications, Malakooti said. One idea involves using these devices with electronics that get hot.

“You can imagine sticking these onto warm electronics and using that excess heat to power small sensors,” Malakooti said. “This could be especially helpful in data centers, where servers and computing equipment consume substantial electricity and generate heat, requiring even more electricity to keep them cool. Our devices can capture that heat and repurpose it to power temperature and humidity sensors. This approach is more sustainable because it creates a standalone system that monitors conditions while reducing overall energy consumption. Plus, there’s no need to worry about maintenance, changing batteries or adding new wiring.”

These devices also work in reverse, in that adding electricity allows them to heat or cool surfaces, which opens up another avenue for applications.

“We’re hoping someday to add this technology to virtual reality systems and other wearable accessories to create hot and cold sensations on the skin or enhance overall comfort,” Malakooti said. “But we’re not there yet. For now, we’re starting with wearables that are efficient, durable and provide temperature feedback.”

Additional co-authors are , a UW doctoral student in mechanical engineering, and , who completed this research as a UW postdoctoral scholar in mechanical engineering and is now an assistant professor at Izmir Institute of Technology. Malakooti and Han are both members of the UW Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems. This research was funded by the National Science Foundation, Meta and The Boeing Company.

For more information, contact Malakooti at malakoot@uw.edu.

Everyone is watching women’s sports. From the record-breaking of the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball title game to the two , and even , female athletes are finally having their moment.

Even though there’s much to celebrate, there are still some huge gaps. Pay is one example, with . Several common injuries also seem to haunt women’s sports, such as the ACL tears that . An ACL tear is two to eight times in the same sports.

, a ������Ƶ assistant professor of mechanical engineering, studies differences between how male and female tissues recover after sports injuries. Specifically, Robinson is interested in designing better methods to help female athletes train to prevent and recover from injuries.

With the Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony upcoming on July 26, UW News asked Robinson, who is also the endowed chair in women’s sports medicine and lifetime fitness in the orthopaedics and sports medicine department in the UW School of Medicine, to discuss common injuries for female athletes and how her research field is working to address them.

Let’s talk about ACL tears. We seem to hear about them happening in a variety of sports. Why?

ACL tears are extremely common in activities that require cutting, pivoting, quick turns of directions (high strain rate) and/or high-contact sports. We see this injury often in sports such as soccer, basketball, rugby, downhill skiing and football. I tore my ACL and my lateral meniscus playing soccer when I was 12 years old.

Why is it more common for women to tear their ACL?

There are many possible reasons including anatomical differences that lead to altered biomechanics, differences in tissue structure and properties, and sex hormone differences, including fluctuations that occur in women during the menstrual cycle.

How are ACL tears typically treated?

If the ACL is completely torn, it needs to be reconstructed. One method involves grafting a tendon from another part of the body. For example, using patellar or hamstring tendons are some of the most common options. But this can lead to additional risk for injury at the donor site — I strain my hamstring often because my hamstring tendon was used to repair my ACL tear.

Sometimes the reconstructions are torn again, which requires revision surgery. It’s not career-ending the first time this happens, but any subsequent injuries and/or post-traumatic osteoarthritis can make this career ending.

What makes an injury career-ending for female athletes?

I was just reading up on Olympian ’s total knee replacement this past spring. She’s 39 years old and the typical age range for these types of surgeries is 60 to 70 years old. She’s had so many knee surgeries to treat multiple ACL, MCL and meniscus tears. That is career-ending.

This is personal for me. When I tore my ACL and meniscus, my orthopedic surgeon told me to stop playing soccer — I was 12 years old — to reduce the risk of additional injuries or post-traumatic osteoarthritis. When I was 16, I went back to the doctor with pain and they confirmed it was post-traumatic osteoarthritis. They told me again to just stop playing soccer, insinuating this wasn’t a major part of my life, a part of my identity, something I could make into a career.

If there has ever been a time to invest in ACL injury prevention, it’s now. For professional athletes, tracking ACL risk is critical for reducing the likelihood of degenerative conditions after acute injuries. These steps ensure athletes have long careers, livelihood and support for their families. Understanding ACL injury risk is also important for non-professionals, youth athletes, parents and coaches as well. It ensures a lifetime of peak physical and mental health.

How does your research focus on female athletes’ recovery from injuries?

We may think we know how women’s bodies operate. But we don’t. Most of the research is based on men’s bodies or bodies of undisclosed sex. Also, much of the research is based on what’s happening at the tissue and joint level without considering how the cells within the tissue are responding based on hormonal and mechanical signaling cues. But changes at the cellular level happen first and then lead to changes at the tissue level.

My research group is trying to determine what cues lead to tissue scarring versus regeneration so that we can develop processes that inhibit scarring and promote regeneration. How do sex hormones and mechanical cues regulate tissue structure and function? What happens to the cells in these tissues when there are different mechanical or hormonal changes?

We need this information to be able to design methods that reduce or prevent injury, provide clearer and more patient-specific surgical and therapy recommendations, and develop techniques to promote functional regeneration and reduce scarring.

Women’s sports are also having a moment in your research field. You’ve been attending multiple conferences that focus on women’s health and engineering. What are these conferences like?

This past summer I have been part of two meetings that bring together professionals in engineering for women’s health — the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance: Transforming Women’s Health Outcomes Through Engineering meeting and the ElevateHER meeting. They are both supported by the National Science Foundation and they aim to define the major questions we need to tackle in the next 50 years, especially around developing strategies to understand female physiology and address conditions that disproportionally impact women.

While I’m in these meetings, my thoughts have gone something like this:

• I’m so happy to be in a room with all these amazing researchers focused on women’s health! I’m pumped to continue working on these major questions
• Wow, there are so many basic questions that we don’t have any clue how to answer
• Oh, but the people in this meeting can figure it all out
• Wait, they don’t know how to approach these questions either
• Ahhh, we have so much to do
• OK, but there is hope because people are working in areas that we previously were clueless about and doing some really impactful research
• Now that we all know each other we can brainstorm and slowly but surely start to tackle these problems

This is a necessary step, and it’s been wonderful being in the same space with people who are all focused on women’s health and how to use engineering design principles and tools to tackle questions.

For more information, contact Robinson at jrobins1@uw.edu.