David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science

Last updated
David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science
Former names
  • Department of Applied Analysis and Computer Science
  • Department of Computer Science
  • School of Computer Science
Type Professional school
Parent institution
Faculty of Mathematics
Affiliation University of Waterloo
Director Raouf Boutaba
Academic staff
90 [1]
Administrative staff
50 [1]
Undergraduates 3600 [1]
Postgraduates 400 [1]
Location, ,
Website cs.uwaterloo.ca

The David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science is a professional school within the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo. QS World University Rankings ranked the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science 24th in the world, 10th in North America and 2nd in Canada in Computer Science in 2014. [2] U.S. News & World Report ranked the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science 42nd in world and second in Canada. [3]

Contents

History

In 1965, when Mathematics was still a department within the Faculty of Arts, four third-year mathematics students (Richard Shirley, Angus German, James G. Mitchell, and Bob Zarnke) wrote the WATFOR compiler for the FORTRAN programming language, under the direction of lecturer Peter Shantz. "Within a year it would be adopted by computing centres in over eight countries, and the number of student users at UW increased to over 2500." Later on in 1966, two mathematics lecturers (Paul Dirksen and Paul H. Cress) led a team that developed WATFOR 360, for which they received the 1972 Grace Murray Hopper Award from the Association for Computing Machinery.

UW's Faculty of Mathematics was later established in 1967. As a result, the Department of Applied Analysis and Computer Science (AA&CS) was created. By 1969, AA&CS had become the largest department in the faculty. At that point, the first two PhD degrees in computer science were awarded, to Byron L. Ehle, for a thesis on numerical analysis, and to Hugh Williams, for a thesis on computational number theory. In 1975 the department dropped the words "Applied Analysis" and became simply the Department of Computer Science.

In 1982, the Institute for Computer Research (ICR) was established. Its goals were "to foster computer research..., facilitate interaction with industry, and encourage advanced education in computer science and engineering." Also that year, the Ontario government announced plans to build the Davis Centre, current home of the School of Computer Science. The groundbreaking was in April 1985 and the Davis Centre was formally dedicated on November 10, 1988.

On May 1, 2002, the department officially became the School of Computer Science. On November 18, 2005, it was renamed again to the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, in recognition of the establishment of the David R. Cheriton Endowment for Excellence in Computer Science. Cheriton had recently donated $25 million to the university.

Support for computing within the School of Computer Science had been historically provided by the Computer Science Computing Facility (CSCF) and ICR.

Programs

The David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science offers several diverse undergraduate programs including:

In general, the philosophy of the undergraduate program is to build a solid foundation of mathematics and computer science during the first three years of the program, allowing students more flexibility in fourth year. Required courses for all computer science programs include courses in combinatorics, data structures, algorithms, compilers, software engineering and operating systems. The curriculum is also designed to encourage either significant depth in an area outside of computer science (such as in the Bioinformatics Option) or exposure to a variety of areas outside of the computer science.

The school also offers Masters of Mathematics and Ph.D. graduate programs.

Reputation

The university is well-regarded in the field of Computer Science, where it ranks 41st in the world and fourth in Canada according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and 22nd in the world and second in Canada in the QS World University Rankings in 2019. [4] [5]

Related Research Articles

WATFIV, or WATerloo FORTRAN IV, developed at the University of Waterloo, Canada is an implementation of the Fortran computer programming language. It is the successor of WATFOR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences</span> Division of New York University, US (founded 1935)

The Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences is the mathematics research school of New York University (NYU). Founded in 1935, it is named after Richard Courant, one of the founders of the Courant Institute and also a mathematics professor at New York University from 1936 to 1972, and serves as a center for research and advanced training in computer science and mathematics. It is located on Gould Plaza next to the Stern School of Business and the economics department of the College of Arts and Science.

David Ross Cheriton is a Canadian computer scientist, businessman, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. He is a computer science professor at Stanford University, where he founded and leads the Distributed Systems Group.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">COMSATS University Islamabad</span> Public university in Islamabad, Pakistan

The COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI), formerly known as COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), is a public university in Pakistan. It is a multi-campus university with its principal seat located in Islamabad. Comsats was envisioned as Pakistan's first exclusive Institute of Information Technology. In the latest QS University Rankings, CUI ranked 7th in Pakistan and 801-1000 in the world. Nationally it is ranked top-most in Computer Sciences and IT category. COMSATS University Islamabad (CUI) is under the administration of the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Waterloo Faculty of Mathematics</span> University in Ontario, Canada

The Faculty of Mathematics is one of six faculties of the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, offering more than 500 courses in mathematics, statistics and computer science. The faculty also houses the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, formerly the faculty's computer science department. There are more than 31,000 alumni.

The School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. is a technical school which specializes in engineering, technology, communications, and transportation. The school is located on the main campus of the George Washington University and offers both undergraduate and graduate programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McGill University School of Computer Science</span>

The School of Computer Science (SOCS) is an academic department in the Faculty of Science at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The school is the second most funded computer science department in Canada. It currently has 34 faculty members, 60 Ph.D. students and 100 Master's students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Sydney Faculty of Engineering</span>

The Faculty of Engineering is a faculty of the University of Sydney, Australia. It was established in 1920 and is Australia's oldest engineering school.

The UBC Computer Science department at the University of British Columbia was established in May 1968. UBC CS is located at the UBC Point Grey campus in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. As of September 2022, it has 65 faculty, 62 staff, 248 graduate students, and 2,763 undergraduates.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Waterloo Faculty of Engineering</span> Canadian engineering school in Waterloo, Ontario

The Faculty of Engineering is one of six faculties at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It has 8,698 undergraduate students, 2176 graduate students, 334 faculty and 52,750 alumni making it the largest engineering school in Canada with external research funding from 195 Canadian and international partners exceeding $86.8 million. Ranked among the top 50 engineering schools in the world, the faculty of engineering houses eight academic units and offers 15 bachelor's degree programs in a variety of disciplines.

The Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering is an academic unit of Indiana University located on the Indiana University Bloomington (IUB) campus and on the Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) campus. On the Bloomington campus, the School consists of the Department of Informatics, the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Information and Library Science, and the Department of Intelligent Systems Engineering. On the Indianapolis campus, the School consist of the Department of Human-Centered Computing, the Department of BioHealth Informatics, and the Department of Library and Information Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Illinois Department of Computer Science</span>

The University of Illinois Department of Computer Science is the academic department encompassing the discipline of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. According to U.S. News & World Report, both its undergraduate and graduate programs rank in the top five among American universities, and according to Computer Science Open Rankings, the department ranks equally high in placing Ph.D. students in tenure-track positions at top universities and winning best paper awards. The department also ranks in the top two among all universities for faculty submissions to reputable journals and academic conferences, as determined by CSRankings.org. From before its official founding in 1964 to today, the department's faculty members and alumni have contributed to projects including the ORDVAC, PLATO, Mosaic, JavaScript and LLVM, and have founded companies including Siebel Systems, Netscape, Mozilla, PayPal, Yelp, YouTube, and Malwarebytes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University</span> Kyrgyz-Turkish university located in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University is a public university, founded according to an agreement between the governments of the Republic of Turkey and the Kyrgyz Republic about establishment of the university in Bishkek, which was signed in Izmir on September 30, 1995. The agreement was afterward approved by the competent authorities of both countries. The university began operation in the 1997-1998 academic year.

The Capital University of Science & Technology is a private university located in Islamabad, Pakistan. Established in 1998 under the banner of Muhammad Ali Jinnah University Islamabad Campus, the university offers undergraduate and post-graduate programs with a strong emphasis on business management, applied sciences, engineering and computer science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raouf Boutaba</span>

Raouf Boutaba is an Algerian Canadian computer scientist. His research interests are in resource, network and service management in wired and wireless networked systems. His work focuses on network virtualization, network softwarization, cloud computing, and network security.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ihab Ilyas</span> Canadian-Egyptian computer scientist (born 1973)

Ihab Francis Ilyas is a computer scientist who works in data science. He is currently a professor of computer science in the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo. He also leads the Knowledge Platform team at Apple Inc. Ihab is the holder of the Thomson Reuters-NSERC Industrial Research Chair in Data Cleaning at the University of Waterloo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Department of Computing, Imperial College London</span>

The Department of Computing (DoC) is the computer science department at Imperial College London. The department has around 50 academic staff and 1000 students, with around 600 studying undergraduate courses, 200 PhD students, and 200 MSc students. The department is predominantly based in the Huxley Building, 180 Queen's Gate, which it shares with the Maths department, however also has space in the William Penney Laboratory and in the Aeronautics and Chemical Engineering Extension. The department ranks 7th in the Times Higher Education 2020 subject world rankings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">N. Asokan</span> Professor of Computer Science at University of Waterloo

Nadarajah Asokan is a professor of computer science and the David R. Cheriton Chair in Software Systems at the University of Waterloo's David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Computer Science at Aalto University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Giesbrecht</span> Canadian computer scientist

Mark Giesbrecht is a Canadian computer scientist who is the 12th dean of the University of Waterloo’s Faculty of Mathematics, starting from July 1, 2020. He was the Director of the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science at the University of Waterloo, Canada from July 2014 until June 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology</span>

The TUM School of Computation, Information and Technology (CIT) is a school of the Technical University of Munich, established in 2022 by the merger of three former departments. As of 2022, it is structured into the Department of Mathematics, the Department of Computer Engineering, the Department of Computer Science, and the Department of Electrical Engineering.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Quick Facts". Cheriton School of Computer Science. Retrieved 26 February 2019.
  2. , QS World University Rankings
  3. , US News Best Global Universities. Retrieved 29 March 2022.
  4. "World University Rankings 2019 by subject: computer science". Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Times Higher Education. 2019. Retrieved 28 June 2019.
  5. "Computer Science & Information Systems Rankings 2019". QS Top Universities. QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited. 2018. Retrieved 28 June 2019.

Further reading