University of Illinois Department of Computer Science

Last updated

Department of Computer Science
Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science.jpg
Type Public
Established1964 (1949 as the Digital Computer Laboratory) (1964 (1949 as the Digital Computer Laboratory))
Department Head Nancy M. Amato [1] [2]
Academic staff
110 [3]
Students5315 (Fall 2023) [3]
Address
201 North Goodwin Avenue
, , ,
Colors   Illinois Orange [4]
  Illinois Blue [4]
Website cs.illinois.edu

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, [5] [6] and according to Computer Science Open Rankings, [7] 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. [8] 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 (web browser), JavaScript and LLVM, and have founded companies including Siebel Systems, Netscape, Mozilla, PayPal, Yelp, YouTube, and Malwarebytes.

Contents

History

In 1949, the University of Illinois created the Digital Computer Laboratory following the joint funding between the university and the U.S. Army to create the ORDVAC and ILLIAC I computers under the direction of physicist Ralph Meagher. [9] The ORDVAC and ILLIAC computers the two earliest von-Neumann architecture machines to be constructed. Once completed in 1952, the ILLIAC I inspired machines such as the MISTIC, MUSASINO-1, SILLIAC, and CYCLONE, as well as providing the impetus for the university to continue its research in computing through the ILLIAC II project. Yet despite such advances in high-performance computing, faculty at the Digital Computer Laboratory continued to conduct research in other fields of computing as well, such as in Human-Computer Interaction through the PLATO project, the first computer music (the ILLIAC Suite), computational numerical methods through the work of Donald B. Gillies, and James E. Robertson, the 'R' co-inventor of the SRT division algorithm, to name a few. Given this explosion in research in computing, in 1964, the University of Illinois reorganized the Digital Computer Laboratory into the Department of Computer Science, and by 1967, the department awarded its first PhD and master's degrees in Computer Science. In 1982, UIUC physicist Larry Smarr wrote a blistering critique of America's supercomputing resources, [10] and as a result the National Science Foundation established the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in 1985. NCSA was one of the first places in industry or academia to develop software for the 3 major operating systems at the time – Macintosh, PC, and UNIX. NCSA in 1986 released NCSA Telnet and in 1993 it released the Mosaic web browser. In 2004, the Department of Computer Science moved out of the Digital Computer Laboratory building into the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science following a gift from alumnus Thomas Siebel. [11]

Degrees and programs

Undergraduate

The department offers 14 undergraduate degree programs, all leading to Bachelor of Science degrees, through six different colleges:

The department also sponsors a minor in computer science available to all UIUC students.

The department also offers two 5-year bachelors/masters programs through the College of Engineering: Bachelor of Science/Master of Science (B.S./M.S.) in Computer Science and Bachelors of Science/Masters of Computer Science(B.S./M.C.S.).

Graduate

In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, the antagonist and sentient computer HAL 9000 says it was made operational at the HAL Plant in Urbana, Illinois which was meant to represent the Coordinated Science Laboratory where the ILLIAC project was conducted. [12]

Notable faculty

Notable alumni

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">National Center for Supercomputing Applications</span> Illinois-based applied supercomputing research organization

The National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) is a state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances research, science and engineering based in the United States. NCSA operates as a unit of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and provides high-performance computing resources to researchers across the country. Support for NCSA comes from the National Science Foundation, the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, business and industry partners, and other federal agencies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ORDVAC</span> Ordnance Discrete Variable Automatic Computer

The ORDVAC, is an early computer built by the University of Illinois for the Ballistic Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground. It was a successor to the ENIAC. It was based on the IAS architecture developed by John von Neumann, which came to be known as the von Neumann architecture. The ORDVAC was the first computer to have a compiler. ORDVAC passed its acceptance tests on March 6, 1952, at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Its purpose was to perform ballistic trajectory calculations for the US Military. In 1992, the Ballistic Research Laboratory became a part of the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</span> Public university in Illinois, US

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. It is the flagship institution of the University of Illinois system and was established in 1867. With over 53,000 students, the University of Illinois is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald B. Gillies</span> Canadian computer scientist and mathematician

Donald Bruce Gillies was a Canadian computer scientist and mathematician who worked in the fields of computer design, game theory, and minicomputer programming environments.

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Edward Seidel is an American academic administrator and scientist serving as the president of the University of Wyoming since July 1, 2020. He previously served as the Vice President for Economic Development and Innovation for the University of Illinois System, as well as a Founder Professor in the Department of Physics and a professor in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was the director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at Illinois from 2014 to 2017.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maxine D. Brown</span> American computer scientist

Maxine D. Brown is an American computer scientist and retired director of the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Along with Tom DeFanti and Bruce McCormick, she co-edited the 1987 NSF report, Visualization in Scientific Computing, which defined the field of scientific visualization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Gropp</span>

William Douglas Gropp is the director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and the Thomas M. Siebel Chair in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He is also the founding Director of the Parallel Computing Institute. Gropp helped to create the Message Passing Interface, also known as MPI, and the Portable, Extensible Toolkit for Scientific Computation, also known as PETSc.

Marc Snir is an Israeli-American computer scientist. He holds a Michael Faiman and Saburo Muroga Professorship in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He currently pursues research in parallel computing. He was the principal investigator (PI) for the software of the petascale Blue Waters system and co-director of the Intel and Microsoft-funded Universal Parallel Computing Research Center (UPCRC).

Roscoe C. Giles, III is an American physicist and computer engineer. He was the deputy director of Boston University's Center for Computational Science. He is also a professor of computer and electrical engineering at Boston University College of Engineering, with a joint appointment in physics.

Ravishankar K. Iyer is the George and Ann Fisher Distinguished Professor of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a specialist in reliable and secure networks and systems.

Laxmikant (Sanjay) V. Kale is the director of the Parallel Programming Laboratory (PPL) and a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also holds department affiliations with the Beckman Institute and the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at Illinois.

Vikram Adve is the Donald B. Gillies professor in the Department of Computer Science and a Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

References

  1. 1 2 "Nancy Amato Named Next Department Head of Computer Science" . Retrieved 13 Jul 2018.
  2. 1 2 "Robotics expert to be first woman to lead UI computer-science department". 12 July 2018. Retrieved 13 Jul 2018.
  3. 1 2 "Rankings & Statistics | Computer Science | UIUC" . Retrieved 10 March 2022.
  4. 1 2 "Illinois Identity Standards: Logos and Colors". Identitystandards.illinois.edu. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  5. "Best Computer Science Programs | Top Computer Science Schools | US News Best Graduate Schools" . Retrieved 10 March 2022.
  6. "Best Undergraduate Computer Science Programs Rankings" . Retrieved 10 March 2022.
  7. "computer science open rankings" . Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  8. Berger, Emery (10 March 2022). "CSRankings: Computer Science Rankings".
  9. "CS History Timeline | Department of Computer Science at Illinois". Archived from the original on 29 December 2015. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  10. Smarr, Larry (1982). P. D. Lax (ed.). "The supercomputer famine in american universities". The Report of the Panel on Large Scale Computing in Science and Engineering.
  11. "About the Siebel Center | Department of Computer Science at Illinois". Archived from the original on 28 May 2016. Retrieved 18 June 2016.
  12. Alfred, Randy (January 12, 2011). "HAL of a Computer". Wired . Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved May 30, 2019.
  13. "Vikram Adve named Interim Head of CS @ Illinois" . Retrieved 27 May 2017.
  14. "William D. Gropp Voted IEEE Computer Society 2021 President-Elect | IEEE Computer Society". 29 September 2020. Retrieved 2021-07-06.
  15. "Head of UI's computer-science department leaving for Pitt". 11 April 2017. Retrieved 27 May 2017.