Student Info > Prospective Graduate Student Information
Invitation to Apply to the Graduate Program
Dear Prospective Student:
Greetings! This is an invitation to apply for graduate study in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Washington. We are the largest department in the University of Washington College of Engineering and the premier electrical engineering program in the Pacific Northwest.
The Department is ranked 8th among all electrical engineering departments in the U.S. by the Chronicle of Higher Education's Faculty Productivity Index. There are appoximately 275 students in the program, two-thirds of whom are Ph.D. students and one-third are Master's students. Up to 700 applications are received each year, and approximately 100 admissions offers are made annually.
Our department is in the midst of a period of high growth in many new and exciting areas. The research contributions of our faculty and students are internationally recognized, and we are dedicated to maintaining an atmosphere of cooperation that nurtures high-quality research and education with close ties to high tech industry.
Our Department offers research and instruction in almost all areas of Electrical Engineering, including
- Signal Processing and Speech Recognition
- Image Processing, Multimedia
- Communications, Networks Systems and Security, Cryptography
- Digital and Analog Integrated Circuit Design and Testing
- Controls, Robotics
- MEMs, Microelectronics, Nanotechnology, Genomics
- Computational Electromagnetics, Remote Sensing
- Energy Systems
We have close affiliations and opportunities for joint research with a broad range of other top departments and schools at UW including Computer Science and Engineering, Bioengineering, and the Medical School, as well as many other programs in the Colleges of Engineering and Arts and Sciences.
The UW is located near downtown Seattle, close to a concentration of vibrant high tech industry consisting of both well known names such as Microsoft and Boeing as well as numerous startups (many of which have been founded by UW faculty). Seattle has both a broad spectrum of cultural activities and spectacular physical beauty. The Cascades, Mt. Rainier, the Olympic Peninsula, and Puget Sound are all nearby and easily accessible. Faculty work closely with many local and national companies which also hire both our US and foreign (with F-1 visa) students as summer interns in their research and development groups. Experience with industry and high-impact research projects enables many of our students to be well placed upon graduation.
Our faculty includes two members of the National Academy of Engineering, one recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award, 14 NSF Presidential Young Investigator/Career Award recipients (and counting), and 16 IEEE Fellows (1 major IEEE Medal). The relevant website for more information is www.ee.washington.edu/welcome/facts. html. Additional faculty information is available from www.ee.washington.edu/people/faculty. External funding for research has grown tremendously over the past two years - from approximately $6 million to $11 million per year - and our department was recently the recipient of a $4 million grant to investigate better ways for people to "interface" with the Internet. This research funding makes it possible for us to offer 3-year graduate teaching or research assistantships with competive stipends to incoming students; certainly Ph.D. students who are doing well in their studies will be able to extend that funding throughout their period of study.
Application instructions and information are located at: www.ee.washington.edu/academic/graduate/admitcriteria.html. We very much look forward to your application. If you have any questions, please contact us at grad@ee.washington.edu.
Committee for Graduate Recruitment
On behalf of UW EE Department
