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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

Database Group cover image of a mountain

Database Group

The UW Database Group does theoretical, systems and user-centered work in multimodal database management systems; generative AI and data management; complexity of query evaluation and optimization; scalable, interactive data visualization; 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


Centers & Initiatives

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.

IFDS organizes its research around four core themes: complexity, robustness, closed-loop data science, and ethics and algorithms. By making concerted progress on these fundamental fronts, IFDS aims to lower several of the barriers to better understanding of data science methodology and to its improved effectiveness and wider relevance to application areas.

Highlights


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.”

UW News

A team led by UW researchers created a system that uses a phone’s existing speaker and microphone to accurately estimate fetal heart rate by mimicking Doppler ultrasound.