What CS&E Should Be

Faculty members hired under the CS&E Initiative should be those who can make important scientific contributions to the development and study of computational methods. CS&E faculty should do research concerning the development, study, and application of computational methods, with a contribution to application areas. In their research, CS&E faculty are usually motivated by particular applied problems to be solved, the specific model being used in a computer simulation, or certain implementation aspects of algorithmic methods. Computer scientists/engineers, on the other hand, are mainly concerned with the development of better computer and computing infrastructure technology or, when involved in applied efforts, by generalization and problem abstraction. The key areas of interest to a ``traditional computer scientist'' would include the development and generalization of algorithms to make them applicable to a large class of problems, the design and analysis of complex data structures useful for a wide range of problems, or the complexity analysis of algorithms. It would be desirable to hire new CS&E faculty who are able to make contributions to these fundamental and ``traditional'' areas of study and to relate them clearly and strongly to CS&E application domains. A typical CS&E faculty member's educational background and professional experience are rooted in application areas of computational methods or in computer science, computer engineering, or (applied) mathematics. CS&E faculty members, then, can teach students about the development of application-specific computational methods--possibly including the use of existing tools based on these methods--and the algorithmic design and analysis of these methods from a computer science or computer engineering perspective. The CS&E Committee strongly recommends the aggressive recruitment of the type of scientist who is clearly an active participant in state-of-the-art CS&E technique and algorithm development. CS&E teaching and research efforts should be driven by existing and emerging areas utilizing computational methods, keeping particularly strong UC Davis areas in mind, including computer science, computer engineering, computational/applied mathematics, or computational statistics. The Committee is of the opinion that a strong CS&E program would have a positive impact on computer science or computer engineering education and research efforts as well. The symbiotic nature of the fields of CS&E and computer science or computer engineering would most likely lead to collaborations between CS&E faculty members and other computer scientists and computer engineers. It is reasonable to expect that several CS&E faculty would have an interest in and qualify for joint appointments⁴ and could also contribute to basic computer science and computer literacy teaching efforts. On the research side, the creation of a wealth of fundamental computer science research problems is a natural side effect of all CS&E efforts. Computer scientists/engineers should be able to gain from this substantially. In fact, we are convinced that existing research efforts in computer science or computer engineering would greatly benefit from an exposure to large-scale computational problems addressed by CS&E faculty. Synergy would most likely characterize the evolution of the relationship between CS&E and Computer Science and, to some degree, Electrical and Computer Engineering. The Committee is also convinced that a strong CS&E program would have a positive impact on science education and research efforts as well. As CS&E becomes the ``third arm'' of science and engineering (the other arms being the ``theoretical arm'' and the ``experimental arm''), there would be more collaboration between CS&E faculty members and science. It is important to have several CS&E faculty with joint appointments in the science fields who could contribute to the corresponding courses associated with the particular specialty areas. On the research side, solving problems with common computational roots, e.g., data mining, yet with wide-ranging connection to the science field of current research, ranging from genome research to cosmology, would make CS&E truly exciting. The creation of a ``home'' for CS&E faculty--in the sense of co-locating CS&E faculty in a common physical location--is highly desirable. The Committee believes that the co-location of CS&E faculty members holds the potential to fuse major CS&E research efforts and could also be a major factor in attracting outstanding new faculty members. In general, such a home should stimulate communication and should mix CS&E faculty and students with diverse backgrounds and interests concerning office space and research space arrangements. Several Committee members have participated in NSF research centers before, and one of the main benefits of these centers is the provision of a truly interdisciplinary environment. Currently, CS&E education and research efforts are found in different departments and units across campus, and there is little coordination among the (relatively few) computational groups and efforts. Regardless of CS&E's eventual organizational structure, a home would allow the campus to streamline its CS&E efforts and build neeeded CS&E infrastructure in and around this home. This Initiative is likely to lead to a significant number of joint faculty appointments, which could be appointments in multiple UC Davis departments or joint appointments with the national laboratories. The Committee is, to some degree, concerned about current regulations concerning joint appointments at UC Davis. Concerning the hiring process for CS&E, obstacles related to joint appointments should be eliminated as much as possible. Job expectations should be clearly defined by the departments involved in joint appointments, and the environment that a jointly appointed faculty member would be exposed to should be inviting; the conditions have to be such that a joint appointment carries significantly more advantages than disadvantages for a faculty member. This is particularly important for jointly appointed junior faculty.