Graduate Education

Full-time Ph.D. Program

Working together, our students and faculty drive our field forward while generating innovations with real-world impact.

Consistently ranked among the top computer science and engineering graduate programs in the nation, the Paul G. Allen School offers our 300 full-time graduate students a collegial and supportive learning environment; research opportunities of the highest quality; and the chance to collaborate with entrepreneurial faculty who are recognized leaders in their fields. We are proud of our record of accomplishment in mentoring student researchers who go on to positions at the very best academic departments and industry laboratories. Working together, our students and faculty drive our field forward while generating innovations with real-world impact.

Explore Our Ph.D. Program

Ph.D. Admissions

Each year, the Allen School welcomes around 60 new students interested in pursuing advanced academic or industry research careers to our Ph.D. program.

Learn About Ph.D. Admissions »

The Process

Students earn their Ph.D. through a combination of coursework, original research and thesis preparation under the guidance of faculty at the forefront of the field.

Learn about the Ph.D. Process »

Course Guide

We offer an array of courses that support students in developing core skills and attaining a broad knowledge of computing while exploring their chosen area in depth.

Explore Ph.D. Courses & Requirements »

Student Handbook

From degree requirements, to funding, to helpful advice — and more — our online handbook has (nearly) all students need to know to navigate the program.

Explore the Student Handbook »

Ph.D. Advising

Our advising team is a group of compassionate and knowledgeable individuals who are here to support Ph.D. students on every step of their academic journey.

Meet the Ph.D. Advising Team »

Teaching Assistants

Teaching assistantships enable Ph.D. students to play an integral role in the learning experience at the Allen School while honing their skills as educators and mentors.

How To Become a Teaching Assistant »

Ph. D. Program Information

Students in the Allen School’s full-time Ph.D. program earn an integrated Master’s Degree on their path to the Ph.D. Key features of our program include:

Comprehensive, high-quality graduate computer science curriculum.
A vibrant academic and social community.
Welcoming and inclusive environment for international students, women, and other underrepresented groups.
Robust schedule of colloquia and lectures on current topics in research and technology.
Leading-edge interdisciplinary research opportunities, both on and off campus.

Our students benefit from many collaborations and relationships that we have developed across the campus and in the region. In addition to being the headquarters of established technology leaders such as Microsoft and Amazon, Seattle is also home to an extensive (and ever-growing) list of engineering centers established by major industry players from outside the Pacific Northwest.

Highlights

Allen School News

Allen School team recognized for making equality saturation more practical

Researchers in the Programming Languages & Software Engineering (PLSE) group introduced egg, an open-source library that uses e-graphs along with equality saturation to optimize term representations. Their paper was recently featured as a Communications of the ACM Research Highlight.

UW News

AI agents that quickly estimate electronic devices’ carbon footprints

A team led by Allen School professor Vikram Iyer and Ph.D. student Zhihan Zhang published a paper in Nature Electronics describing a system that can assemble life cycle assessments, or LCAs, for electronic devices in about a minute with the help of AI agents.

Allen School News

Allen School honors David Dawson (B.S., ‘06), Nodira Khoussainova (Ph.D., ‘12)

Dawson and Khoussainova, the 2026 Alumni Impact Award recipients, have combined their computing skillset with their entrepreneurial spirit to build companies that are making a positive impact in people’s lives.

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