WSU students named finalists in NFL data competition

If you’ve never watched American football, it can look like organized chaos. But for WSU graduate students Namrata Ray and Jugal Marfatia, looking at data snapshots of plays allowed them to find hidden data inside the chaos. That eventually lead the duo to a trip to the 2020 National Football League’s Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. […]

Mapping natural and legal boundaries to help wildlife move

Wildlife need to move to survive: to find food, reproduce and escape wildfires and other hazards. Yet as soon as they leave protected areas like national forests or parks, they often wind up on a landscape that is very fragmented in terms of natural boundaries and human ones. To help create more corridors for wildlife […]

Engaging our statewide community

Over the course of the next four weeks, four WSU researchers will share their work and expertise with communities across the state of Washington. They are members of the Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau and the initial cohort of WSU Foley Fellows. Speakers Bureau talks are free public presentations on history, politics, music, philosophy, and everything in […]

Music review: Giants in the Trees

In their simply titled sophomore offering, Giants in the Trees have established their stride. Jillian Raye, Erik Friend, Ray Prestegard, and Krist Novoselić (’16 Soc. Sci.) have spent more than two years honing their sound—from the old creamery building where they practice to last year’s inaugural Thing festival in Port Townsend. Their second album—heavier, stronger, […]

BAM! Documenting creativity, action, and art in the 1960s

The Black Arts Movement of Chicago is the subject of a documentary by two WSU Vancouver associate professors of English, Thabiti Lewis and Pavithra Narayanan. The 50-minute film took four years to make. It’s quick-cut style keeps viewers riveted and hungry to learn more about a period of American history that birthed a rich aesthetic […]

The sky isn’t falling

More than a few citizens held their breath when Washington legalized recreational cannabis in 2012. “There were many who believed it would trigger a massive increase in youth use and marijuana-related traffic collisions and fatalities,” says Clay Mosher, sociology professor at WSU Vancouver. “But in the five years since sales began, those increases in youth […]

Documenting the collapse of the white-lipped peccary

White-lipped peccaries of Central America have declined by as much as 90% from their historical range, signaling a population collapse of a key species in the region, according to a study by WSU researchers and colleagues published recently in the journal Biological Conservation. “White-lipped peccary populations are in more of a critical condition than previously […]

Solar energy really gets rolling

WSU physicist Brian Collins explores the nano structures of polymers—large molecules with many repeating units. Most of us know polymers from everyday life as plastics. Because they’re flexible, polymers can be used to make all sorts of electronic devices, such as phones—or solar panels. Primarily made of carbon, one of the first big success stories […]

Dr. Universe: Why won’t sea turtles lay eggs in the ocean?

Sea turtles spend almost their entire lives in the ocean. Even as babies, sea turtles’ bodies have special traits for living at sea, helping them glide and paddle through the water. After emerging from their eggs, baby sea turtles (called “hatchlings”) scramble to the ocean to live the rest of their lives. Only female sea […]