A&A Quick Facts

The University of Washington’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics offers the only aerospace degree program in the Pacific Northwest, a region whose aerospace industry has been a major contributor to the technological development, economic vitality and the security of the United States.

Undergraduate Enrollment & Achievements

Graduate Enrollment & Achievements

• Air Force Research Laboratory Space Scholar
• Multiple National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellows
• Clean Energy Institute Graduate Fellow
• Lemelson-MIT Student Prize
• National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow
• Air Force Research Laboratory Space Scholar
• Department of Defense SMART Scholar
• Society of Women Engineers Region J Scholar
• UW Husky 100 Awardee
• AIAA-Aviation Week 20 Twenties Awardee
• Forbes Magazine's "30 Under 30" Awardee

Faculty

• 19 core tenured and tenure-track faculty and 5 research faculty
• 8 faculty adjunct with other UW Engineering and science departments
• 26 affiliate faculty representing industry and outside research institutions
• 10 post-doctoral research associates

FY 2017 Annual Operating Budget

Quick History

• Boeing Wind Tunnel (now the Aerodynamics Laboratory (ADL)) built in 1917 at UW.
• UW starts one of the first Aeronautical Engineering departments in the nation in 1929, one of seven originally established with the help of the Guggenheim Fund for the Advancement of Aeronautics.
• Founding faculty: Fred S. Eastman,  Everett O. Eastwood, Frederick K. Kirsten, John W. Miller.
• Kirsten Wind Tunnel built in 1936; formal testing begins in 1939 with the North American AT-6 "Texan."
• "Astronautics" added to department name in 1961.
• NASA grants $1.5 million in 1966 to build new Aerospace Research. Laboratory (now AERB). Building dedicated in 1970.

Download our department Fact Sheet.