Graduate Study at UNL CSE

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

University of Nebraska, Lincoln

http://cse.unl.edu

Computer Science and Engineering Vision

To be broadly recognized as a top program in the US that – conducts state-of-the-art research in software software

engineering, systems, and informaticsengineering, systems, and informatics, and– educates students with the skill, knowledge,

creativity, and vision to be leadersleaders in defining the future of computing and information technology.

To be the “Innovators of the Cyberspace Age.”

CSE celebrates its 40th Anniversary in 2007-08.

Computer Science and Engineering Vision

This vision includes:• Being a recognized leader in cyberinfrastructure

research and cyberspace education,• Achieving a top 5 national rankingtop 5 national ranking in software

engineering,• Broadly integrating computing and information

technology into education for all students and into research and scholarship for colleagues across the university,

• Providing students with world-class computing infrastructure coupled to an innovative curriculum, and

• An uncompromising pursuit of excellenceAn uncompromising pursuit of excellence.

CSE Graduate Programs• MS in Computer Science

– Optional Bioinformatics Specialization

– Optional Computer Engineering Specialization

• PhD in Computer Science

– Optional Bioinformatics Specialization

• PhD in Engineering

– Computer Engineering Specialization

CSE Core Areas

Software EngineeringSoftware Testing and Reliability, Methodology, Maintenance, Program

Analysis

Grid and Pervasive ComputingCollaborative Technologies, Distributed Computing and Storage, Networking,

Security, Embedded Systems, Sensors and Sensor Networks, Real-Time Systems

InformaticsData Mining, Databases, Constraint Processing, GIS, Bioinformatics,

Computer Vision, Image Analysis, Simulation and Modeling, Visualization

Theory and AIMachine Learning, Languages, Semantic Modeling, Intelligent Agents,

Computational Complexity, Constraint Satisfaction, Algorithms

CSE Faculty24 Faculty

– Full Professors = 9

– Associate Professors = 9

– Assistant Professors = 6

– NineNine faculty have won NSF CAREER awardsNSF CAREER awards

– Three UNL Edgerton Assistant Professor Awards

– UNL Faculty Fellow Awards and other university awards

– Three named professorships and one distinguished scholar

– One ACM Distinguished Member

Graduate Student Information

Graduate Students– 100 Graduate Students

• 1/3 MS students• 2/3 PhD students• 27% domestic students

– Most students supported as teaching assistants or research assistants

http://cse.unl.edu/grad/index.shtml

Average number of degrees awarded per year for the period 2002-03 through 2006-07 (5 years) is – 27.8 BS Computer Engineering– 48.4 BS Computer Science – 32.0 MS Computer Science – 8.0 PhD Computer Science (10.0 per

year for the past 3 years)

Student Graduation Information

Admission Requirements• Graduate Record Exam (general test)

– Quantitative: 700 or higher; Verbal: 500 or higher; Analytical: 3.5 or higher

• GPA: 3.0/4.0• TOEFL (foreign students): minimum 600 (paper-based) 250

(computer-based) or higher. The IELTS exam can be taken in place of the TOEFL exam.

• THREE Reference letters• Prerequisite courses

– All core Math & CS for a BS in CS• Math106 – Analytical Geometry & Calc I• Math107 – Analytical Geometry & Calc II• CSCE155 – Intro to Computer Science I• CSCE156 – Intro to Computer Science II• CSCE230 – Computer Organization• CSCE235 – Intro to Discrete Structures• CSCE310 – Data Structures & Algorithms

Admission Requirements• Deficiency courses

– E.g. Architecture, Operating Systems, Statistics, Numerical Analysis

• Math314 – Matrix Theory

• Math380 – Statistics & Applications

• CSCE322 – Programming Language Concepts

• CSCE340 – Numerical Analysis I

• CSCE 430 – Computer Architecture

• CSCE451 – Operating System Principles

– Well-rounded CS background

http://cse.unl.edu/grad/msadmisrequire.shtml

Financial Support• You can get paid paid to go to graduate school!!! ☺• Teaching Assistantship

– Teach, grade, etc.– You apply to department

• Research Assistantship– Work on a research project– You apply to professor

• External Fellowship– Sponsored by external sources (e.g. NSF)– You apply to agency

• Competitive; helps if you have strong interest in research• Typically $15,500-18,000/year + tuition + health ins.

– Depends on your status in the program (MS, PhD, etc.)

Awards and Fellowships• Awards:

– Several departmental awards for graduate students and TAs – Graduate TA and RA Awards from the Nebraska Alumni

Association– Folsom Distinguished Master's Thesis and Doctoral Dissertation

Awards

• UNL/CSE Fellowships:– Recruitment Fellowships: Othmer, Chancellor, Dohrmann, Klarner– Regents Tuition Fellowships (<9 hours) and Graduate Fellowships

(>= 9 hours) + 1-year of residency in the US for international students

– AAUW Fellowships for Graduate Women– GEM Fellowships for Minorities– GAANN: Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (US

Dept. Ed.)

• Also, visit UNL Graduate Studies Home Page:– http://www.unl.edu/gradstud/

Student Support and Activities• Student Mentoring and Resource Center• Colloquiums, seminars, visitors• ACM Programming Contest

– Usually have a team in the world finals.– In 2007 (Tokyo), placed 26th. Only 3 U.S. teams

placed ahead of UNL.• Association for Computing Machinery Student Chapter• Husker Linux User Group• UNL Game Developers Club• Honorary: Sigma Tau and Phi Beta Kappa

Placement• PhD:

– Faculty Positions (50%)• Polytechnic University, New York• University of New Mexico• University of Maine• Purdue University at Indianapolis

• …– Industry (50%)

• Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, Google, Garmin• Cisco, Juniper, Sprint Nextel, Alcatel-Lucent• …

• MS:– Graduate School (10%)– Industry (90%)

Some Unique Features of our Program

• One of the few programs in the country that teach students how to

– Design and implement microprocessorsDesign and implement microprocessors

– Build and modify kernelsBuild and modify kernels

– Modify virtual machinesModify virtual machines

• Work with leading edge technologies

– System-on-programmable-chips from Altera

– Software reconfigurable processors from Stretch

– MicroC-OSII real-time kernels

– Wireless sensor nodes from Crossbow and Sun

Research

• Research Summary Information

– 2 journal and 6 conference publications average per faculty member

– Numerous patents, books, book chapters, and essays

– Grant expenditures of $2.675M for 2005-06 fiscal year

Selected Research Highlights

Selected Research Highlights (contd.)

More department videos athttp://cse.unl.edu/research_videos.shtml

PrairieFire Supercomputer• 256 processors all linked

together via a high-speed network.

• Peak performance – 888.5 GFLOPS

• Upgraded April 2004

• Top500.org ranking

– June 2002, 107th in world, 58th in US, 8th in academic institutions in the US.

– February 2006, no longer on list but twice the speed.

• Plan and need to upgrade to 10 10 TFLOPSTFLOPS

The University of Nebraska Tier 2 Computing Center for CMS

• The Group:• Department of Physics and Astronomy• K. Bloom, D. Claes, A. Dominguez, J. Keller, C. Lundstedt, G. Snow, J. Tan, X. Xu• Department of Computer Science and Engineering• R. Sincovec, D. Swanson, S. Goddard, L. Xu, M. Furukawa

• CMS Activities:• Tier 2 Computing, Luminosity Measurement, Forward Pixel Detector• Physics Interests: Jet Physics, Forward and Diffractive Physics, Top Physics,• Higgs Searches, Supersymmetry Searches

UC DavisUC San DiegoUCLACaltechUC RiversideUC Santa BarbaraFairfieldYaleFloridaFlorida TechFlorida InternationalFlorida StateFermilabUI ChicagoNorthwesternNotre DamePurdueIowaIowa StateKansasKansas StateJohns HopkinsMarylandBostonNortheasternMITMinnesotaMississippiNebraskaRutgersPrincetonRochesterOhio StateCarnegie MellonBrownRiceTexas TechVirginia TechWisconsin

The CMS Collaboration

Access Grid and Visualization• Group-to-group interaction

system

• Twelve panel visualization wall.

• Ensemble of resources that support

– Collaboration

– Multimedia display

– Presentation

– Interactions

• Strategic: Components in CI environments

• PI: Dr. Byrav Ramamurthy

National Agricultural Decision Support System (NADSS)

A Geospatial Decision Support System for Agricultural Risk Management

Principal Investigator: S. Goddard,Principal Investigator: S. Goddard,Co-Principals: J. Deogun, M.J. Hayes, K.G. Hubbard, S.E. Reichenbach, Co-Principals: J. Deogun, M.J. Hayes, K.G. Hubbard, S.E. Reichenbach,

P.Z. Revesz, W.J. Waltman, and D.A. WilhiteP.Z. Revesz, W.J. Waltman, and D.A. WilhiteCo-Investigators: M.E. Tooze, S.K. Harms, J.S. Peake, and Co-Investigators: M.E. Tooze, S.K. Harms, J.S. Peake, and

T. TadesseT. Tadesse

The Partnership• National Science Foundation’s Digital Government Program

• National Drought Mitigation Center, University of Nebraska--Lincoln

• High Plains Regional Climate Center, UNL

• Computer Science and Engineering, UNLComputer Science and Engineering, UNL

• USDA Risk Management Agency, Natural Resources Conservation Service, National Agricultural Statistics Service, and the Farm Service Agency

• USGS EROS Data Center

• Nebraska Research Initiative on Geospatial Decision Support Systems

• GIS Workshop

Current Tools• Our current tools apply risk risk

analysis methodologiesanalysis methodologies to the study of drought– Integration of basic models

with data generates “information” for analysis by decision makers

– Information can be gathered at any resolution for which we have data

http://nadss.unl.edu

e2 ESQuaReD• The Laboratory for Empirically-based Software

Quality Research and Development• Members

– Ahyoung Sung, Gregg Rothermel, Lorin Hochstein, Matthew Dwyer, MyraCohen, Scott Henninger, Sebastian Elbaum, Witawas Srisa-an

• Ranked 5th5th in the world as a software engineering group

• Experimental program analysis• Several system and program analysis tools

– Bandera– Bogor– Cadena– Sofya

Schorr Center for Computer Science and Engineering Research

We moved into our new research center, The Schorr Center, in January 2008.

Conclusion• This is an exciting time to be in computing

– You have an opportunity to be one of the innovators of the information ageinnovators of the information age

– Consider graduate school opportunities

– Pursue a rewarding research experience with UNL CSE faculty

– Join the POWER OF REDPOWER OF RED ☺

http://cse.unl.edu/grad/appprocess.shtmlAPPLY NOW!

Faculty in Core Competency Areas

Software Engineering – Myra Cohen, Matt Dwyer, Sebastian Elbaum, Scott Henninger, Lorin Hochstein, Gregg

Rothermel

– Don Costello, Jeremy Suing

Grid and Pervasive Computing – Jitender Deogun, Sebastian Elbaum, Steve Goddard, Hong Jiang, Byrav Ramamurthy, Sharad

Seth, Richard Sincovec, Witawas Srisa-An, Vinod Variyam, Mehmet Can Vuran, Lisong Xu

– David Swanson

Informatics – Berthe Choueiry, Jitender Deogun, Steve Goddard, Hong Jiang, Byrav Ramamurthy, Steve

Reichenbach, Peter Revesz, Ashok Samal, Stephen Scott, LeenKiat Soh

– Don Costello, Charles Riedesel, David Swanson

Theory and AI – Berthe Choueiry, Myra Cohen, Jitender Deogun, Scott Henninger, Ashok Samal, Stephen

Scott, LeenKiat Soh, Al Surkan, Vinod Variyam

– Charles Riedesel

Questions?

Contacts• If you have any questions or need additional information about any of these programs.

Please contact:

– Gregg Rothermel, Graduate Chair• Computer Science & Engineering • 402-472-2184, grother@cse.unl.edu

– Byrav Ramamurthy, Graduate Recruitment Chair• Computer Science & Engineering• 402-472-7791, byrav@cse.unl.edu

• Or– LaRita Lang

• Graduate Recruitment and External Relations• Computer Science & Engineering• 402-472-3826, llang@cse.unl.edu

Computer Science & Engineering256 Avery HallLincoln, NE 68588-0115402-472-2401http://www.cse.unl.edu