WWU College of Science & Engineering

10/06/2026

WWU Computer Science’s Dustin O’Hara and alumnus Jack Sovelove have created an AI-assisted system to make it easier to explore hundreds of hours of long-form oral-history interviews about the United States Civil Rights Movement.

SpokenHistory.org is a public digital-history platform with 140 interviews from civil rights activists, artists, educators, organizers and changemakers.

SpokenHistory uses AI to let users navigate through the Library of Congress’ Civil Rights History Project by topic, person or keyword search to create and save interview playlists. The site also includes lesson plans for K-12 educators to teach students about the movement through the archives’ materials.

Read more on WWU News: https://news.wwu.edu/wwu-student-faculty-create-ai-assisted-tool-to-navigate-oral-histories

WWU Computer Science’s Dustin O’Hara and alumnus Jack Sovelove have created an AI-assisted system to make it easier to explore hundreds of hours of long-form oral-history interviews about the United States Civil Rights Movement.

10/01/2026

WWU Professor of Chemistry Greg O’Neil has spent a decade investigating how to utilize an algae-produced wax for alternative fuel sources and cosmetics. Now, his lab has an easier time identifying and quantifying the wax thanks to a new method developed by WWU chemistry student Sarah Maffett and a team of researchers in O’Neil’s lab.

For more than 50 years, researchers relied on a technique called gas chromatography, or GC, to analyze the wax, known as alkenones. GC requires boiling alkenones, which requires a long time and very high temperatures.

Maffett led the project to develop a method to identify alkenones using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), a technique similar to MRI imaging. By using NMR, the alkenones do not need to be vaporized, making identifying and quantifying the wax faster and easier for researchers.

Read more on WWU News: https://news.wwu.edu/wwu-s-greg-o-neil-chemistry-students-unlock-new-technique-to-identify-waxes-used-as-alternative

(PHOTO: WWU student researcher Nazir Pamplin programs the NMR to analyze a sample and identify alkenones. Photo by Sean Patrick/WWU.)

09/25/2026

Professor of Chemistry Tim Kowalczyk has received an additional $25,000 from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund to investigate a more efficient method of carbon dioxide adsorption in industrial processes.

Kowalczyk’s research focuses on utilizing electroswing adsorption to separate carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust known as flue gas. Traditional processing of flue gas requires significant amounts of energy, typically sourced from fossil fuels. Kowalczyk’s work will inform new approaches to mitigate the environmental impact of these traditional processes.

Read more:

WWU Professor of Chemistry Tim Kowalczyk has received an additional $25,000 from the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund to investigate a more efficient method of carbon dioxide adsorption in industrial processes. 

08/18/2026

In case you missed it, we're excited to share that WWU has received an extraordinary $10.5 million gift commitment from Peter ('58) and Judith Hallson that will create the university's first endowed deanship and expand support for students, faculty and research.

The gift includes an $8 million endowment establishing the Peter & Judith Hallson Endowed Deanship in the WWU College of Science and Engineering, creating the first permanently endowed dean position in Western's history.

Peter and Judith Hallson's donation to WWU will create endowed deanship, fund research, scholarships

07/21/2026

WWU exchange student Florian Elbrandt scored a 50 on the Mathematical Association of America's Putnam Exam, the world's most prestigious undergraduate mathematics competition. Breaking a 35-year Western record, his performance placed him in the top 3% of more than 4,300 competitors across the U.S., Canada and Mexico, surpassing the university's previous record set in 1991.

Widely regarded as one of the most challenging undergraduate mathematics competitions in the world, the Putnam Exam is so difficult that most participants score a 0 or 1.

Congratulations, Florian!

06/22/2026

Three computer science student groups have created apps designed to remove barriers to affordable legal advice and to connect communities to each other.

The apps are the product of a year-long senior capstone, in which computer science students translate the knowledge they’ve gained from their time at Western into a single product.

Each app was created to address a specific need: AskZizo aims to remove barriers to general legal expertise, Ticket Champ uses AI-powered information on how to fight traffic infractions and Plus 1 Social Club is a networking app designed to connect people to each other through public events.

Read more on WWU News: https://news.wwu.edu/computer-science-senior-capstone-projects-make-legal-expertise-more-accessible

06/16/2026

06/16/2026

06/11/2026

Jackie Caplan-Auerbach studies “weird seismic signals that are accidentally recorded.” So, when her friends Jeffery and Christine Smith reached out to her on August 10, 2025, about an odd rising tide and surging waters in Alaska’s inside passage, she went looking for what might’ve caused it.

The Smiths had already confirmed that no earthquake had occurred to cause a tsunami, so the next likely story was a landslide in the area. Caplan-Auerbach found the nearest seismometer was far away from the Smiths, so identifying one lone wiggle that could confirm a landslide was proving difficult.

“Some slides, when they're about to fail, exhibit a slight stuttering behavior prior to failure. We call that a precursory earthquake sequence," said Caplan-Auerbach. “They're not big earthquakes. They’re tiny, tiny, tiny, little stuttering events, and it's not a hugely common signal. We've probably seen it about 15 to 20 times total. After doing some processing of the Tracy Arm data, I saw that there was a booming precursory signal. And I knew at that point that it was a landslide.”

The landslide occurred off the South Sawyer Glacier in the Tracy Arm fjord and caused a 1,520 foot tsunami wave. Tracy Arm is a popular cruise ship destination, but the fjord happened to be empty at the time of the landslide.

“Had anybody been there at that time, I think we would be telling a very different story today,” Caplan-Auerbach said. “We just got ludicrously lucky.”

Read more about Western Today: https://news.wwu.edu/wwu-professor-jackie-caplan-auerbach-co-publishes-paper-on-second-largest-tsunami-ever-recorded

06/09/2026

“It’s important to remember that at the end of the day, we have this thing that ties us all together: curiosity and desire for exploration.”

After years of learning how to be scientists in the lab, three Western Washington University students recently walked the halls of the U.S. Capitol to meet with the legislative representatives who hold sway over federal science funding.

Kaitlynn LaCost, Marshall Lowell-Gonzales and Julia Olson flew to Washington D.C. to take part in The Planetary Society's Day of Action on April 20, an annual day of advocacy for space-science funding (and got a chance to say hi to Bill Nye!).

LaCost, Lowell-Gonzales and Olson work in the NASA-funded Mars Research Group and with data collected from Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity under the supervision of Professor of Geology and Physics and Astronomy Melissa S. Rice.