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Rice University is a world-class research university distinguished by its collaborative, interdisciplinary culture and a global perspective. Only a few miles from downtown Houston, the university occupies an architecturally distinctive, 300-acre campus shaded by nearly 4,000 trees. State-of-the-art facilities and laboratories, internationally renowned centers and institutes and one of the country’s largest endowments support an ideal learning and living environment.
The Department of Computer Science offers a rigorous program that balances theory and practice, draws recent research results into the classroom and prepares students for career-long learning and improvement. U.S. News and World Report consistently ranks our program among the top 20, and in 2007 ranked our programming languages group at No. 8 and our systems group at No. 15 in the country.
Graduate students of our program come from the top ranks of the best universities in the world, and they engage in hands-on research with some of the top scientists in the field today. Among the computer science faculty are directors of university centers, members of the National Academy of Engineering and fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and of the World Technology Network.
Because of the department's small student-to-faculty ratio, graduate education here is personal. Our students are able to develop close personal and working relationships with the faculty.
The faculty and students in the department have a broad range of research interests: artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, computer architecture, computer graphics, computer networking, computer security, distributed peer-to-peer systems, embedded systems, high-performance computing, logic and the foundations of computer science, mobile networking, operating systems, physical computing and robotics, programming language theory and virtual machines.
Faculty collaborate with their colleagues across both engineering and natural science, but have particularly strong ties with computational and applied mathematics and electrical and computer engineering, with a number of collaborations in the Texas Medical Center.
The department also has an active corporate affiliates program. Many research projects are undertaken with support from member companies. These relationships benefit students through summer internships, employment contracts and support for undergraduate and graduate research.
Message from the Chair
We are all aware of the digital revolution’s impact across the broad spectrum of our lives. Computation now plays a critical role in science, design, business, and entertainment. Today, we can predict the paths of hurricanes, model the effects of pharmaceuticals, analyze the very blueprints of life—all because of the increasing power of our computational tools. All of these systems, from a jumbo jet’s autopilot to a child’s robotic dog, rely on a body of knowledge that we call “computer science.” Computer Scientists develop systems, software, methods, tools, and applications that bring the power of modern computing to bear on real-world problems. The novel ideas that underlie today’s revolutionary products are the direct and indirect results of Computer Science research.
Graduate study in Computer Science offers you the opportunity to move from the classroom environment of an undergraduate education into the research laboratories where faculty, staff, and students discover the knowledge that shapes tomorrow. Graduate students play an active role in the academic life of a university department. They are involved in teaching, in research, in prototype system construction, and in publication. Graduate study is a hands-on experience, an apprenticeship with a veteran researcher and educator. A graduate degree in Computer Science prepares you for a career of learning, discovery, and intellectual adventure.
Graduate study at Rice is a personal experience. Each member of our faculty is active in undergraduate education, graduate education, and the research lab. As a graduate student, you will have the opportunity to explore new ideas in algorithms, artificial intelligence and robotics, bioinformatics, computer architecture and design, graphics and geometric design, high-performance computing, networking, programming language theory and implementation, systems, and the theory of computing. A graduate degree in Computer Science opens up many career paths: in academia, in the computing industry, and in fields as diverse as filmmaking, finance, and law. I genuinely hope that you will join us.
Sincerely,
Joe Warren
Chair, Computer Science
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Tenure track faculty members: 16
Current graduate students: 58
Annual research expenditures for 2006: $6.7 million
Faculty with joint appointments in the School of Engineering: 11
Faculty with joint appointments at Baylor College of Medicine: 1
Corporate affiliates: 15
Adjunct faculty members: 4
Campus size: 300 tree-shaded acres
Distance from downtown Houston: about 2 miles
Average annual temperature: 70 degrees
Professional sports teams in Houston: 5
Nationalities in Houston: more than 100
Languages spoken in Houston: more than 90
Ranking among major U.S. cities with the lowest cost of living: 2
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