Skip to content

Software & Hardware Systems

Our researchers are driving innovation across the entire hardware, software and network stack to make computer systems more reliable, efficient and secure. 

From internet-scale networks, to next-generation chip designs, to deep learning frameworks and more, we build and refine the devices and applications that individuals, industries and, indeed, entire economies depend upon every day.


Research Groups & Labs

Stacked rocks in a beach scene

SAMPL

SAMPL is an interdisciplinary machine learning research group exploring problems across the system stack, including deep learning frameworks, specialized hardware for training and inference, new intermediate representations and more.

Three padlocks of different sizes linked by a chain

Cryptography Research Group

The Cryptography Group advances the foundations and applications of cryptography, including public-key and symmetric cryptography, obfuscation, attribute-based and functional encryption, secure multi-party computation, quantum cryptography and more.


Faculty Members

Faculty

Faculty

Faculty


Centers & Initiatives

MEM-C is a NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center that integrates materials innovations with theory and computation to advance spin-photonic nanostructures and elastic layered quantum materials, aided by an “AI Core” that integrates artificial intelligence-driven materials discovery.

Society + Technology is a cross-campus, cross-disciplinary initiative and community at the University of Washington that is dedicated to research, teaching and learning focused on the social, societal and justice dimensions of technology.

Highlights


Allen School News

In the award-winning paper, Tang developed the first quantum state obfuscation scheme for unitary quantum programs, which are the backbone of quantum computing, in the classical oracle model. He presented the research at the 66th IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science last December.

GeekWire

Allen School undergraduate Prisha Hemani and teammates won the grand prize in the 2026 Hollomon Health Challenge for CPRight, a real-time CPR feedback device. The annual competition is hosted by the UW’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship in the Foster School of Business.

Allen School News

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recognized Mahajan (Ph.D., ‘05) among its 2025 class of ACM Fellows for his groundbreaking “contributions to network verification and network control systems and their transfer to industrial practice.”