2026–2027 season
Discovery Series
Cool talks in cool places
The Discovery Series brings together Washington’s preeminent researchers, innovative leaders, and elected officials to stay on top of important advancements being made in our state. Each program includes lunch, networking time, a Q&A session, and a chance to meet the speaker.
See upcoming talksUpcoming talks
Register separately for each talk.
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- Date
- Friday, October 9, 2026
- Time
- 11:30 am to 1:00 pm
- Location
- Accenture, Seattle
Next up
When Rivers Fall from the Sky: Predicting Atmospheric River Risks
Dr. Karthik Balaguru
Pacific Northwest National LaboratoryRegister for October 9Atmospheric rivers are narrow bands of moisture that can carry more water than some major rivers—moving across the Pacific before delivering intense rain and snow to the West Coast.
They replenish water supplies, but they can also trigger flooding, landslides, and widespread power outages. Because relatively few extreme events have been observed, scientists have limited opportunities to understand the full range of risks these storms can create.
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Using artificial intelligence, researchers are developing new ways to explore those possibilities. DeepAR generates realistic, high-resolution simulations of atmospheric rivers, creating large ensembles of plausible storms that can reveal how their paths, intensity, and rainfall may vary. A companion model, AR-Outage, connects atmospheric river conditions with decades of weather and power outage records to estimate where and when these storms are most likely to disrupt the electrical grid.
Together, these tools offer a new lens on a growing challenge: not simply asking what happened during past storms, but exploring what could possibly happen. By combining environmental data, machine learning, and infrastructure records, this work can help communities and utilities better understand regional risks, prepare for extreme events, and build a more resilient future.
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- Date
- Friday, November 13, 2026
- Time
- 11:30 am to 1:00 pm
- Location
- EY, Seattle
A Bothell Biotech, a Nobel, and the 25 Years in Between
Dr. Mary Brunkow, 2025 Nobel Laureate
Institute for Systems BiologyRegister for November 13What if the discovery that unlocked a new era of cancer and autoimmune therapy was sitting quietly in a Bothell biotech — until Stockholm came calling, 25 years later?
In the late 1990s, Dr. Mary Brunkow was a scientist at Darwin Molecular Corp., a gene-discovery biotech startup in Bothell, WA, doing the kind of meticulous, foundational work that rarely makes headlines. She and her colleagues identified the FOXP3 gene and helped establish the science of regulatory T cells — discoveries that would ultimately reshape our understanding of how the immune system keeps itself in check.
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Then the company closed. Life moved on. Dr. Brunkow spent the years since working across the life sciences as a program manager, science writer, and contract researcher — in disease areas far removed from Tregs.
And then, in the middle of the night, the call came from Stockholm.
Dr. Brunkow, along with Drs. Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi, was awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for that foundational work — work that has since opened a new era in therapeutics for autoimmune conditions and cancer.
Her talk will trace a career full of unexpected turns, and explore how the science of regulatory T cells unlocked a powerful and previously hidden dimension of the immune system.
Coming in 2027
January through June speakers will be announced as they are confirmed.
- JanuarySpeaker to be announced
- FebruarySpeaker to be announced
- MarchSpeaker to be announced
- AprilSpeaker to be announced
- MaySpeaker to be announced
- JuneSpeaker to be announced
Earlier this season
Talks from the 2026–2027 season so far.
Our sponsors
Special thanks to the organizations that make the Discovery Series possible.
Sustaining sponsor
- Meta
Supporting sponsors
- Slalom
- K&L Gates
- McKinsey & Company
- University of Washington
Engaging sponsors
- Washington State University
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL)
- WRF Capital
- EY
- Clark Nuber
- Accenture
Become a sponsor
Interested in sponsoring the Discovery Series? We would love to hear from you.