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
Computer Systems Lab
The Computer Systems Lab works on research covering a number of areas in operating systems, distributed systems, computer architecture and security.
Quantum Group
The Quantum Group does research on a variety of topics in quantum information and computation (primarily on the theory side), including quantum complexity theory, error-correction, cryptography, algorithms, and learning.
Faculty Members
Centers & Initiatives
The UW Center for the Future of Cloud Infrastructure (FOCI) aims to foster a tight partnership between practitioners and researchers in both industry and academia to define the next generation of cloud infrastructure to achieve new levels of security, reliability, performance along with cost-efficiency and environmental sustainability.
The NSF AI Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation (ACTION) seeks to change the way mission-critical systems are protected against sophisticated, ever-changing security threats. In cooperation with (and learning from) security operations experts, intelligent agents will use complex knowledge representation, logic reasoning, and learning to identify flaws, detect attacks, perform attribution, and respond to breaches in a timely and scalable fashion.
Highlights
Allen School News
In a Q&A, professor Kurtis Heimerl and postdoc Esther Han Beol Jang (Ph.D., ‘24) discuss their work with residents of two Seattle tiny house villages on how they can leverage smart technologies to improve living conditions, balanced against concerns such as cost and continuity of deployment.
Allen School News
To help make datasets easier to explore, in 2015, a team of researchers led by Heer introduced Voyager, a system that automatically generates and recommends charts and visualizations based on statistical and perceptual measures — which earned the InfoVis 10-Year Test of Time Award at IEEE VIS 2025.
GeekWire
At the Allen School’s Research Showcase and Open House, school leaders celebrated the work of faculty and student researchers — and offered a blueprint for collaboratively tackling a set of human-centered problems for even greater impact.