Upcoming Events

Sunday, May 17
Sunday Science Party
Members of Genome Sciences are hosting a "Science Sunday Party" at the Southwest Branch of the Seattle Public Library. Activities will include strawberry DNA extraction, a model organism petting zoo, cat genetics puzzles, and more! We hope to see you there!
We are looking for more scientists to participate, so if you are a member of Genome Sciences and are interested in volunteering on the day of the event, please reach out to Leah Anderson (leaha3 [ a t ] uw.edu) or Sean Perez (slperez [ a t ] uw.edu)
2:00 - 3:30 | Southwest Library, 9010 35th Ave SW | flier

Friday, May 22
Dissertation Defense: Lincoln Harris | Noble Lab, Genome Sciences Ph.D.
"Handling missing values in mass spectrometry proteomics"
1:00 | Foege Auditorium | flier | remote viewing option

Nobel Prize

David Baker has been awarded the Nobel Prize.


New Faculty

Genome Sciences is pleased to announce that Dr. Saori Sakaue has accepted our offer to join the department as an assistant professor. Dr. Sakaue received her MD/PhD from the University of Tokyo, where she worked on genetic analyses of global biobanks. She conducted postdoctoral research with Soumya Raychaudhuri at Harvard, focusing on developing single-cell genomics tools to understand the role of genetic variants in gene regulation. Her lab will focus on developing and using statistical genetics tools to integrate molecular data for understanding disease mechanisms, ultimately addressing clinical challenges for future patients.


Genome Sciences is pleased to announce that Dr. William DeWitt has accepted our offer to join the department as an assistant professor. Dr. DeWitt was a graduate student with Kelley Harris and Frederick Matsen in Genome Sciences and the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, and a postdoctoral fellow with Yun Song at the University of California, Berkeley. Throughout his career, he has tackled computational and theoretical problems in evolutionary dynamics and quantitative immunology. His lab will pursue work in probabilistic and dynamical modeling, statistical inference, and machine learning, all grounded by questions about evolving biological systems.

Department News

Jesse Bloom has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Hannah Jordt has received the UW Distinguished Teaching Award.

Introducing the Genome Sciences 2026 incoming class:

Zach Anderson – University of Washington
Natalie Byrd – Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Belharra Therapeutics
Anna Janzen – National Taiwan University, University of Minnesota
Carissa Lee – UW MSTP (Stergachis Lab, Chamberlain Lab)
Nico Longhi – University of Washington
Alex McCreight – Columbia University, Macalester College
Shawn Mohammed – UW MSTP (Shendure Lab)
Benan Nalbant – University of Washington, Memorial Sloan Kettering
Ben Shapiro - UW MSTP (Schweppe Lab, Young Lab)
Masaya Takasaki – University of Washington
Betty Yu – University of Southern California, National Taiwan University, FHCC

Hank Cheng has been named to the Husky 100.
Q&A with Dr. Maitreya Dunham: Reflecting on MSS 2026 and Looking Ahead to the Future of Genome Science
Kyra Fetter, Kayla Ly, and Mary Krebs have been awarded NSF Fellowships. Katrina Peterson and Ivan Woo have received honorable mention.
Katy Loubet-Senear has been awarded a WRF Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Iris Jia has been awarded the Charlie Moore Award for outstanding contributions to cystic fibrosis microbiology research.
Lauren Fields has been selected as a Schmidt Science Fellow.
Maitreya Dunham and David Baker have been named AAAS Fellows.
How an MD-PhD Student With Hemophilia Made a Genetic Research Breakthrough - UW Medicine
Mike MacCoss has received the Donald F. Hunt Distinguished Contribution in Proteomics Award, Bill Noble has received the Gilbert S. Omenn Computational Proteomics Award, and Nathan Basisty has received the Robert J. Cotter New Investigator Award from US HUPO.
Andrew Stergachis has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation.
Riku Yasutomi has been awarded an NRSA Fellowship.
The Department of Genome Sciences mourns the passing of Dr. William Foege, UW alum, public health leader, and namesake for our building.
The Stergachis Lab has been awarded an AI for Science fund award from Google.
David Baker, Riza Daza, Evan Eichler, Mike MacCoss, Brendan MacLean, Hannah Pliner, Jay Shendure, and Cole Trapnell have been named to the Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers List for 2025.
Joe Felsenstein has been awarded the 2026 Mendel Medal by the Genetics Society.
Alison Feder has been named a 2025 Freeman Hrabowski Scholar.
Jay Shendure has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
Mike MacCoss has received the 2026 Donald F. Hunt Distinguished Contribution in Proteomics Award from US HUPO.
Bill Noble has received the 2026 Gil Omenn Computational Proteomics Award from US HUPO.
Winston Dredge has been awarded a WRF Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Zukai Liu and Bria Metzger have been awarded Parker Travel Awards for best poster at the 2025 department retreat.

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