Skip to content

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

Laptop displaying glowing purple light onscreen in darkened room

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.

A hand stacking square blocks in ascending heights like a graph

Interactive Data Lab

The Interactive Data Lab aims to enhance people’s ability to understand and communicate data through the design of new interactive systems for data visualization and analysis.


Faculty Members

Faculty

Faculty


Centers & Initiatives

The NSF AI Institute for Agent-based Cyber Threat Intelligence and Operation (ACTION) seeks to change the way mission-critical systems are protected against sophisticated, ever-changing security threats. In cooperation with (and learning from) security operations experts, intelligent agents will use complex knowledge representation, logic reasoning, and learning to identify flaws, detect attacks, perform attribution, and respond to breaches in a timely and scalable fashion.

The UW Center for the Future of Cloud Infrastructure (FOCI) aims to foster a tight partnership between practitioners and researchers in both industry and academia to define the next generation of cloud infrastructure to achieve new levels of security, reliability, performance along with cost-efficiency and environmental sustainability.

Highlights


Allen School News

Armon Dadgar (B.S., ‘11) co-founded the high-flying cloud company HashiCorp inspired by an undergraduate research project. Now he and partner Joshua Kalla hope to sow the seeds of the next HashiCorp with a new professorship and support for a new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs.

Allen School News

Deeds introduced partition constraints, a new approach for making conjunctive query executions more efficient. He presented the research at the 28th International Conference on Database Theory (ICDT), earning both the Best Student Paper and Best Paper Awards.

Allen School News

A team of Allen School researchers introduced computational illusion knitting — a design framework that helps automate the process, making illusion knitting more accessible and allowing for more complex and multi-view patterns like hidden Mona Lisas that were previously believed to be impossible.