Visit Day 2003 Steve Vavasis Professor & Chair of PhD Admissions

Schedule for the day 9:05-10:05Introduction 10:05-11:00PL, Systems, Security, Computer Engr., DB 11:05-12:05Faculty Meetings I and II 12:05-1:30Lunch 1:30-2:25Theory, Logic, Comp. Bio, Information Sci, Numer. Ana. 2:25-2:35Break

Schedule for the day 2:35-3:30AI, NLP, Graphics and Vision 3:35-4:35Faculty Meetings III & IV 4:35-4:50Break 4:50-5:30Wrap up

Presenters for this session Bob Constable, Dean of Computing and Information Science Éva Tardos, Director of Graduate Studies Charlie Van Loan, Chair of CS Department

Computer Science at Cornell The Environment for PhD Students Charlie Van Loan Professor & Chair

The Lay of the Land As a PhD student, your well-being will depend on What life is like in the department and What life is like at Cornell.

Joe Bart Lillian Claire Rich Thorsten Tom Steve V Charlie Ramin KB Steve M Dan Don Fred Ken Gun Jeanna Eva Dexter Jon John David S Bob Tim Greg Andrew Keshav Radu Daisy Dave Graeme Bill Johannes Al Jai Golan Ron The Faculty

Joe Bart Lillian Claire Rich Thorsten Tom Steve V Charlie Ramin KB Steve M Dan Don Fred Ken Gun Jeanna Eva Dexter Jon John David S Bob Tim Greg Andrew Keshav Radu Bill Johannes Al Jai Golan Ron The Graduate Field Zygmunt Sheila Evan Sally Jose Rajit Martin Mark Phoebe Hod Shimon Anil Eric Robbert

Computer Science Programs Major/Minor (Engin.) Major (Arts & Science) Master of Engineering Graduate Field Other Academic Programs Information Science Major*/Minor (Arts) Major*/Minor (Engin) Major*/Minor (Ag ) Graduate Field* Computational Sci & Engin Graduate Minor Field* Computational Biology A Track for Bio Majors Digital Arts and Graphics The Computing and Information Science (CIS) Initiative

School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Joint Curriculum, Space School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering Cooperation on Information Science Initiatives Department of Communications Cooperation on Information Science Initiatives Medical College in NYC Ramin’s joint appointment with the Dept of Radiology The Johnson Graduate School of Management Dan’s joint appointment, e-business, courses Some Cornell Connections

Nearby Graduate Fields Electrical and Computer Engineering Mechanical Engineering Operations Research Economics Science and Technology Studies Cognitive Studies (Psych, Linguistics, NeuroBio) Information Science* Applied Mathematics Mathematics

Nearby Research Entities The Information Assurance Institute The Intelligent Information Systems Institute The Program in Computer Graphics The National Science Digital Library The Computer Systems Laboratory The Cornell Theory Center

Information Assurance Institute

Intelligent Information Systems Institute To perform and stimulate research in compute and data intensive methods for intelligent decision making systems

A center of innovation in digital libraries. A community center for groups focused on digital-library-enabled science education. Funded by the National Science Foundation. The National Science Digital Library

Computer architecture, Parallel computer architecture Operating systems and compilers Computer protocols and networks Programming languages and environments Distributed systems VLSI design and fabrication System specification and verification Computer Systems Laboratory* *Speight, Myers, Burtscher, Sirer, Martinez, Morrisett, Manohar, Gehrke, McKee

Hosts the world's largest Windows-based high performance computing cluster. Some concentrations of effort.. Computational Finance Computational Genomics Computational Materials Research

The Campus Environment (nearby research, related programs, etc) and (of course) The Local Environment (potential advisors, requirements, the culture, etc) So, Take Into Consideration…

Computer Science at Cornell The PhD Program Éva Tardos Professor

Choosing an Advisor and a Research Area Most students spend a semester or two “looking around” –taking a course with a faculty member in their area of interest –asking about research projects –doing small projects –attend seminars

Possible Advisors The CS faculty: Joe Bart Lillian Claire Rich Thorsten Tom Steve V Charlie Ramin KB Steve M Dan Fred Ken Gun Jeanna Eva Dexter Jon John Bill Johannes Al Jai Golan Ron Other field members: Faculty members in other department whose research overlaps with CS significantly, can advise CS students Current field members from ECE, OR, Psychology, MAE, Math, S&TS Some senior researchers Bob Tim Greg Andrew Keshav Radu

Seminars Computer Science Colloquium –Distinguished speakers –interviews Brown Bag Lunch –Faculty about their research –Professional development talks Many area seminars: Systems Lunch Graphics Seminar Natural Language Processing Artificial Intelligence Theory Seminar Information Science PRL seminar Database Seminar

CS Field Requirements: Q exam –demonstrates “breadth” of background at the undergraduate level. –covers five areas: Theory, Languages, Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Scientific Computing –Exam is diagnostic: may be replaced by courses –Encourage you to try many (or all) after one semester

CS Field Requirements Graduate course work –You need to take six 600-level courses –3 courses come from a list: one each in theory, languages, systems. –Courses don’t have to be in Computer Science –Most students find this very easy and take many more courses! Project requirement: –May use class project or a project done on a summer job, or as undergrad.

Minor You will need to have a minor –A minor field is any graduate field Rules vary for the minor by fields –Usually, 3 courses but sometimes more or less, and sometimes “other” requirements Typical choices: –Electrical Engineering, –(Applied) Mathematics, –Cognitive studies –and many others…

Exams “ A” Exam: –take it once your research is underway –present your work and ideas for a thesis topic –Usually taken after 2-3 years “B” exam = thesis defense –You take it when your work is finished and a draft of your thesis is completed

Support TA positions –help in a course for max 15 hours week –You will have office hours and help grade., some teaching RA positions –faculty advisor pays for research Fellowships Summer –You can teach or TA for the department, have an RA –Many students work in industry to gain experience Guaranteed financial support if you are in good standing –you’ll know long in advance if you are not

Where did our Graduates go? Examples since 2000 Stephan Zdancewic (PL) Univ. of Pennsylvania Stephanie Weirich (PL) Univ. of Pennsylvania Amit Kumar (theory) Bell Labs Li Li (systems) Bell Labs Yin Zhang (systems) AT&T Rie Ando (NLP) IBM Nick Howe (vision) Smith College David Walker (PL) Princeton Jia Wang (systems) AT&T Xiaoming Liu (DB) Oracle Adam Florence (NA) Bank of America Hickey Jason (logic) Caltech Vera Kettnaker (vision) RPI Dan Brown (comp.bio) Waterloo Chris Hawblitzel (systems) Dartmouth