PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

The Department of Computer Science offers programs leading to the M.S. and Ph.D. The M.S. program consists of a coursework--only option (30 credits) or a thesis or project option under the supervision of a faculty advisor and committee, culminating in a report and oral defense. The M.S. requires advanced courses in computer science and related fields. The M.S. program has optional concentrations in Cybersecurity and Artifical Intelligence/Machine Learning. Students should consult the departmental document Computer Science Graduate Program Degree Requirements for a full description of degree requirements.

A student entering graduate study in computer science should have a strong undergraduate grounding in the fundamentals of calculus and discrete mathematics, and basic knowledge of data structures, algorithms, and one or more higher-level computing programming languages.

The research activities of the department’s faculty provide exciting and challenging research opportunities to students in computer science. The department has strong research programs in algorithms and computational complexity; computational geometry; internet systems, networking and security; computer architectures and distributed systems; computational biology; biological computing and nanotechnologies; databases, mobile, and cloud computing; machine learning theory and applications; and artificial intelligence, computational economics, computer vision, natural language processing, and scientific computing. Research in computer science overlaps with research areas in other disciplines including biology, engineering, nanotechnology, environmental sciences, economics, biochemistry, statistics, and medicine.