When imagining the future of technology, sometimes all we need to do is look out the window — or into a microscope.
Our researchers take inspiration from nature to redefine what a computer can be, from data storage using synthetic DNA, to sensors modeled on insects and leaves. We also advance technologies to help solve biology’s biggest mysteries, such as computational approaches for understanding the mechanisms of disease and brain-computer interfaces that can restore or augment physical function and mobility.
Research Groups & Labs
Mostafavi Lab
The Mostafavi Lab develops machine learning and statistical methods that combine evidence across multiple types of molecular/genomics data and disentangle spurious from meaningful correlations for new insights into mechanisms of health and disease.
UbiComp Lab
The Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) Lab develops innovative systems for health sensing, low-power sensing, energy sensing, activity recognition and novel user interface technology for real-world applications.
Allen School Faculty
Professor
Professor
Assistant Professor
Assistant Professor
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.
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.
Highlights
HearingTracker
A technology known as semantic hearing developed in Allen School professor Shyam Gollakota’s lab could let users create acoustic bubbles, isolate chosen voices, and control individual sounds in their environment.
MIT Technology Review Korea
Allen School professor Su-In Lee discusses the role of artificial intelligence in science and medicine and explains why the process the model follows to arrive at an answer is as important as the answer itself.
KUOW Soundside
Researcher Chris Takahashi describes how the Molecular Information Systems Lab encoded historical documents from the Library of Congress in synthetic DNA for a time capsule marking America’s 250th anniversary.