Allen School researchers have coalesced around a set of grand challenges that we are uniquely positioned to address while expanding the frontiers of computing.
Universities such as ours are particularly suited to tackling these grand challenges, which call for solutions to be implemented at a societal scale, due to our ability to pursue ambitious, cross-cutting research motivated by the public good. And the Allen School is positioned to lead the way by leveraging collaborations across our school, the UW campus, and beyond to tackle complex research problems with proven impact.
While we pursue significant and varied research beyond the priorities highlighted below, the grand challenges offer an opportunity to leverage our world-leading expertise and cross-disciplinary collaborations — mobilizing multiple perspectives to advance innovation that benefits society.
AI has the potential to increase productivity, enhance creativity, and accelerate discovery. It also has the potential to generate unintended consequences for individuals and communities who don’t fit a default user profile. AI is already transforming the way many organizations and people work in Washington state owing to the concentration of companies at the forefront of AI development, and the trend is expected to spread. Allen School researchers are advancing the state of the art in AI research with an emphasis on open source, open data, and open processes, to enable both deeper, broader scientific understanding and broader participation in designing AI for the needs and preferences of different populations — while mitigating potential harms.
From elections to energy grids, society depends on computers that must be safe, secure, and reliable: not just 90% or even 99% of the time, but every time. That’s where verification comes in: using math to prove software always behaves as intended. In the lab, verification has been shown to produce applications that are dramatically safer and more reliable. But real-world code is so complex, most of it can’t be fully verified today, and the rise of unpredictable AI and “vibe coding” only raises the stakes. Allen School researchers are working to make verification practical across the stack — from chips and compilers, to cryptographic protocols and ML-powered apps.
Advances in AI, remote sensing and other technologies offer new ways to anticipate and mitigate environmental concerns, from dwindling biodiversity to intensifying wildfires. But these same technologies can present concerns of their own in the form of electronic waste, pollution and energy consumption. Allen School researchers are developing new materials and techniques to maximize technology’s potential while minimizing its environmental footprint.
As technology permeates every aspect of our lives, it has the potential to fundamentally change many things for the better — but realizing the potential benefits also requires sustained, thoughtful focus on the security, privacy, and safety risks that may and do arise from new technologies and their applications in new contexts. Anticipating, uncovering, documenting, mitigating, and avoiding such risks is an inter-disciplinary endeavor, requiring advances in technology, theory, design, law and policy — as well as in our understanding of how individuals and communities relate to technology. We bring together researchers and educators across the Allen School and the University of Washington whose work aims to lead us towards a safer, more secure, and more privacy-preserving future through technologies that ultimately better serve people and society.
Allen School researchers bring expertise that is both broad and deep, spanning the entire computing stack. Our approach is inherently interdisciplinary, and we have a proud history of leveraging collaborations across our school, the UW campus, and beyond to tackle complex research problems with proven impact.
