News

$Singular value spectra for SFS- and ARG-based operator \widetilde{\mathcal{L}} under Poisson noise about a constant mutation rate baseline.$

Observability of mutation rate histories from ancestral recombination graphs

This post explores mathematical aspects of recovering mutation rate histories from an ancestral recombination graph (ARG) Vs a sample frequency spectrum (SFS), expanding on…

Will is off to Norway to oppose a PhD defense

Will travels to Norway 3–7 November to serve as the opponent of a PhD thesis defense at the University of Oslo, and visit collaborators.

Will gives a talk at SIAM Pacific Northwest Section Conference

Will is an invited speaker at the 5th Biennial Meeting of the SIAM Pacific Northwest Section in the symposium Data-driven Mathematical Models for Prediction and Control of…

Rhea joins for an Applied Math reading

Applied Math PhD student Rhea Grover joins the lab for an Autumn quarter reading.

A dynamical perspective on triggering multiscale immune responses

Preprint: BH Schlomann, WS DeWitt, Y Zhang, K Shah. Ignition criteria for trigger waves in cell signaling. arXiv:2508.16810 [q-bio.CB]

Funding for Evo-Hub from Simpson Center for the Humanities

Evo-Hub receives funding from the Simpson Center for the Humanities for 2025-2026!

Charles presents a poster at GS Undergraduate Research Poster Session

Charles Bennington has been working with us this summer via the UW School of Medicine—Gonzaga University Summer Research Program.

Two preprints on inferring affinity-fitness response in germinal centers from trees

Two collaborative preprints investigate how fitness of affinity-maturing B cells depends on affinity changes in their mutating B-cell receptors, both using B-cell lineage…

Preprint with Ben Feintzeig (UW Philosophy)

Forward-Time Equivalent of a “Retrocausal” Diffusion Hidden Variable Model for Quantum Mechanics, arXiv:2507.13593 [quant-ph].

Off to Nordita for Eco-Evolutionary Processes in Context

Will is off to Stockholm for the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics (Nordita) workshop: Eco-Evolutionary Processes in Context: a Statistical Physics Approach (July…

Maggie receives Distinguished Dissertation Award

Postdoc Maggie Russell receives the UW Distinguished Dissertation Award for her PhD work Inferring mechanisms of V(D)J recombination using statistical inference on…

Charles joins for summer internship

Charles Bennington (Gonzaga University Computer Science major) joins the lab for a summer internship via the UW School of Medicine—Gonzaga University Summer Research Program.

GC Replay preprint

Replaying germinal center evolution on a quantified affinity landscape. bioRxiv

Evo-WIBO 2025

Will and Maggie attend Evo-WIBO in Blaine, WA (April 4–6, 2025).

Arnav joins for MolES rotation

MolES PhD student Arnav Nagle joins for a rotation, co-advised with Armita Nourmohammad.

First lab members

The lab welcomes its first two members today! Dr. Magdalena (Maggie) Russell joins as a postdoc, and Carlo Melendez joins as a GS rotation student for the Spring quarter.

Evo-Hub launches

Evo-Hub—founded by faculty in Genome Sciences, Biology, and Philosophy—brings together scholars at UW and other local institutions to foster collaboration and community in…

SFI Micro Working Group

Off to Santa Fe Institute for Evolutionary dynamics of cheating in viral infections II (November 3–8, 2024).

KITP viralimmune24 program

Will is in residence at Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics (KITP) for Interactions and Co-evolution between Viruses and Immune Systems (September 24 – October 11, 2024).

Hello again, UW!

The DeWitt lab opens in the Foege building at University of Washington’s Department of Genome Sciences!

Publication

Mean-field interacting multi-type birth–death processes with a view to applications in phylodynamics in Theoretical Population Biology, Volume 159.

Departing Berkeley

Will finishes JSMF Fellowship at UC Berkeley advised by Yun Song.

SFI Micro Working Group

Off to Santa Fe Institute for Evolutionary dynamics of cheating in viral infections (April 10–15, 2024).

SFI Micro Working Group

Off to Santa Fe Institute for Slow-fast dynamics in biological systems II (October 7–11, 2023).

Aspen Center for Physics program

Off to Aspen Center for Physics to attend the Program on statistical physics & adaptive immunity (August 14–25, 2023).

SMBE 2023

Off to Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) 2023 in Ferrara, Italy; Will gives a talk and receives a “Young” Investigator award (July 23–27, 2023).