The 91爆料 is proud to announce that 56 faculty and researchers who completed their work while at 91爆料 have been named on the list from Clarivate.

The annual list identifies researchers who demonstrated significant influence in their chosen field or fields through the publication of multiple highly cited papers during the last decade. Their names are drawn from the publications that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and publication year in the .

Highly Cited Researchers demonstrate significant and broad influence in their fields of research. The total list includes 7,131 awards from more than 1,300 institutions in 60 countries and regions. This small fraction of the global researcher population contributes disproportionately to extending the frontiers of knowledge and contributing to innovations that make the world healthier, more sustainable and which drive societal impact, according to Clarivate.

The that determines the 鈥渨ho鈥檚 who鈥� of influential researchers is drawn from data and analysis performed by bibliometric experts and data scientists at the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate.

The list below includes faculty and researchers whose primary affiliation is with the 91爆料, Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Please note: Some of the people on the list are no longer with the 91爆料 and their current affiliation is noted. This list reflects initial data from Clarivate and may be updated.

Ivan Anishchenko (Vilya)

David Baker

William A. Banks

Gregory N. Bratman

Steven L. Brunton

Guozhong Cao

Ting Cao

Lauren Carter (Gates Medical Research Institute)

Helen Chu

David H. Cobden

Katharine H. D. Crawford

Riza M. Daza

Frank DiMaio

Kristie L. Ebi

Evan E. Eichler

Emmanuela Gakidou

David Ginger

Raphael Gottardo (CHUV)

Alexander L. Greninger

Simon I. Hay

Andrew Hill (Infinimmune)

Eric Huang

Michael C. Jensen (BrainChild)

Neil P.聽 King

C. Dirk Keene

J. Nathan Kutz

Eric H. Larson

Aaron Lyon

Michael J. MacCoss

Brendan MacLean

C. M. Marcus

Julian D. Marshall

Ali Mokdad

Thomas J. Montine (Stanford)

Mohsen Naghavi

Marian L. Neuhouser

Julian D. Olden

Robert W. Palmatier

David Pigott

Hannah A. Pliner (Bristol Myers Squibb)

Ganesh Raghu

Stanley Riddell

Andrea Schietinger (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)

Jay Shendure

M. Alejandra Tortorici

Troy R. Torgerson (Allen Institute)

Cole Trapnell

Katherine R. Tuttle

David Veesler

Theo Vos

Alexandra C. Walls (BioNTech SE)

Bryan J. Weiner

Di Xiao

Jie Xiao

Xiaodong Xu

Jihui Yang

Joyce Yen honored with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring

On Feb. 8, President Joe Biden Joyce Yen and 14 other individuals and organizations as recipients of the (PAESMEM). is the director of the 91爆料鈥檚 , a program that works to eliminate underrepresentation of women faculty in STEM at the 91爆料 and beyond.

Established in 1995, PAESMEM recognizes the critical roles mentors play outside the traditional classroom in the academic and professional development of the future STEM workforce.

鈥淭his award not only validates the importance of mentoring, but it also elevates the intersection of excellence and diversity and those pushing the STEM ecosystem to be better,鈥� Yen said. 鈥淚 truly love the work I do fostering communities and cultures in STEM that support and advance inclusion and belonging.鈥�

In March, Yen was about the award, the work of the ADVANCE Center and the challenges of increasing women鈥檚 participation in STEM academic fields. Launched in 2001 with funding from the National Science Foundation, the center partners with faculty, chairs and leadership across campus to remove barriers for women faculty and develop accountability for institutional change.

Yen is following in the footsteps of two of her mentors, and , as PAESMEM awardees. Denton, the original principal investigator of the ADVANCE IT grant, was honored in 2003, and Riskin, the faculty director of the center, was honored in 2020.

Riskin nominated Yen for the award.

鈥淛oyce鈥檚 impact on the careers of so many faculty in STEM at 91爆料 and across the country has been profound,鈥� Riskin said. 鈥淪o many people are in rewarding careers thanks to Joyce鈥檚 efforts and support. I am so thrilled she was selected for this honor.鈥�

The National Science Foundation, which manages PAESMEM on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, provides each recipient $10,000.聽 Award recipients also receive a certificate signed by President Joe Biden.

The White House has invited the awardees from 2020 and 2021 to Washington, D.C. from May 24 to 26 for events that will include professional development activities as well as an awards ceremony and dinner. Both Yen and Riskin are planning to attend.

Professor Nathan Kutz elected SIAM fellow

, 91爆料 professor of applied mathematics, has been elected as a 2022 fellow of the (SIAM). Fellows are chosen for their exemplary and outstanding service to the community.

Kutz was recognized for his innovative contributions across many disciplines of applied mathematics. Most recently, he has pioneered contributions that integrate modern machine learning methods with traditional dynamical systems modeling. These innovations have paved the way for emerging methods to be applied to complex systems where many traditional applied mathematical methods have failed.

鈥淚 believe this award ultimately is a reflection of the exceptional graduate students and postdocs I have mentored in my time at the 91爆料,鈥� Kutz said. 鈥淭hey have been the driving force and inspiration behind all the years of progressive developments leading to new paradigms and innovations in applied mathematics. I am truly thankful for the time I have had with each one of them in my journey of exploration.鈥�

Kutz joins the 91爆料鈥檚 Anne Greenbaum, Randy LeVeque, Robert O鈥橫alley and Fred Wan as SIAM fellows.

鈥淭he department is honored to welcome a fifth SIAM Fellow among its ranks with the recent recognition of Professor Nathan Kutz,鈥� said , professor and chair of the Applied Math department. 鈥淩ecognitions like these reflect the outstanding quality present in the department, in these and many other areas of research.鈥�

Alexina Kublu wins 2022 Inuit Language Recognition Award

, an instructor in the 91爆料 , is one of three people to receive the 2022 . Kublu teaches Inuktitut, the Inuit language of Canada.

The award is given out by the Inuit Uqausinginnik Taiguusiliuqtiit board, the language authority created by the Legislative Assembly of Nunavut. Nunavut is a territory of northern Canada that stretches across 4 million square kilometers of the Canadian Arctic, and Inuktitut is one of its official languages.

Kublu, the former Languages Commissioner of Nunavut, teaches at the Nunavut Arctic College and the 91爆料 remotely from her home in Iqaluit, the capital of the territory. In December 2021, she taught classes to aspiring teachers as part of the Nunavut Arctic College鈥檚 teacher education program, which prepares students to become classroom teachers in the territory鈥檚 schools. The students in those classes nominated her for the award.

Kublu once lost her native language, so teaching it to others is personally meaningful for her.
Starting in the early 20th century, the Canadian government established racially segregated hospitals to treat Indigenous people for infections like tuberculosis. Children and adults received treatment, , for months or years at a time. Sent to one of these hospitals as a child, Kublu forgot how to speak Inuktitut while she was away.

But she learned her language again, thanks to her grandmother. That experience shaped how she teaches the language.

鈥淚 think I’m more able to see my language from an analytical point of view,鈥� Kublu said, 鈥渞ather than just something I speak.鈥�

Kublu teaches Inuktitut for the 91爆料 as a part of the , offered through the Canadian Studies Center. The fellowship supports students as they acquire a foreign language and conduct research related to Canada. In 2004, the Canadian Studies Center got its first fellowship application to learn Inuktitut. Since then, they鈥檝e awarded 38 of these fellowships to 17 students. Many of the students are conducting research in the Arctic, where the language is spoken.

The 91爆料 is the only institution in the U.S. offering students the chance to learn Canadian Inuit languages and the only institution in the U.S. awarding the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship in Indigenous languages.

Nadine Fabbi, managing director of the Canadian Studies Center, says that Kublu鈥檚 award shows the high caliber of training fellows are receiving.

鈥淭his award just proves that Kublu is not only one of the foremost linguists in Inuktitut in Canada, but she鈥檚 also a good teacher,鈥� Fabbi said. 鈥淚’m just proud that this is a caliber of teaching that’s occurring for these fellowships. It鈥檚 a boon to the program to see that our language teachers are also the top of their field.鈥�

The U.S. National Science Foundation today 11 new artificial-intelligence research institutes, including one led by the 91爆料. These institutes are part of a $220 million investment spanning seven research areas in AI. Each institute will receive about $20 million over five years.

The will focus on fundamental AI and machine learning theory, algorithms and applications for real-time learning and control of complex dynamic systems, which describe chaotic situations where conditions are constantly shifting and hard to predict.

“The engineering sciences are undergoing a revolution that is aided by machine learning and AI algorithms,” said institute director , a 91爆料 professor of applied mathematics. “This institute brings together a world-class team of engineers, scientists and mathematicians who aim to integrate fundamental developments in AI with applications in critical and emerging technological applications.”

Researchers know the basic physics principles behind dynamic systems, which include situations such as turbulence or how the body recovers from an injury. But these scenarios are often happening on multiple timescales at once and can be a combination of many types of physics, making it hard for researchers to understand exactly what’s going on.

“My favorite dynamic system is turbulence,” said institute associate director , a 91爆料 associate professor of mechanical engineering. “We literally live and breathe inside of a working fluid, and so do nearly all of our machines. But because of the multiscale complexity of the fluid, which involves a cascade of increasingly smaller eddies, we still have an incredibly hard time predicting what fluids will do outside of idealized and controlled settings.”

The overall goal of this institute is to integrate physics-based models with AI and machine learning approaches to develop data-enabled efficient and explainable solutions for challenges across science and engineering.

“Some of our specific questions include: Can we develop better machine-learning technologies by baking in and enforcing known physics, such as conservation laws, symmetries, etc.?” Brunton said. “Similarly, in complex systems where we only have partially known or unknown physics 鈥� such as neuroscience or epidemiology 鈥� can we use machine learning to learn the ‘physics’ of these systems?”

In addition to research, the institute will be focused on training future researchers in this field throughout the education pipeline. Some examples include: partnering with high school programs that focus on AI-related projects and creating a post-baccalaureate program that will actively recruit and support recent college graduates from underrepresented groups, United States veterans and first-generation college students with the goal of helping them attend graduate school.

“The institute will provide massive open-source educational materials that include lectures, data and code packages for advancing and empowering AI,” Kutz said. “Importantly, we will provide AI ethics training for all involved in the institute. We will also make this training available to the community at large, thus enforcing a disciplined approach to thinking about AI and its implications for our emerging societal concerns around data, data privacy and the ethical application of AI algorithms.”

For this institute, the 91爆料 is partnering with several regional institutions 鈥� the University of Hawaii at M膩noa, Montana State University, the University of Nevada Reno, Boise State University, the University of Alaska Anchorage and Portland State University 鈥� as well as with Harvard University and Columbia University.

“We are so excited to bring together a critical mass of amazing and innovative researchers from across the U.S. to really move the needle in developing machine learning technology for physical and engineering dynamic systems,” Brunton said. “We also have a deep connection with industry partners, such as Boeing, which provides us with an incredible opportunity to make sure that we are focused on important and relevant problems and that our technology will actually be used.”

Additional 91爆料 researchers who are part of this institute are lead researcher , assistant professor of mechanical engineering; , professor of electrical and computer engineering; , professor of biostatistics; and , a research associate professor of chemical engineering.

“I’m glad to see this substantial investment going to one of our state’s premier research institutions,” said U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “As the 91爆料 and other research institutions in our state continue to lead on artificial intelligence, this investment will be critical to ensuring that the state of Washington remains a leader in innovation, research and scientific achievement. I’ll keep fighting for important federal investments like this one to move this work forward.”

The 91爆料 is also , the AI EDGE Institute, which is led by Ohio State University. The goal of this institute is to design future generations of wireless edge networks that are highly efficient, reliable, robust and secure.

These 11 new AI institutes are building on the first round of seven AI institutes funded in 2020, and expand the reach of these institutes to include a total of 40 states and Washington D.C.聽In addition to the 91爆料-led institute, the state of Washington will also house the , led by Washington State University. The institute鈥檚 goal is to use AI to tackle some of agriculture鈥檚 biggest challenges related to labor, water, weather and climate change.

“The state of Washington is already a leader in artificial intelligence,鈥� said U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. “From the 91爆料’s Tech Policy Lab that studies the grand challenges around artificial intelligence to Washington State University’s work in precision agriculture, we are more than ready for these two grants to help us understand more artificial intelligence applications.聽The 91爆料 will work in the area of complex systems to improve fields like manufacturing, and WSU will work on improvements in farming.”

The AI Institute for Dynamic Systems is partially funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

For more information, contact Kutz at kutz@uw.edu and Brunton at sbrunton@uw.edu.

It takes a lot of fuel to launch something into space. Sending NASA’s Space Shuttle into orbit required more than 3.5 million pounds of fuel, which is about 15 times heavier than a blue whale.

But a new type of engine 鈥� called a rotating detonation engine 鈥� promises to make rockets not only more fuel-efficient but also more lightweight and less complicated to construct. There’s just one problem: Right now this engine is too unpredictable to be used in an actual rocket.

Researchers at the 91爆料 have developed a mathematical model that describes how these engines work. With this information, engineers can, for the first time, develop tests to improve these engines and make them more stable. The team Jan. 10 in Physical Review E.

“The rotating detonation engine field is still in its infancy. We have tons of data about these engines, but we don’t understand what is going on,” said lead author , a 91爆料 doctoral student in aeronautics and astronautics. “I tried to recast our results by looking at pattern formations instead of asking an engineering question 鈥� such as how to get the highest performing engine 鈥� and then boom, it turned out that it works.”

A conventional rocket engine works by burning propellant and then pushing it out of the back of the engine to create thrust.

“A rotating detonation engine takes a different approach to how it combusts propellant,” Koch said. “It鈥檚 made of concentric cylinders. Propellant flows in the gap between the cylinders, and, after ignition, the rapid heat release forms a shock wave, a strong pulse of gas with significantly higher pressure and temperature that is moving faster than the speed of sound.

“This combustion process is literally a detonation 鈥� an explosion 鈥� but behind this initial start-up phase, we see a number of stable combustion pulses form that continue to consume available propellant. This produces high pressure and temperature that drives exhaust out the back of the engine at high speeds, which can generate thrust.”

To start the reaction, propellant flows in the gap between the cylinders, and, after ignition, the rapid heat release forms a shock wave (starts at 11 seconds). After this start-up phase, a number of stable combustion pulses form that continue to consume available propellant. Credit: James Koch/91爆料

Conventional engines use a lot of machinery to direct and control the combustion reaction so that it generates the work needed to propel the engine. But in a rotating detonation engine, the shock wave naturally does everything without needing additional help from engine parts.

“The combustion-driven shocks naturally compress the flow as they travel around the combustion chamber,” Koch said. “The downside of that is that these detonations have a mind of their own. Once you detonate something, it just goes. It’s so violent.”

To try to be able to describe how these engines work, the researchers first developed an experimental rotating detonation engine where they could control different parameters, such as the size of the gap between the cylinders. Then they recorded the combustion processes with a high-speed camera. Each experiment took only 0.5 seconds to complete, but the researchers recorded these experiments at 240,000 frames per second so they could see what was happening in slow motion.

From there, the researchers developed a mathematical model to mimic what they saw in the videos.

“This is the only model in the literature currently capable of describing the diverse and complex dynamics of these rotating detonation engines that we observe in experiments,” said co-author , a 91爆料 professor of applied mathematics.

The model allowed the researchers to determine for the first time whether an engine of this type would be stable or unstable. It also allowed them to assess how well a specific engine was performing.

“This new approach is different from conventional wisdom in the field, and its broad applications and new insights were a complete surprise to me,” said co-author , a 91爆料 research associate professor in aeronautics and astronautics.

After the initial shock wave, stable pulses of combustion continue to consume available propellant. Previously researchers didn’t understand how a specific number of pulses formed and why they can sometimes merge into one pulse, but this mathematical model can help explain the underlying physics. Credit: Koch et al./Physical Review E

Right now the model is not quite ready for engineers to use.

“My goal here was solely to reproduce the behavior of the pulses we saw 鈥� to make sure that the model output is similar to our experimental results,” Koch said. “I have identified the dominant physics and how they interplay. Now I can take what I’ve done here and make it quantitative. From there we can talk about how to make a better engine.”

, a 91爆料 professor of aeronautics and astronautics, is also a co-author on this paper. This research was funded by the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Office of Naval Research.

For more information, contact Koch at jvkoch@uw.edu.

Grant numbers: FA 9550-18-1-9-007, N0001417MP00398, FA 9550-17-1-0329