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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

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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.

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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.


Faculty Members

Faculty

Faculty


Centers & Initiatives

The eScience Institute empowers researchers and students in all fields to answer fundamental questions through the use of large, complex, and noisy data. As the hub of data-intensive discovery on campus, we lead a community of innovators in the techniques, technologies, and best practices of data science and the fields that depend on them.

MEM-C is a NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center that integrates materials innovations with theory and computation to advance spin-photonic nanostructures and elastic layered quantum materials, aided by an “AI Core” that integrates artificial intelligence-driven materials discovery.

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.