University Of Washington

The University of Washington, founded in 1861, is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. As the flagship institution of the six-campus University of Washington system, UW is known for its research and teaching excellence, as well as its highly competitive athletics programs. The university consistently ranks among the top public universities in the United States and currently sits at number 54 in the 2020 U.S. News & World Report national rankings.

UW’s history is closely tied to the early history of Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. The city of Seattle was incorporated in 1869, just eight years after UW was founded, and UW quickly became an integral part of the young city’s intellectual life. In 1895, UW opened what would become one of its most iconic buildings: Suzzallo Library, designed by architect Charles A. Bebb in the grand Beaux-Arts style.

Today, UW comprises 16 schools and colleges that offer more than 700 undergraduate and graduate degree programs to nearly 60,000 students annually. The university’s impressive array of academic offerings is complemented by world-class facilities like its endowment-rich libraries (which hold more than 7 million volumes), state-of-the-art laboratories and research centers (like the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence), and renowned hospitals and clinics (such as Harborview Medical Center). In 2019 alone, UW received over $1 billion in research funding from sources like the National Institutes of Health and NASA.

Notably, several Nobel laureates are affiliated with UW as either current or former faculty members or researchers; these include economists Leonid Hurwicz (2007) and Bengt Holmström (2016), physicist James Cronin (1980), chemist Ronald Breslow (1998), immunologist Bruce Beutler (2011), geneticist Maynard Olson (1989), neuroscientist Edvard Moser (2014), biologist John Sulston (2002), physicist Takaaki Kajita (2015), medical doctor Peter Doherty(1996 ),and biochemist Roger Tsien(2008 ). Eleven Pulitzer Prize winners have also been connected to UW at some point during their careers.

In addition to its stellar reputation for academics and research, UW is also home to 19 NCAA Division I sports teams—including beloved football team Huskies—that compete in the Pac-12 Conference. The university has produced numerous Olympians as well; since 1908 , when track & field athlete George Poage became UW’s first Olympic medalist , a total of 256 Huskies have competed in Olympics Games , winning 109 medals . And finally , it should be noted that several successful businesses have gotten their start at “The U” thanks to incubators like CoMotion ; notable examples include Starbucks , Alaska Airlines , Costco Wholesale .