UPDATE April 7, 2026:聽The original version of this story omitted two 91探花programs that were included in the rankings: Occupational Therapy (Tied for 20th) and Physical Therapy (Tied for 31st).听

The 91探花鈥檚 graduate and professional degree programs again were recognized as among the best in the nation, according to .

Topping this year鈥檚 list include programs at the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, the School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering in the College of Engineering and the College of Education. The College of Arts & Sciences and the College of the Environment also had top-rated programs.

In total, 81 graduate and professional degree programs across the 91探花placed in the top 35 in this year鈥檚 U.S. News rankings.

“These rankings highlight the strength and impact of the 91探花鈥檚 graduate and professional programs,鈥� said 91探花President Robert J. Jones. 鈥淭hese programs equip students with the skills and knowledge to meet critical workforce needs and serve society, while demonstrating the power of higher education to advance the public good. We are proud to foster an environment where students and faculty can thrive and have a real impact on the world around them.鈥�

While the 91探花celebrates the success and impact of the programs recognized by U.S. News 鈥� and notes that many applicants use these rankings to help them select schools and discover potential areas of study 鈥� the University also recognizes shortcomings inherent in the ranking systems.

The 91探花School of Law and the 91探花School of Medicine withdrew from the U.S. News rankings in 2022 and 2023, respectively, citing concerns that some of the methodology in the rankings for those specific disciplines incentivize actions and policies that run counter to the schools鈥� public service missions.

91探花leaders continue to work with U.S. News and other ranking organizations to improve their methodologies, to the extent that the organizations are open to it. Schools, colleges and departments continually reevaluate the benefits and potential shortfalls of participating in specific rankings.

Excluding the School of Law and the School of Medicine, 29 91探花programs placed in the top 10, and 81 are in the top 35.

聽The 91探花this year placed in the top 10 nationwide in public affairs, biostatistics,聽 nursing, computer science, education, psychology, speech and language pathology, statistics and Earth sciences.

The UW鈥檚 Evans School of Public Policy & Governance has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade and tied for fifth in the nation this year. The Evans School鈥檚 environmental policy program was ranked second, while public finance and budgeting as well as leadership both ranked No. 10.

The 91探花School of Nursing鈥檚 doctor of nursing practice program tied for No. 1 among public institutions. The School of Public Health has maintained its top-10 ranking for more than a decade, coming in this year at No. 9. The school also had three programs in the top 10: biostatistics, environmental health sciences and epidemiology.听

The UW鈥檚 programs in speech and language pathology tied for No. 6.听 Two programs from the College of Education placed in the top 10. And the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering this year tied for seventh place overall with three programs ranked in the top 10, including artificial intelligence, programming language and systems.

U.S. News ranks biostatistics in two ways. 91探花ranked No. 3 as a science discipline that applies statistical theory and mathematical principles to research in medicine, biology, environmental science, public health and related fields. UW鈥檚 School of Public Health ranked No. 7 in biostatistics as an area of study that trains students to apply statistical principles and methods to problems in health sciences, medicine and biology. At the UW, biostatistics is a division of the School of Public Health.

In some cases, such as the College of Arts & Science and the Foster School of Business, U.S. News ranks several professional disciplines housed within academic units. Programs in dentistry are not ranked.听

The rankings below are based on preliminary data and may be updated. relies on both expert opinions and statistical indicators.

TOP 10:

Library and Information Studies (overall): Two-way tie for 1st (ranked in 2025)

Public Affairs (environmental policy): 2nd

Library and information studies (digital librarianship): Two-way for 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Library and Information Studies (information systems): 2nd (ranked in 2022)

Biostatistics: 3rd

Physics (nuclear): Two-way tie for 3rd (ranked in 2024)

Nurse practitioner (doctor of nursing practice): Four-way tie for 4th

Evans School of Public Policy & Governance (overall): Four-way tie for 5th

Library and Information Studies (library services for children and youth): Two-way for 5th (ranked in 2022)

Computer science (systems): Tied for 6th

Education (elementary education): 6th

Psychology (clinical): Three-way tie for 6th

Speech-language pathology: Five-way tie for 6th

Statistics: Four-way tie for 6th

Public Health (biostatistics): 7th

Computer science (overall): Three-way tie for 7th

Computer science (programming language): Tied for 7th

Education (secondary education): 7th

Nursing (midwifery): Five-way tie for 7th

Public Health (environmental health sciences): 7th

School of Social Work (overall): 7th (ranked in 2025)

Public Health (epidemiology): 8th

Computer science (artificial intelligence): 9th

Earth sciences: Tied for 9th聽

Geophysics: Three-way tie for 9th (ranked in 2024)

Public Affairs (nonprofit management): 9th

School of Public Health (overall): Tied for 9th

Public Affairs (public finance and budgeting): 10th

Public Affairs (public management and leadership): 10th

TOP 25:

Biological sciences: Five-way tie for 16th

Business (accounting): 10-way tie for 16th

Business (entrepreneurship): Five-way tie for 17th

Business (information systems): Three-way tie for 15th

Business (part-time MBA): Three-way tie for 11th

Business (full-time MBA): 20th

Business (management): Five-way tie for 25th

Business (marketing): Eight-way tie for 25th

Chemistry (analytical): Four-way tie for 16th (ranked in 2024)

Chemistry: Seven-way tie for 22nd

Chemistry (inorganic): Three-way tie for 22nd (ranked in 2024)

Computer science (theory): Tied for 11th

College of Education (overall): Tied for 24th

Education (administration): Tied for 11th

Education (curriculum/instruction): Tied for 12th

Education (policy): Tied for 14th

Education (special education): Tied for 12th

College of Engineering (overall): Three-way tie for 22nd

Engineering (aerospace/aeronautical/astronautical): Tied for 17th

Engineering (biomedical/bioengineering): Five-way tie for 12th

Engineering (civil): Four-way tie for 13th

Engineering (computer): 12th

Engineering (electrical): Three-way tie for 22nd

Engineering (industrial/manufacturing/systems): Seven-way tie for 24th

Engineering (materials engineering): Five-way tie for 25th

Library and Information Studies (school library media): Two-way tie for 11th (ranked in 2022)

Mathematics (applied math): 21st (ranked in 2024)

Nursing master鈥檚 (overall): Tied for 12th

Nurse practitioner (adult gerontology acute care): Tied for 11th

Nurse practitioner (family): Tied for 15th

School of Pharmacy (overall): Tied for 14th

Physics (overall): Tied for 20th聽

Public Affairs (public policy analysis): 14th

Public Affairs (social policy): Tied for 13th

Public Affairs (urban policy): Three-way tie for 21st

Public Health (health care management): Three-way tie for 16th聽

Public Health (health policy and management): 11th

Public Health (social behavior): 13th

Sociology (overall): Two-way tie for 22nd (ranked in 2025)

Sociology (population): Two-way tie for 15th (ranked in 2022)

TOP 35:

Business (analytics): Seven-way tie for 32nd

Business (executive MBA): Three-way tie for 29th

Business (finance): Nine-way tie for 31st

Business (international MBA): Tie for 32nd

Business (production & operations): Five-way tie for 27th

Engineering (chemical): Tied for 28th

Engineering (mechanical): 34th

English: Two-way tie for 34th (ranked in 2025)

Fine arts: 15-way tie for 34th

History: Three-way tie for 31st (ranked in 2025)

Mathematics: Four-way tie for 26th

Occupational Therapy: Tied for 20th

Physical Therapy: Tied for 31st

Political science: Five-way tie for 33rd (ranked in 2025)

Since Ryan Calo joined 91探花 School of Law in 2012, he has become a leading expert on the law and emerging technology.听聽

Calo believes that few interesting questions 鈥� especially around technology 鈥� can be resolved by reference to a single discipline.听

Calo is a co-founder of the , and the . He is also a professor in the and an adjunct in the .听

Calo鈥檚 newest book, 鈥�,鈥� published late last year, is a guide to a legal analysis of regulation and technology. Nearly a decade ago, Calo realized that the most recent book on the topic was published in the 1970s. He decided it was time for an updated resource reflecting current, rapidly evolving technology and the present regulatory environment.听

91探花News spoke with Calo about the book and the current legal and policy climate in the United States.

Who is the intended audience for 鈥淟aw and Technology鈥�?

Ryan Calo: I wrote it primarily for new entrants to the field, be they junior scholars or students. I also hoped that the themes would resonate with more senior scholars and that it would be useful outside of academia for either analysis or instruction. Because ultimately, what the book does is proposes a methodology for analyzing technology from a legal perspective.听

I spent a lot of time interacting with policymakers, staffers on Capitol Hill, people who work for senators and members of Congress. A legislator might come to a staffer and say,聽 鈥淗ey, my constituents are really worried about augmented reality or AI. They’re really worried about deep fakes.鈥� That staff member doesn’t really have a place to start, and they end up just calling up experts, reading New York Times articles, talking to industry, but not in any kind of methodical way. This book is designed to help them figure out what’s going on.听

I also hope that this book would be of use to people who are in practice and want to be more methodical about analyzing a given technology.听

Technology evolves fast. How should the legal system and policymakers prepare to navigate the relationship between law and emerging technologies?

RC: Many of us have an expectation that technology is just going to change. It’s just going to evolve, and our job as lawyers or judges or policymakers, is to kind of scramble and accommodate the resulting disruption, and perhaps try to restore the status quo. Part of what I hope to see is legal scholars and policymakers acknowledging that the disruption isn鈥檛 inevitable.

We need to empower independent researchers to figure out what’s going on with new technology. Right now researchers are disempowered because they don’t have access to the relevant data and platforms. And many times when they try to get that data, they get served with a cease and desist letter.听

We need to protect whistleblowers and make sure there’s adequate, truly top-notch expertise within government. If you have those things, then you’re much more likely to be able to figure out what could go wrong with these technologies without having to observe the harm unfold over a long period of time, as we have with the internet and now with AI.

You mentioned the School of Law鈥檚 leadership in tech policy. How is the 91探花positioned nationally in this space?

RC: We are really among the leaders in this area.听

The School of Law has a lot of tech policy offerings, including a . Many faculty have contributed to scholarship over the years. We have lots of faculty writing about law and technology.听

We also have been really a model for impactful interdisciplinary collaboration. Law students can work in the clinic or the Tech Policy Lab. I’m one of the founders of the Center for an Informed Public, which bridges human centered and design engineering as well as the Information School and dozens of other departments including psychology, education and even geography.听

A third important example is the . We did a whole year of work mapping out who was doing work in the space 鈥� all the centers, all the labs, all the initiatives 鈥� all the people on the three campuses identified as working at this intersection.听

We’re leaders across the country at the law school in terms of our student offerings in our research, but we are also part of that interstitial glue. People think of the iSchool, which they should. They think of computer science, which they should. But they also should think about who else is in the center of this, who else is at the heart of it, and the School of Law is a big part of that.

There鈥檚 been a lot of news lately about states trying to regulate AI and the federal government pushing back. What鈥檚 your perspective?

RC: If I were trying to sabotage the innovation edge of the United States, I would do at least two things, maybe three.听

First, I would divest in basic research. The United States has had an innovation edge over the rest of the world in large part because of decisions made in the 1950s and beyond to invest in basic research. I would dismantle that, and I would try to make it really hard for universities to do research, either by spending less, disrupting the relationships, or messing with overhead in ways that makes research impossible.听

The second thing I would do is make it really hostile for outside innovators to come in and participate in knowledge production here. I would, whether xenophobically or not, try to make it really hard for people with ideas and talent and knowledge to come here to the United States to work on teams with other Americans, to stay here and teach in our schools, to found companies. The second enormous advantage the United States has had is that the country has become attractive because of its commitment to the rule of law and its robust higher ed system, and that鈥檚 built on its innovation and investment in research. People from all over the world come here to try and make the next Google and Amazon, or are teaching in our schools and contributing to our ecosystem.听

The third thing I would do in this hypothetical situation is remove non-existent hurdles to transformative technologies like AI. What do I mean? Federal leaders are currently talking about getting out of the way of AI, but there aren’t any regulations about AI, really. There are some state laws that have a kind of European flavor of risk management, like and . There are specific things that states are worried about, including deep fakes and labeling online social media accounts that are automated. There’s almost nothing standing in the way of AI innovation in terms of regulation.听

The way that our system is structured is that the individual states, under our concept of federalism, are supposed to be laboratories of ideas, experimenting with legislation, and showing that it works or it doesn’t. Pretending that you’re pro-innovation because you’re trying to stamp out the very few regulatory hurdles that companies have to have to abide by all in the name of competing with China, which has AI laws, is just senseless. We’re much better off following the wisdom of the founders, who said, 鈥淗ey, if you have something new in society, let the states serve as laboratories for different laws, and we can all learn from each other about how that’s going.鈥� That’s classic federalism and it used to be a pillar of conservative thinking.听

The President doesn’t have the power to boss the states around in terms of their legislative capacities. And Congress has taken up the question of whether to try to preempt AI laws, and they resignedly declined. I just want to comment that the overall strategy of the administration has been deeply anti-innovation in its impact, even though it is vociferously proinnovation in its rhetoric.

Any final thoughts?

RC: We have an environment in the U.S. that promotes innovation, sometimes through laws, such as laws that protect intellectual property, and laws that make people feel safe enough to use products and services that companies can sell them to us. There鈥檚 not, and never has been, a one-to-one correlation between regulation and promoting innovation. It’s really important that we acknowledge, as a society and community, that sometimes laws are written in the service of innovation. What you want is a favorable regulatory environment, not a complete absence of the rule of law.

For more information, contact Calo at rcalo@uw.edu.听

The 91探花 is the best in the U.S. and No. 2 in the world for library and information management, according to the 2026 released Wednesday. Three other 91探花subject areas placed in the top 10 in the world: geology, geophysics and Earth and marine sciences.

This ranking tracks an analysis of reputation and research output, conducted by . The consultancy looks at more than 18,300 individual university programs at more than 1,700 universities in 100 locations around the world. The ranking spans 55 academic disciplines across five broad faculty areas including arts and humanities; engineering and technology; life sciences and medicine; natural sciences; and social sciences and management.

The 91探花has 29 programs in the top 100, 14 in the top 50, and four in the top 10, including:

• Library and information management 鈥� No. 2
• Geology 鈥� No. 8
• Geophysics 鈥� No. 9
• Earth and marine sciences 鈥� No. 10

Visit the rankings site for .

Seattle Public Library, or SPL, is the only U.S. library system that makes its anonymized, granular checkout data public. Want to find out how many times people borrowed the e-book version of Toni Morrison鈥檚 鈥淏eloved鈥� in May 2018? That data is available.听

The hitch is that the library鈥檚 data set contains nearly 50 million rows, and a single title can appear variously. Morrison鈥檚 鈥淏eloved,鈥� for instance, is listed as 鈥淏eloved,鈥� 鈥淏eloved (unabridged),鈥� 鈥淏eloved : a novel / by Toni Morrison鈥� and so on.听

To track trends in the catalogue over the last 20 years, 91探花 researchers analyzed the checkout data of the 93 authors included in the post-1945 volume of 鈥淭he Norton Anthology of American Literature.鈥� It鈥檚 assigned in U.S. English classes more than virtually any other anthology, so what鈥檚 thought of as the contemporary American 鈥� the books and writers we鈥檝e deemed culturally important.听

The team found that among these vaunted writers 鈥� including Morrison, Viet Thanh Nguyen, David Foster Wallace and Joan Didion 鈥� science fiction was particularly popular. Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia E. Butler topped the list.听

The team Nov. 21 in Computational Humanities Research 2025, and created .听

鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of mind-boggling and ironic that in this age of abundant data, we have so little data about what people are reading,鈥� said senior author , a 91探花assistant professor in the Information School. 鈥�, particularly for researchers, so I鈥檝e been obsessed with SPL鈥檚 data for years now. But extracting insights from it is actually a really hard computational and bibliographic modeling problem.鈥�

To organize the data, the team used computational methods, such as stripping away subtitles and standardizing punctuation. They also manually identified things like translations of a work.听

鈥淲e worked with the Norton anthology in part because it’s a small enough scale for us to handle,鈥� said lead author , a 91探花doctoral student in the Information School. 鈥淚t allows us to have a ground truth to work off of. We can still put a human eye on things.鈥澛�

In all the team looked at 1,603 works by the 93 authors, which were checked out a total of 980,620 times since 2005.

The 10 top authors were:

1. Ursula K. Le Guin
2. Octavia E. Butler
3. Louise Erdrich
4. N.K. Jemisin
5. Toni Morrison
6. Kurt Vonnegut
7. George Saunders
8. Philip K. Dick
9. Sherman Alexie
10. James Baldwin

The 10 top books were:聽

1. 鈥淧arable of the Sower鈥� by Octavia E. Butler
2. 鈥淟incoln in the Bardo鈥� by George Saunders
3. 鈥淭he Fifth Season鈥� by N.K. Jemisin
4. 鈥淭he Sympathizer鈥� by Viet Thanh Nguyen
5. 鈥淜indred鈥� by Octavia E. Butler
6. 鈥淏eloved鈥� by Toni Morrison
7. 鈥淭he Left Hand of Darkness鈥� by Ursula K. Le Guin
8. 鈥淭he Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian鈥� by Sherman Alexie
9. 鈥淭he Year of Magical Thinking鈥� by Joan Didion
10. 鈥淭he Sentence鈥� by Louise Erdrich

Researchers noted several trends that may have driven checkouts. In general, books with genre and sci-fi elements were some of the most popular.听

鈥淚 found the prevalence of sci-fi books and writers really interesting,鈥� Gupta said. 鈥淭hese are recent additions to the anthology, since sci-fi and genre fiction haven鈥檛 always been seen as important literature. So while it鈥檚 a bit unsurprising, it鈥檚 also striking to see that despite comprising a small portion of the anthology, these are the authors people are actually reading the most.鈥�

News events also drove spikes in readership, such as film adaptations of James Baldwin鈥檚 鈥淚f Beale Street Could Talk鈥� and Don DeLillo鈥檚 鈥淲hite Noise,鈥� or the deaths of authors such as Didion, Wallace, Morrison and Philip Roth.听

The top book, 鈥淧arable of the Sower,鈥� saw a huge spike in readership in 2024 鈥� the year the futuristic novel is set, and the year SPL selected the novel for its program.听

鈥淲e鈥檝e deemed these canonical authors important enough to continue reading, to continue teaching, to continue studying and talking about, so it鈥檚 fascinating to see who we鈥檙e actually reading and when,鈥� Walsh said. 鈥淚 find it very beautiful that after years of these big debates about diversifying the canon, the works that people are turning to the most are by women and Black and Native writers, who previously were not even included in these anthologies.鈥�

Co-authors include Daniella Maor, Karalee Harris, Emily Backstrom and Hongyuan Dong, all students at the UW. This research was supported in part by the .

For more information, contact Walsh at melwalsh@uw.edu and Gupta at ngupta1@uw.edu.

Once the domain of buttons and knobs, car dashboards are increasingly home to large touch screens. While that makes following a mapping app easier, it also means drivers can鈥檛 feel their way to a control; they have to look. But how does that visual component affect driving?

New research from the 91探花 and Toyota Research Institute, or TRI, explores how drivers balance driving and using touch screens while distracted. In the study, participants drove in a vehicle simulator, interacted with a touch screen and completed memory tests that mimic the mental effort demanded by traffic conditions and other distractions. The team found that when people multitasked, their driving and touch screen use both suffered. The car drifted more in the lane while people used touch screens, and their speed and accuracy with the screen declined when driving. The effects increased further when they added the memory task.听

These results could help auto manufacturers design safer, more responsive touch screens and in-car interfaces.

The team Sept. 30 at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology in Busan, Korea.听

鈥淲e all know ,鈥� said co-senior author , a 91探花professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. 鈥淏ut what about the car鈥檚 touch screen? We wanted to understand that interaction so we can design interfaces specifically for drivers.鈥�

As the study鈥檚 16 participants drove the simulator, sensors tracked their gaze, finger movements, pupil diameter and electrodermal activity. The last two are common ways to measure mental effort, or 鈥渃ognitive load.鈥� For instance, pupils tend to grow when people are concentrating.听

While driving, participants had to touch specific targets on a 12-inch touch screen, similar to how they would interact with apps and widgets. They did this while completing three levels of an 鈥淣-back task,鈥� a memory test in which the participants hear a series of numbers, 2.5 seconds apart, and have to repeat specific digits.听

The participants鈥� performance changed significantly under different conditions:

• When interacting with the touch screen, participants drifted side to side in their lane 42% more often. Increasing cognitive load had no effect on the results.
• Touch screen accuracy and speed decreased 58% when driving, then another 17% under high cognitive load.
• Each glance at the touchscreen was 26.3% shorter under high cognitive load.
• A 鈥渉and-before-eye鈥� phenomenon, in which drivers鈥� reached for a control before looking at it, increased from 63% to 71% as memory tasks were introduced.

The team also found that increasing the size of the target areas participants were trying to touch did not improve their performance.听

鈥淚f people struggle with accuracy on a screen, usually you want to make bigger buttons,鈥� said , a 91探花doctoral student in the Allen School. 鈥淏ut in this case, since people move their hand to the screen before touching, the thing that takes time is the visual search.鈥�

Based on these findings, the researchers suggest future in-car touch screen systems might use simple sensors in the car 鈥� eye tracking, or touch sensors on the steering wheel 鈥� to monitor drivers鈥� attention and cognitive load. Based on these readings, the car鈥檚 system might adjust the touch screen鈥檚 interface to make important controls more prominent and safer to access.

鈥淭ouch screens are widespread today in automobile dashboards, so it is vital to understand how interacting with touch screens affects drivers and driving,鈥� said co-senior author , a 91探花professor in the Information School. 鈥淥ur research is some of the first that scientifically examines this issue, suggesting ways for making these interfaces safer and more effective.鈥�

, a 91探花doctoral student in the Information School, is co-lead author. Other co-authors include , , and of TRI. This research was funded in part by TRI.

For more information, contact Wobbrock at wobbrock@uw.edu and Fogarty at jfogarty@cs.washington.edu.

A new tool shows it is possible to turn down the partisan rancor in an X feed 鈥� without removing political posts and without the direct cooperation of the platform.听

The study, from researchers at the 91探花, Stanford University and Northeastern University, also indicates that it may one day be possible to let users take control of their social media algorithms.听

The researchers created a seamless, web-based tool that reorders content to move posts lower in a user鈥檚 feed when they contain antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity, such as advocating for violence or jailing supporters of the opposing party.听

Researchers Nov. 27 in Science.

鈥淪ocial media algorithms direct our attention and influence our moods and attitudes, but until now, only platforms had the power to change their algorithms鈥� design and study their effects,鈥� said co-lead author , a 91探花assistant professor in the Information School. 鈥淥ur tool gives that ability to external researchers.鈥�

In an experiment, about 1,200 volunteer participants used the tool over 10 days during the 2024 election. Participants who had anti-democratic content downranked showed more positive views of the opposing party. The effect was also bipartisan, holding true for people who identified as liberals or conservatives.

鈥淧revious studies intervened at the level of the users or platform features 鈥� demoting content from users with similar political views, or switching to a chronological feed, for example. But we built on recent advances in AI to develop a more nuanced intervention that reranks content that is likely to polarize,鈥� Saveski said.

For this study, the team drew from previous sociology research identifying categories of antidemocratic attitudes and partisan animosity that can be threats to democracy. In addition to advocating for extreme measures against the opposing party, these attitudes include statements that show rejection of any bipartisan cooperation, skepticism of facts that favor the other party鈥檚 views, and a willingness to forgo democratic principles to help the favored party.

The researchers tackled the problem from a range of disciplines including information science, computer science, psychology and communication.听

The team created a web extension tool coupled with an artificial intelligence large language model that scans posts for these types of antidemocratic and extreme negative partisan sentiments. The tool then reorders posts on the user鈥檚 X feed in a matter of seconds.听

Then, in separate experiments, the researchers had a group of participants view their feeds with this type of content downranked or upranked over seven days and compared their reactions to a control group. No posts were removed, but the more incendiary political posts appeared lower or higher in their content streams.

The impact on polarization was clear.听

鈥淲hen the participants were exposed to less of this content, they felt warmer toward the people of the opposing party,鈥� said co-lead author , an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. 鈥淲hen they were exposed to more, they felt colder.鈥澛�

Before and after the experiment, the researchers surveyed participants on their feelings toward the opposing party on a scale of 1 to 100. The attitudes among the participants who had the negative content downranked improved on average by two points 鈥� equivalent to the estimated change in attitudes that has occurred among the general U.S. population over a period of three years.听

The researchers are now looking into other interventions using a similar method, including ones that aim to improve mental health. The team has also made the code of the current tool available, so other researchers and developers can use it to create their own ranking systems independent of a social media platform鈥檚 algorithm.

鈥淚n this work, we focused on affective polarization, but our framework can be applied to improve other outcomes, including well-being, mental health and civic engagement,鈥� Saveski said. 鈥淲e hope that other researchers will use our tool to explore the vast design space of potential feed algorithms and articulate alternative visions of how social media platforms could operate.鈥�

Additional co-authors on this study include of Northeastern and , and of Stanford.

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation and a Hoffman-Yee grant from the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence.听

For more information, contact Saveski at msaveski@uw.edu.

This story was adapted from a by Stanford University.

An organization drafts a job listing with artificial intelligence. Droves of with chatbots. Another AI system sifts through those applications, passing recommendations to hiring managers. Perhaps AI avatars conduct screening interviews. This is increasingly the state of hiring, as people seek to streamline the stressful, tedious process with AI.

Yet research is finding that hiring bias 鈥� against people with disabilities, or certain races and genders 鈥� permeates large language models, or LLMs, such as ChatGPT and Gemini. We know less, though, about how biased LLM recommendations influence the people making hiring decisions.听

In a new 91探花 study, 528 people worked with simulated LLMs to pick candidates for 16 different jobs, from computer systems analyst to nurse practitioner to housekeeper. The researchers simulated different levels of racial biases in LLM recommendations for resumes from equally qualified white, Black, Hispanic and Asian men.听

When picking candidates without AI or with neutral AI, participants picked white and non-white applicants at equal rates. But when they worked with a moderately biased AI, if the AI preferred non-white candidates, participants did too. If it preferred white candidates, participants did too. In cases of severe bias, people made only slightly less biased decisions than the recommendations.

The team Oct. 22 at the AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society in Madrid.听

鈥淚n one survey, 80% of organizations using AI hiring tools said they don鈥檛 reject applicants without human review,鈥� said lead author , a 91探花doctoral student in the Information School. 鈥淪o this human-AI interaction is the dominant model right now. Our goal was to take a critical look at this model and see how human reviewers鈥� decisions are being affected. Our findings were stark: Unless bias is obvious, people were perfectly willing to accept the AI鈥檚 biases.鈥�

The team recruited 528 online participants from the U.S. through surveying platform , who were then asked to screen job applicants. They were given a job description and the names and resumes of five candidates: two white men and two men who were either Asian, Black or Hispanic. These four were equally qualified. To obscure the purpose of the study, the final candidate was of a race not being compared and lacked qualifications for the job. Candidates鈥� names implied their races 鈥� for example, Gary O鈥橞rien for a white candidate. Affinity groups, such as Asian Student Union Treasurer, also signaled race.

In four trials, the participants picked three of the five candidates to interview. In the first trial, the AI provided no recommendation. In the next trials, the AI recommendations were neutral (one candidate of each race), severely biased (candidates from only one race), or moderately biased, meaning candidates were recommended at rates similar to rates of bias in real AI models. The team derived rates of moderate bias using the same methods as in their 2024 study that looked at bias in three common AI systems.听

Rather than having participants interact directly with the AI system, the team simulated the AI interactions so they could hew to rates of bias from their large-scale study. Researchers also used AI generated resumes, rather than real resumes, which they validated. This allowed greater control, and AI-written resumes are increasingly common in hiring.

鈥淕etting access to real-world hiring data is almost impossible, given the sensitivity and privacy concerns,鈥� said senior author , a 91探花associate professor in the Information School. 鈥淏ut this lab experiment allowed us to carefully control the study and learn new things about bias in human-AI interaction.鈥�

Without suggestions, participants鈥� choices exhibited little bias. But when provided with recommendations, participants mirrored the AI. In the case of severe bias, choices followed the AI picks around 90% of the time, rather than nearly all the time, indicating that even if people are able to recognize AI bias, that awareness isn鈥檛 strong enough to negate it.

鈥淭here is a bright side here,鈥� Wilson said. 鈥淚f we can tune these models appropriately, then it’s more likely that people are going to make unbiased decisions themselves. Our work highlights a few possible paths forward.鈥�

In the study, bias dropped 13% when participants began with an , intended to detect subconscious bias. So companies including such tests in hiring trainings may mitigate biases. Educating people about AI can also improve awareness of its limitations.

鈥淧eople have agency, and that has huge impact and consequences, and we shouldn’t lose our critical thinking abilities when interacting with AI,鈥� Caliskan said. 鈥淏ut I don鈥檛 want to place all the responsibility on people using AI. The scientists building these systems know the risks and need to work to reduce systems鈥� biases. And we need policy, obviously, so that models can be aligned with societal and organizational values.鈥�

, a 91探花doctoral student in the Information School, and , a postdoctoral scholar at Indiana University, are also co-authors on this paper. This research was funded by The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology.

For more information, contact Wilson at kywi@uw.edu and Caliskan at aylin@uw.edu.

Even though video games have grown as an artistic medium , they are still often written off as mindless entertainment. Research is increasingly exploring meaningful gaming experiences. Less studied, though, are the ways such experiences can alter people鈥檚聽 lives long term.听

In a new study, 91探花 researchers surveyed gamers about video games鈥� effects. Of 166 respondents researchers asked about meaningful experiences, 78% said such experiences had altered their lives. Researchers then pulled recurring themes from the responses 鈥� such as the power of聽 rich storytelling 鈥� so that developers, gamers and even parents or teachers might focus on those elements.听

The team will Oct. 14 at the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play in Pittsburgh.听

To learn more about the paper, 91探花News spoke with lead author , a 91探花doctoral student in human centered design and engineering; co-senior author , a 91探花professor and chair in human centered design and engineering; and co-senior author , a 91探花professor in the Information School.听

What are the most significant findings in the study?

Nisha Devasia: We highlighted three conclusions drawn from modeling the data. The first is that playing games during stressful times was strongly correlated with positive outcomes for physical and mental health. For example, during COVID, people played聽 games they felt strongly improved their mental health, such as Stardew Valley. Others mentioned that games that required movement, or games that had characters with interesting physical abilities, inspired them to get outside or try new sports. Many participants also said that they gained a lot of insight from the game narrative. Story-based games often tell a sort of hero’s journey, for instance. People reported that the insight they gained from those stories correlated to their own self-reflection and identity building.

Finally, most people had these meaningful experiences in very early adulthood or younger, when they’re still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be in the world. Playing as a character and seeing your choices change the course of events is pretty unique to games, compared with other narrative media like novels or movies.

Do any individual stories really stand out to you from the survey you took?

ND: All the stories about Final Fantasy VII, because that’s the game that I love. I鈥檓 actually sitting in my childhood bedroom right now and the wall behind me is covered in Final Fantasy VII posters. The quote we used in the title also really resonated with me: 鈥淚 would not be this version of myself today without these experiences.鈥� I definitely cannot imagine what I would be doing in my life if I had not played Final Fantasy VII when I did.听

People also said things like, 鈥淭his helped me build the skills that ended up being my career. I learned how to program because I wanted to make games.鈥� I worked in the gaming industry and can verify that鈥檚 true for many people in the industry.听

How should these findings fit into how we view games as a society?

Julie Kientz: People have a tendency to treat technology as a monolith, as if video games are either good or bad, but there’s so much more nuance. The design matters. This study hopefully helps us untangle the positive elements. Certainly, there are bad elements 鈥� toxicity and addictiveness, for example. But we also see opportunities for growth and connection. Some people in the study met their spouses through games.

Jin Ha Lee: What Nisha studies is essentially what I live. I鈥檓 a gamer, and I have definitely started playing certain games with my two children specifically because I wanted to have more conversations with them. When my daughter plays games with interesting stories, we have the opportunity to talk about our lives as we analyze the story. What were these people thinking? Why did they make certain decisions?聽

As researchers, we develop games for learning, for instance, for teaching people about misinformation or AI, or promote digital civic engagement, because we want to foster meaningful experiences. But a lot of the existing research just focuses on the short-term effects of games. This study really helps us understand what actually caused a game to make a difference in someone鈥檚 life.

What societal changes could we make in our approach to gaming?

JK: Because people have a tendency to oversimplify things, some of the proposed solutions can be counterproductive. For instance, limiting kids鈥� screen time can actually interfere with positive experiences, especially if someone is immersed in the storyline and identifies with the characters. If 30 minutes into a game, a kid鈥檚 Nintendo Switch turns off because of parental controls, that might hinder the ability to have a positive experience. If we aren鈥檛 using these tools consciously, it might actually lead to kids playing more casual, junk games, because those can be played in 30 minutes.

ND: You see this with discourse around game addiction, too. Sometimes excessive gaming is because of dark patterns in a game鈥檚 design. But it is often a symptom of someone going through something difficult in their life, and the game happens to be a way to cope. As our study shows, there鈥檚 the potential for growth in that coping.听

JHL: There鈥檚 also a place for games and media that we consider 鈥渂ad.鈥� You might play a game that鈥檚 so horrible that you make a meme out of it, and the jokes you share become a way to build community. Online communities can grow into offline events and friendships. But that isn鈥檛 necessarily obvious if you just view gaming as something you need to protect your children from.

What technological changes might accentuate the meaningful effects of games?

JHL: Games are naturally interactive and complex, so there鈥檚 a lot of opportunity for critical engagement beyond just the gameplay. There鈥檚 music, there鈥檚 art, there鈥檚 storytelling. All of these offer space for meaningful interaction. Designers can skillfully incorporate these elements to prompt reflection, evoke emotions, or challenge players鈥� perspectives.听

ND: We鈥檙e calling our next study Video Game Book Club. Right now I’m building a tool to allow people to annotate their gameplay as if they were writing in the margins of a book. While you play, a little pop-up lets you make a note. At the end, an interface pops up showing your gameplay stream and all the notes you made, which should allow them to reflect on what they were thinking as they were playing.

We鈥檙e also working on a reflection chatbot. Every time after you play a session that’s 30 minutes to an hour long, you’ll interact with this bot that prompts you to think critically about the experience, much like we鈥檙e taught to relate to literature. What was really memorable? How is this connected to your life?聽

Co-authors include , a 91探花doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, and , a 91探花doctoral student in the Information School. This research was funded by the .听

For more information, contact Devasia at ndevasia@uw.edu, Kientz at jkientz@uw.edu and Lee at jinhalee@uw.edu.

While innovation is core to American identity, women inventors were named on only 13% of 2019 U.S. patents. In part, that鈥檚 because .听

Research by the 91探花 and the United States Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, found that some simple interventions increased the probability that female inventors would get patents by 12%. For first-time applicants, that probability increased to 17%. The study, the first randomized controlled trial of inventors at the USPTO, followed inventors who applied 鈥減ro se,鈥� meaning without the help of a lawyer. Researchers randomly assigned some senior patent examiners to provide extra help and encouragement navigating the complicated examination process.听

The paper was published in the of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.听

The study began in 2014, when USPTO created a unit to help pro se inventors through the patent process. The office selected 15 senior patent examiners, who received 20 hours of training on strategies to better assist pro se inventors. In the span of a year, 2,273 applications were divided between the treatment and control arms. Of those applications,聽16% had more than half women inventors.

In the treatment arm, examiners used more encouraging language and gave more detailed responses in their first written decisions. They also prompted the applicants to call for an interview about the decision. Interviews increased 25% for both genders, but majority-women teams were 8% more likely to work out specific changes in those interviews.听

鈥淭his was a very effective, fairly low-cost program,鈥� said author , a 91探花assistant professor in the Information School. 鈥淭here鈥檚 this ideal of the garage inventor tinkering with something, coming up with an idea to start a company. That group of people usually doesn’t have access to lawyers, so they apply as individuals. This intervention helped more people find success.鈥澛�

A full list of co-authors is included with the .

For more information, contact Teodorescu at miketeod@uw.edu.

In 2022, after Elon Musk bought what鈥檚 now X, the company laid off 80% of its content moderation team and made the platform鈥檚 main form of fact-checking. Previously a pilot program at Twitter, Community Notes lets users propose attaching a comment to a specific post 鈥� usually to add context or correct an inaccurate fact. If other users with diverse views vote that the comment is useful, as measured by X鈥檚 algorithm, then the note is appended to the post. Other .听

A 91探花-led study of X found that posts with Community Notes attached were less prone to going viral and got less engagement. After getting a Community Note, on average, reposts dropped 46% and likes dropped 44%.听聽

鈥淲e found that Community Notes are effective when attached, especially in reducing engagement that signals support for the content, such as reposts and likes,鈥� said senior author , a 91探花assistant professor in the Information School. 鈥淏ut the spread of misinformation on social media is complex and multifaceted, and it requires multiple approaches working together to effectively curb it. Systems like Community Notes are an important addition to the platforms鈥� toolbox.鈥�

The team Sept. 18 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Between March and June of 2023, researchers tracked 40,000 posts for which a note was suggested. Of those, 6,757 notes were deemed helpful and were attached. The team tracked posts for 48 hours after getting a note attached and compared posts with notes to those without on two key aspects: engagement, such as likes and reposts, and diffusion.听

Diffusion accounts for how a post spreads through the social network 鈥� essentially its virality. For example, do only people who follow an account engage with a post?

鈥淲e know from other studies that false information typically spreads faster, broader and more virally, than true information does,鈥� said lead author , a 91探花doctoral student in the Information School. 鈥淲e found that Community Notes significantly change the way information spreads through a network. People who are distant in the social network from the person that posted the misinformation are much less likely to interact with the post. But people close to the source 鈥� followers, for instance 鈥� tend to be less affected by the note.鈥�

On average, the team found that after notes were added, engagement dropped 46% for reposts, 44% for likes, 22% for replies and 14% for views. Over posts鈥� whole lifespans, including engagement before notes were attached, the drops were 12% for reposts, 13% for likes, 7% for replies and 6% for views.听

鈥淲e think views were less affected because what users see is mostly decided by X鈥檚 feed algorithm,鈥� Saveski said. 鈥�From the public release of the algorithm, we know that X does not explicitly deemphasize posts with notes attached, but that could change in the future.鈥�

The study was also able to get granular data on what affected posts鈥� spread. Notes added to altered media, like fake photos and videos, affected those posts more than they did text-based posts. Notes on very popular posts led to greater reductions in engagement. And getting notes appended quickly was vital.听

鈥淐ontent spreads rapidly across X, and if a note comes too late, few users will get a chance to see it,鈥� Slaughter said. 鈥淣otes that take 48 hours or so to go up have almost no effect.鈥�

Saveski鈥檚 lab at 91探花is now developing potential tools to speed up how quickly notes can be attached to posts to increase their effectiveness.听

The authors only looked at posts that had notes proposed in early 2023, and X has significantly updated its Community Notes methods since then. But , making further academic studies infeasible. The paper also looked only at X, not at other social media platforms.听

鈥淲hether this kind of moderation is sustainable as many separate systems across different platforms, as it’s now being used, is really an open question,鈥� Saveski said. 鈥淚f someone is adding notes on X, does that make them less likely to do so on TikTok or Instagram? There鈥檚 also the question of how much platforms should collaborate and share data, which could help this scale. X has made its code and data available, but none of the other platforms have committed to opening up their systems yet.鈥�

Co-authors include of Stanford University and of Yale University. This research was funded in part by a 91探花Information School Strategic Research Fund award and an Army Research Office Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative award.听

For more information, contact Saveski at msaveski@uw.edu and Slaughter at is28@uw.edu.