Computer Science

The CS&E Initiative and the Departmental Plan of Computer Science -- Priorities and Hiring. The Department of Computer Science (CS) is a very active participant in CS&E activities today, and it is highly committed to this Initiative. CS research can be divided into two broad categories: basic (or ``core'' CS research) and applied. Core CS research deals with the development of technologies to build computers that are faster, cheaper, and easier to use. But computational methodologies are becoming an integral part of research in many fields, e.g., in biology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, the arts, and dozens of branches of engineering. This development has already been recognized by CS. The boundary between CS and other disciplines is getting blurred, and strong interdisciplinary research is needed to achieve the most effective results on these ``boundary problems.'' Besides the CS&E Initiative, CS expects to play a key role in some other interdisciplinary campus Initiatives such as the Genomics/Bioinformatics and ArtsVision Initiatives. CS is supplying faculty expertise to all three of these campus Initiative committees, including the Chair of the Bioinformatics Subcommittee on Genomics and the Acting Chair of the CS&E Initiative. Several CS faculty members contribute to CS&E and are highly accomplished leaders in their CS&E subdisciplines, e.g., Professors Bernd Hamann and Ken Joy in visualization and computer graphics; Professor Dan Gusfield in computational biology; Professor Alan J. Laub, Dean of Engineering, in scientific numerical computation; and Professor Michael Gertz in database and information systems. Another CS&E faculty member, Professor Nelson Max--who teaches, does research in, and supervises graduate student research in computer graphics and visualization--is expected to hold a joint appointment in CS in the near future. Our commitment to the field of CS&E is strongly demonstrated by the fact that two out of our three new faculty hires during the current academic year (1998/99) are CS&E-oriented faculty. One of them is Dr. Kwan-Liu Ma, who works in computer graphics and visualization; he is a 1993 PhD graduate from the University of Utah comes to us from NASA/ICASE. The other new CS&E hire is Dr. Zhaojun Bai, who works in numerical analysis and scientific computation; he comes to us from the faculty of the University of Kentucky. Our Departmental Plan calls for the hiring of several additional CS&E-oriented faculty over the next several years. Potential CS&E areas in which we can add strength include computational biology, information systems, more hires in areas closely linked to or supporting visualization and computer graphics, and emerging ``digital'' disciplines such as computer music. CS&E and its Relation to Teaching. CS offers a wide range of courses in computer graphics and visualization at both the undergraduate and graduate levels (ECS 175, 177, 178, 275A/B, 277, 278, 279). ECS 175 is very popular and is usually offered every quarter. One of our new hires, Dr. Ma, is expected to introduce a new graduate course in visualization during 1999/2000. Dr. Bai's hiring will enable us to revitalize our course offerings in scientific computation. He will offer a new course in scientific computation during 1999/2000. In the coming years, we expect that Dr. Bai will also be able to introduce courses on this subject at the undergraduate level. In the computational biology area, Professor Gusfield has taught ECS224 for several years and has recently introduced a new course, ECS 124, to be offered for the first time during 1999/2000. In the database and information systems area, we offer several courses (ECS 165A, 165B, 167, 168, 265). New hires are expected to introduce new courses and expand our graduate offerings in the years ahead. Resources. CS is planning to add 16 growth FTE positions by the year 2005/06. Several of these positions will be earmarked for CS&E disciplines. Currently, with a faculty size of 19, the resources in CS are running at capacity, e.g., space, or are running out of capacity, particularly technical support. We expect that, due to our planned growth, there will be additional space (and financial support) made available to CS to recruit the new faculty hires.