New Year's Day
Holidays
No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Thursday, January 1, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Instruction Begins - Winter 2026
Dates of Instruction
Instruction begins.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, January 5, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Distinguished Lecture Series: Scott Aaronson - Computational Complexity and Explanations in Physics
Abstract:
The fact, or conjecture, of certain computational problems being intractable (that is, needing astronomical amounts of time to solve) clearly affects our ability to learn about physics. But could computational intractability also play a direct role in physical explanations themselves? I'll consider this question by examining three possibilities:
(1) If quantum computers really take exponential time to simulate using classical computers, does that militate toward the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, as David Deutsch famously proposed?
(2) Are certain speculative physical ideas (e.g. time travel to the past or nonlinearities in quantum mechanics) disfavored, over and above any other reasons to disfavor them, because they would lead to "absurd computational superpowers"?
(3) Do certain effective descriptions in physics work only because of the computational intractability of violating those descriptions -- as for example with Harlow and Hayden's resolution of the "firewall paradox"…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: dso@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, January 8, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium.
For more info visit www.cs.washington.edu. Distinguished Lecture Series: David Baker - Design of new protein functions using deep learning
Abstract:
Proteins mediate the critical processes of life and beautifully solve the challenges faced during the evolution of modern organisms. Our goal is to design a new generation of proteins that address current-day problems not faced during evolution. In contrast to traditional protein engineering efforts, which have focused on modifying naturally occurring proteins, we design new proteins from scratch to optimally solve the problem at hand. Increasingly, we develop and use deep learning methods to design amino acid sequences that are predicted to fold to desired structures and functions. We produce synthetic genes encoding these sequences and characterize them experimentally. In this talk, I will describe several recent advances in protein design.
Bio:
David Baker is a Nobel laureate, professor of biochemistry, HHMI investigator, and director of the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington. His lab develops software for protein design and uses it to create molecules that address…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: dso@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, January 15, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium.
For more info visit www.cs.washington.edu. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Holidays
No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, January 19, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Distinguished Lecture Series: Meredith Ringel Morris - HCI for AGI
Abstract:
The past few years have seen rapid advances in frontier AI models, demonstrating increasing performance and generality. As progress continues toward artificial general intelligence (AGI), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) scholarship and practice has a critical role to play in ensuring that AI technology is useful to and usable by people to accomplish tasks they value. HCI insights can help us maximize the benefit of AI technologies to individuals, communities, and society while allowing us to understand how to mitigate harms. In this talk, I will describe a research vision for the field of HCI in the AGI era, examining how researchers can facilitate progress toward and adoption of advanced AI via interaction techniques, interface designs, physical form factors, design methods, evaluation methods, benchmarking approaches, and data collection techniques.
Bio:
Meredith Ringel Morris is Director for Human-AI Interaction Research at Google DeepMind. Prior to joining DeepMind, she was Director of the…
Event interval: Single day event. Campus room: Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium. Accessibility Contact: dso@uw.edu. Event Types: Lectures/Seminars.
Thursday, January 29, 2026, 3:30 PM – 4:30 PM.
Gates Center (CSE2), G20 | Amazon Auditorium.
For more info visit www.cs.washington.edu. Presidents' Day
Holidays
No classes. Most University offices and buildings are closed. Check with specific offices to confirm.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Monday, February 16, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Instruction Ends - Winter 2026
Dates of Instruction
Instruction ends.
Event interval: Single day event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Friday, March 13, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Final Examinations - Winter 2026
Dates of Instruction
Week of final examinations for winter quarter.
Event interval: Ongoing event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Winter. Event Types: Academics.
Saturday, March 14, 2026 – Friday, March 20, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu. Quarter Break - Spring 2026
Dates of Instruction
Break between winter and spring quarters.
Event interval: Ongoing event. Year: 2026. Quarter: Spring. Event Types: Academics.
Saturday, March 21, 2026 – Sunday, March 29, 2026.
For more info visit www.washington.edu.