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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

Data center connections

Computer Systems Lab

The Computer Systems Lab works on research covering a number of areas in operating systems, distributed systems, computer architecture and security.

Purple-tinted English QWERTY keyboard

Programming Languages & Software Engineering Group (PLSE)

The Programming Languages and Software Engineering Group advances fundamental research and practical applications in programming environments, program analysis, language design, synthesis, compilers, testing, verification and security.


Faculty Members

Faculty

Faculty


Centers & Initiatives

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.

IFDS organizes its research around four core themes: complexity, robustness, closed-loop data science, and ethics and algorithms. By making concerted progress on these fundamental fronts, IFDS aims to lower several of the barriers to better understanding of data science methodology and to its improved effectiveness and wider relevance to application areas.

Highlights


Allen School News

The fellowship will support Zhang’s work in sustainable ubiquitous computing, including the development of recyclable electronics and leveraging artificial intelligence to estimate carbon footprints and provide personalized health insights.

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.