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Detailed Information

Program of Study

The Department of Computer Science offers the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Requirements for the Ph.D. are successful completion of course requirements and submission of a thesis describing original, independent research. An initial acculturation program (the Immigration Course) involves students in all the activities of the department. Participation in one or more of the ongoing research projects is a key factor in a student’s education. Visitors come to Carnegie Mellon in a steady stream from universities and laboratories throughout the world for various lengths of time, joining the faculty members and students in an active colloquium program.

Research Facilities

The Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) School of Computer Science (SCS) research facility has a large number and wide variety of computers available for faculty and graduate student use–approximately 4,000 machines. About one third are Linux/UNIX on Intel and AMD platforms, 60 percent are Windows systems, and Macintosh computers make up the remainder. Every incoming graduate student is provided with a new, high-powered personal computer; some receive a dual-boot configuration–to provide both Windows and Linux. SCS facilities include a rich variety of computing infrastructure services of very high quality, including e-mail, shared file service (AFS), authentication, remote-access services (vpn, iPass), backup, printing, software licensing, and hardware repair. The SCS environment also includes a growing number of high-performance computer clusters; support services are available for the entire life cycle of the cluster, including help for specification and purchasing. For all aspects of computing, there is a dedicated support (Help) staff within the facility, which provides full support for users, applications, machines, and services via a menu of premium support services.

Beyond these college resources, the University maintains computation facilities of various kinds for general use. The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center (PSC) is a joint effort of Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, together with Westinghouse Corporation. It is supported by several federal agencies, the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and private industry. It is a leading partner in the TeraGrid, the National Science Foundation’s cyberinfrastructure program. It operates several supercomputing-class machines, including a Cray XT3 MPP machine with 2,068 compute nodes and 4,136 processors.

Carnegie Mellon operates a fully interconnected, multimedia, multiprotocol campus network. The system incorporates state-of-the-art commercial technology and spans multiple segments to all campus buildings in a redundant backbone infrastructure that enables unfettered access among all campus systems, including the PSC supercomputers. The University currently provides wireless data communication campuswide.

SCS has two 1Gbps links to the Carnegie Mellon campus network. The University has two redundant 1Gbps links to the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, and through PSC the University connects to the commodity internet and the Abilene research network. This connection is shared with the University of Pittsburgh, Penn State University, and West Virginia University.

Financial Aid

Most students in the department are supported by graduate research fellowships during the academic year. In 2008–09, each student received full tuition plus a stipend of $2240 per month for the academic year. Dependency allowances are available; students who receive external fellowships may be given supplementary stipends.

Summer support is normally available for many students, particularly those working on the dissertation. However, since the University believes that it is also good for students to gain experience in industry for one or two summers during their careers at Carnegie Mellon, faculty and staff members are able to provide valuable help in finding suitable summer employment.

Cost of Study

Tuition and fees for full-time graduate students in 2008–09 were $35,404 for the academic year. This figure is subject to change.

Living and Housing Costs

Limited University housing is available for graduate students, but a wide variety of accommodations are available in the surrounding community.

Student Group

Carnegie Mellon has a total enrollment of approximately 10,000 students, of whom approximately 4,600 are graduate students. About 150 full-time students are enrolled in the Doctoral Program in Computer Science, which makes the student-faculty member ratio lower than 2:1. Admission to the program is highly competitive; about 25 students enroll each year.

Student Outcomes

Carnegie Mellon’s computer science doctoral program aims to produce well-educated researchers and future leaders in computer science. Approximately 25 students graduate each year, with more than half accepting positions in industrial research laboratories. Those preferring academic careers accept both tenure- and research-track positions at many of the top universities in the country.

Location

Carnegie Mellon is located in Oakland, the cultural center of Pittsburgh, on a 90-acre campus adjacent to Schenley Park, the largest city park. The campus is close to the many cultural and sports activities of the city and is only 4 miles from the downtown business district. Pittsburgh is the headquarters for many of the nation’s biggest corporations. There is a large concentration of research laboratories in the area.

The University

Founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie, the Carnegie Institute of Technology joined with Mellon Institute (now the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute) in 1967 to become Carnegie Mellon University. With this merger, one of the leading research and education institutions in the country was established.

Applying

The application, test scores, and transcripts must be received by December 15. Letters of reference must be received by January 3. Notification of acceptance is made by March 1. Minimum preparation normally includes an undergraduate program in mathematics, physics, electrical engineering, or computer science and some experience in computer programming. Excellence and promise may balance a lack of formal preparation. Applications must be accompanied by GRE General Test scores. The TOEFL is required for all nonnative English speakers.

The Faculty and Their Research

• V. Adamchik, Associate Teaching Professor: computational mathematics, special functions, computer algebra.
• J. Aldrich, Assistant Professor (ISR): programming languages, program analysis, type systems, formal methods, and software engineering.
• D. Andersen, Assistant Professor: networks, distributed systems, resilient networked systems, wireless and overlay networks.
• Z. Bar-Joseph, Assistant Professor (CS/ML): computational biology, systems biology, time-series analysis, applied machine learning.
• G. Blelloch, Professor: compilers, parallel architectures, parallel languages, parallel algorithms.
• A. Blum, Professor: machine-learning theory, online algorithms, approximation algorithms, algorithmic game theory.
• L. Blum, Distinguished Career Professor: complexity and real computation.
• M. Blum, Nelson University Professor: theoretical computer science.
• S. Brookes, Professor: mathematical theory of computation, theory and semantics of programming languages.
• R. Bryant, Professor and Dean: formal verification of hardware and embedded systems, data structures and algorithms for representing and reasoning about different classes of logic.
• P. Capell, Senior Technical Staff (SEI): software engineering.
• J. Carbonell, Professor (LTI/CS) and Director (LTI): artificial intelligence, natural-language processing, machine learning, machine translation.
• J. Carrasquel, Associate Teaching Professor: programming in C++.
• M. Christel, Senior Systems Scientist (ETC): digital video interfaces, information visualization, digital libraries.
• E. Clarke, FORE Professor: hardware and software verification, automatic theorem proving, symbolic computation, parallel algorithms and programming, applications of logic to problems in computer science.
• T. Cortina, Assistant Teaching Professor: program design and analysis, Java programming language.
• K. Crary, Associate Professor: programming languages and compilers, type theory, certified code, grid computing.
• W. Dann, Associate Teaching Professor: visualization in programming and programming languages, innovative approaches to introductory programming.
• R. Dannenberg, Associate Research Professor (CS/Art): computer music, interactive real-time systems.
• A. Datta, Research Scientist (CyLab): computer and network security, privacy, cryptography, programming languages, specification and verification, applications of mathematical logic in computer science.
• D. Durand, Associate Professor (Biological Sciences/CS): computational molecular biology and genomics, evolution of genomic organization and function.
• D. Eckhardt, Associate Teaching Professor: operating systems, networking, wireless networks.
• A. Efros, Assistant Professor (CS/RI): computer graphics, computer vision.
• M. Erdmann, Professor (CS/RI): robotics: mechanics of manipulation, mobile manipulation, shape sensing, uncertainty; computational molecular biology: protein structure, protein knot theory.
• S. Fahlman, Research Professor: artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, machine learning.
• C. Faloutsos, Professor: multimedia and text databases, indexing, data mining, fractals, database performance.
• D. Feinberg, Assistant Teaching Professor: object-oriented programming.
• E. Fink, Systems Scientist (LTI/CS): artificial intelligence, machine learning, computational geometry.
• A. Frieze, Professor (Mathematics): algorithms, random structures, combinatorics.
• G. Ganger, Professor (ECE): operating systems; storage/file systems; security, networking, and distributed systems.
• D. Garlan, Professor (CS/ISR): software engineering, software architecture, pervasive computing, formal methods, self-healing systems.
• G. Gibson, Professor: computer systems, computer architecture, operating systems, file systems, storage systems, networking.
• S. Goldstein, Associate Professor: compilers and architectures for electronic nanotechnology, reconfigurable computing, programmable matter and claytronics.
• C. Guestrin, Assistant Professor (ML/CS): machine learning, sensor networks, distributed systems, computer vision, planning under uncertainty.
• A. Gunawardena, Associate Teaching Professor: adaptive e-learning systems.
• A. Gupta, Assistant Professor: approximation algorithms, metric embeddings, network algorithms.
• M. Harchol-Balter, Associate Professor: distributed computing, performance analysis, scheduling and resource allocation, workload characterization.
• R. Harper, Professor: programming languages, type theory, logical framework, certifying compilers, mechanized reasoning, verification.
• A. Hauptmann, Senior Systems Scientist: multimedia digital libraries, information retrieval from speech and video.
• J. Hodgins, Professor (CS/RI): computer graphics, computer animation, motion capture, dynamic simulation, humanoid robotics.
• J. Hoe, Associate Professor (ECE): computer architecture, high-level hardware description and synthesis.
• T. Hoffmann, Assistant Teaching Professor: object-based programming.
• T. Kanade, University Professor (CS/RI): computer vision, virtualized reality, autonomous mobile robots, medical robotics, sensors.
• T. Keating, Associate Teaching Professor: technical communication for computer scientists.
• G. Kesden, Associate Teaching Professor: programming, distributed systems, competitive programming.
• J. Kuffner, Assistant Professor (RI): robotics, motion planning, computer graphics, computer animation.
• J. Lafferty, Professor (CS/LTI/ML): machine learning, algorithms for probabilistic inference, text processing and information retrieval.
• C. Langmead, Assistant Professor (CS/Biological Sciences): computational molecular biology, structural biology, systems biology.
• P. Lee, Professor and Department Head: compilers for advanced programming languages, semantics-based analysis and optimization, application of advanced languages to systems programming, functional programming, formal semantics.
• T. Lee, Associate Professor (CS/CNBC): biological and computer vision, neural code, neural computation and modeling.
• G. Levin, Associate Professor (Art): electronic time-based art, nonverbal communications protocols in cybernetic systems, computer vision, software design.
• M. Lewicki, Associate Professor (CS/CNBC): computational neuroscience, artificial intelligence, computational vision and audition.
• J. Lopez, Systems Scientist: data-intensive computing at large scale, computational databases, parallel and distributed systems, scalable I/O and indexing techniques for large multidimensional spatial datasets, data compression and visualization.
• B. Maggs, Professor: networks for parallel and distributed computing systems.
• M. Mason, Professor (RI/CS) and Director (RI): robotics, mobile manipulators, mechanics of manipulation, manufacturing automation.
• R. Maxion, Principle Systems Scientist: computer dependability and security, information warfare, intrusion detection, system diagnosis.
• S. McElfresh, Assistant Teaching Professor: Java programming language.
• J. Mertz, Associate Teaching Professor (Heinz/CS): teaching strategies and methods for using information and communication technology.
• G. Miller, Professor: parallel computation; sparse matrix, graph, and number-theoretic algorithms.
• T. Mitchell, Professor (ML/CS) and Head (ML): machine learning, brain imaging, intelligent Web agents, data mining, artificial intelligence.
• A. Moore, Professor (RI/CS): data mining.
• J. Morris, Professor and Dean, SV Campus: distributed personal computer systems, software engineering, functional programming, user interfaces.
• T. Mowry, Professor: computer architecture, compilers, operating systems, parallel processing, database performance.
• S. Narasimhan, Assistant Professor: computer vision, computer graphics.
• R. O’Donnell, Assistant Professor: learning theory, complexity theory, discrete Fourier analysis, combinatorics, probability, Gaussian space.
• D. O’Hallaron, Associate Professor (CS/ECE): computer systems, scientific computing, computational database systems, virtualization.
• A. Perrig, Assistant Professor (CS/ECE/EPP): computer and network security, applied cryptography, security policy, sensor networks.
• F. Pfenning, Professor and Director of Graduate Programs: logic and computation, type theory, functional programming, automated deduction, trustworthy computing.
• A. Platzer, Assistant Professor: verification of hybrid systems, automated theorem proving, model checking, dynamic logic, hybrid logic, decision procedures, computer algebra and symbolic computation, model theory, verification of object-oriented systems, verification algorithms.
• N. Pollard, Associate Professor (RI/CS): computer graphics, humanoid robotics, physically based character animation, manipulation planning and control.
• R. Ravi, Professor (TSB/CS): approximation algorithms, combinatorial optimization, computational biology.
• R. Reddy, University Professor (ISR/CS): artificial intelligence, speech recognition and understanding, mobile autonomous robots, learning by doing.
• M. Reid-Miller, Assistant Teaching Professor: pipelining.
• J. Reynolds, Professor: programming language design, specification and verification of programs, mathematical semantics.
• J. Roberts, Teaching Professor: programming in C++.
• S. Rudich, Professor: complexity theory, cryptography, combinatorics, probability.
• A. Rudnicky, Principal Systems Scientist (CS/LTI): speech recognition, spoken language interaction, interface design, dialog systems.
• T. Sandholm, Professor: e-commerce, game theory, artificial intelligence, auctions, automated negotiation, combinatorial optimization, bounded rationality.
• M. Satyanarayanan, Carnegie Group Professor of Computer Science: mobile and pervasive computing, distributed file systems, measurement and evaluation, security.
• B. Schmerl, Senior Systems Scientist: software engineering, software architectures, programming environments, pervasive computing, dynamic reconfiguration.
• R. Schwartz, Assistant Professor (Biological Sciences/CS): computational molecular biology, biological modeling and simulation, computational genetics/genomics.
• D. Scott, University Professor (Emeritus): semantics of computer languages, computer algebra.
• S. Seshan, Associate Professor: network protocols/services/applications, distributed systems, mobile computing, wireless networks.
• M. Shaw, Perlis Professor (ISR/CS): software architecture, software engineering, programming systems and methodologies.
• D. Siewiorek, Buhl University Professor and Director, HCI Institute: computer architecture, fault-tolerant computing, design automation, parallel processing, mobile computing, rapid prototyping.
• R. Simmons, Research Professor (RI/CS): autonomous mobile robots, robot architectures, multirobot coordination, human-robot social interaction, planning and task execution, diagnosis.
• D. Slater, Assistant Teaching Professor: programming in C++.
• D. Sleator, Professor: data structures, graph algorithms, online algorithms, parsing natural languages.
• R. Statman, Professor (Mathematics): theory of computation, symbolic computation, lambda calculus, combinatory algebra.
• P. Steenkiste, Professor (CS/ECE): networking, network services, ubiquitous computing, distributed systems.
• M. Stehlik, Teaching Professor and Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education: programming systems, human-computer interaction.
• R. Stern, Professor (ECE): acoustics of speech production.
• K. Sutner, Teaching Professor and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education: automata theory, computer algebra.
• D. Touretzky, Research Professor (CS/CNBC): computational neuroscience, spatial representations in the brain, cognitive robotics.
• M. Veloso, Professor: artificial intelligence; planning, execution, and learning in autonomous agents; multiagent and multirobot systems; robot soccer.
• L. Von Ahn, Assistant Professor: novel techniques for utilizing computational abilities of humans, human-computer interaction, AI, theoretical cryptography and security.
• H. Wactlar, Research Professor: information systems, digital libraries, distributed operating systems, networking.
• J. Wing, Professor: formal specification and verification, software security, trustworthy systems, distributed systems, programming methodology.
• E. Xing, Assistant Professor (ML): machine learning, computational biology, statistical genetics, algorithms for probabilistic inference/learning, evolutionary genomics and information retrieval.
• Y. Yang, Professor (LTI/CS): machine learning applied to text classification, information retrieval, computational biology.
• H. Zhang, Professor: computer networks, Internet, quality of service, distributed systems.

Correspondence and Information

Carnegie Mellon University
Graduate Admissions
Department of Computer Science
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
Telephone: 412-268-3863
Email: grad-adm@cs.cmu.edu