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Research & Innovation

The Allen School advances research excellence from the foundations of computing to emerging applications that are shaping the future of not just our field but also our broader society.

We have deep technical expertise that touches every aspect of computing, and we have a long and proud tradition of interdisciplinary collaboration on cross-cutting research with real-world impact. Our researchers continue to build on this tradition while opening up new avenues of exploration, harnessing the transformative power of computing to develop solutions that benefit people, society and the planet while expanding the frontiers of our field.


Explore Allen School Research

Artificial
Intelligence

Our researchers are driving exciting developments in AI while cultivating a deeper understanding of the science and impact of these rapidly evolving technologies on industries, cultures and communities.


Explore Artificial Intelligence »

Computing +
Biology

Our researchers are advancing computational methods to help solve biology and medicine’s biggest mysteries while taking inspiration from nature to reimagine what a computer can be.


Explore Computing + Biology »

Human-Centered
Computing

Our researchers are enhancing the ways in which people and communities engage with technology to maximize the benefits and minimize the harms to individuals, groups and society.


EXPLORE Human-Centered Computing »

Interaction with the
Physical World

Our researchers are tapping into the potential of low- and no-power sensing, communication and interaction technologies to transform how we experience the world around us.


EXPLORE Physical World Interaction »

Software & Hardware
Systems

Our researchers are driving innovation across the entire hardware, software and network stack to ensure the computer systems that we depend upon everyday are reliable and secure.


EXPLORE Software & Hardware Systems »

Theory & Models
of Computation

Our researchers are answering fundamental and long-standing questions about the capabilities and limitations of computing, with practical implications in a variety of real-world domains.


EXPLORE Theory & Models of Computation »

Research Showcase poster session photo showing interaction between researcher and an attendee.

Annual Research Showcase

Highlights


Allen School News

Allen School researchers earned multiple awards at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics for laying the foundation for how AI systems understand and follow human instructions, exploring how LLMs pull responses from their training data, and more.

UW News

In her new book “Digital Culture Shock: Who Creates Technology and Why This Matters,” Reinecke examines how culture shapes the design and use of technology — and why we should resist a one-size-fits-all approach.

Allen School News

Winners Andrew Alex and Megan Frisella aim to advance research in user-scheduled programming languages, while fellow Allen School winner Zixian Ma and UW ECE collaborator Yushi Hu will develop multi-modal AI agents capable of performing complex tasks.

Advancing open AI for science

The Allen School is working with Ai2 and other academic partners on Open Multimodal AI Infrastructure to Accelerate Science (OMAI), a $152M project to accelerate scientific discover and advance the science of artificial intelligence itself, with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation and NVIDIA.

Bronze W statue with pink and gold lighting.

Campus Collaborations


The Allen School partners with units across the UW on interdisciplinary research and education initiatives to advance knowledge and benefit society.

Click on the map below to explore our campus collaborations.