UMassCS Logo
 
 
The Department's Computer Science Research Center on the UMass Amherst campus is home to over 30 research laboratories.
 

About UMass Computer Science

The Computer Science Department began in 1964 with three faculty members and has been growing ever since-building on our strengths in machine learning, computer vision, information retrieval, software engineering, theoretical computer science, networking, and multi-agent systems, and expanding into new fields like graphics, multimedia learning technologies, distributed systems, security and privacy, digital forensics, and databases.

Since 2002, we have grown dramatically, adding eleven new tenure-track faculty members. We now have a faculty of 44-promising vitality and innovation in emerging fields for years to come.

The Department of Computer Science offers a world-class curriculum in support of the Bachelor's degree, the Master's degree or the Doctoral degree. Currently, 202 graduate students, 394 undergraduate majors, and 1,800 classroom students enjoy a broad and comprehensive teaching and mentoring program that provides a solid foundation for a lifetime of learning. The B.S and M.S. programs thoroughly prepare students for advanced careers within the computer industry. The Department also has a new interdisciplinary B.A. degree in Computer Science that began in Fall 2010. The Ph.D. program trains students to produce their own ground-breaking research. As one of the highest ranked and highest impact graduate research programs in the nation, UMass Amherst CS is also is one of the most competitive. All our educational programs expose students to some of the most exciting and significant research being conducted anywhere in the world.

The department is distinguished by its unique culture of collaboration that enhances both research and teaching. Faculty members consistently work together across traditional boundaries between specialties within of Computer Science, and graduate students are required to explore a research problem bridging two distinct areas of computer science in completion of their qualifying exam. The Computer Science department, which is part of the College of Natural Sciences, is also remarkably committed to multi-disciplinary research, with faculty members and students engaged in an unusually large number of projects involving other disciplines. Our research funding exceeded $15 million in FY 2011, coming from private industry and all levels of government. The department maintains significant research collaborations with more than 30 industry-leading technology companies.

You will find complete descriptions of our Faculty and Research and our Graduate and Undergraduate programs on this site.