Advances in low- and no-power sensing, communication and interaction technologies offer new possibilities for blending digital innovation with our physical environment.
From gesture recognition that allows people to interact with objects in new ways, to low-power sensors that collect and transmit data about temperature, air quality, urban accessibility and more, our researchers are tapping into the potential of computation to transform how we experience the world around us.
Research Groups & Labs
Security and Privacy Research Lab
The Security and Privacy Research Lab works on a variety of topics, ranging from studying and addressing security and privacy risks in existing technologies, to anticipating future risks in emerging technologies.
Robotics and State Estimation Lab
We are interested in the development of computing systems that interact with the physical world in an intelligent way. To investigate such systems, we focus on problems in robotics and activity recognition.
Faculty Members
Faculty
Faculty
Faculty
Faculty
Centers & Initiatives
Computing for the Environment (CS4Env) at the University of Washington supports novel collaborations across the broad fields of environmental sciences and computer science & engineering. The initiative engages environmental scientists and engineers, computer scientists and engineers, and data scientists in using advanced technologies, methodologies and computing resources to accelerate research that addresses pressing societal challenges related to climate change, pollution, biodiversity and more.
The Transportation Data Equity Initiative (TDEI) aims to enhance the quality and accessibility of travel services by building open source data collection and vetting tools, transportation data digital infrastructure, and governance frameworks that enable public-private data sharing and interoperability. The TDEI is a project sponsored by The Complete Trip, an ITS4US Deployment Program.
Highlights
Allen School News
From a robotic arm that learns to pick up new objects in real time, to a model that converts 2D videos into 3D virtual reality, to a curious chatbot that adapts to users, to machine learning methods for decoding the brain, the 2025 Research Showcase and Open House had something for everyone.
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.
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.