Graduate Studies & Enrollment
Prospective Students

Computer Science

Programs of Study

Graduate programs in Computer Science provide opportunites for advanced coursework and research for highly qualified students. Graduate Certificates, recognizing completion of a cohesive set of advanced courses, are offered in several areas of Computer Science. The Master of Science degree is more comprehensive; with thesis and non-thesis (coursework-only) options, it is the degree of choice for many full-time students and working professionals. The Doctor of Philosophy degree emphasizes deeper study and discovery in preparation for a career in research or education.

Graduate programs may be undertaken on a full-time or part-time basis. For all students, challenging courses and demanding research projects, with high expectations of accomplishment, are the standard.

Degree Requirements

For the M.S.

These degree requirements are effective for all students matriculating after July 1, 2004. Those students who matriculated prior to this date may choose to use the degree requirements stated in the graduate catalog effective at the time of matriculation. The student may choose between two options to obtain the master's degree: thesis or coursework. Each student should carefully weigh the pros and cons of these alternatives in consultation with his or her advisor prior to selecting an option, typically in the second year of study. The department will allow a student to change options only once.

Thesis Option

At least 33 credit hours, including the thesis, must be satisfactorily completed. A thesis consisting of a research or development project worth a minimum of 9 credit hours must be completed and presented to the faculty. A thesis proposal must be approved by the department by the end of the semester in which a student has registered for a third thesis credit. Proposals will be considered only at regularly scheduled department meetings. The 33 credit hours must include at least one course from each of the core areas. Students should endeavor to take these required four courses as early as possible so as to provide the background for the remaining graduate work. The remaining courses may, with prior approval of the student's advisor, consist of computer science courses, independent study, or courses elected from other disciplines. At most, two courses in other disciplines will be accepted. IDG 501 may not be counted towards the 33 credits required for a CS Master's degree.

Students funded by a teaching assistantship, research assistantship or fellowship must complete the thesis option.

Non-thesis Option

A total of at least 33 credit hours must be satisfactorily completed, including at least one course from each of the core areas. Students should endeavor to take these required courses as early as possible so as to provide the background for the remaining graduate work. The remaining seven courses may, with prior approval of the student's advisor, consist of computer science courses, independent study, or up to two courses elected from other disciplines. IDG 501 may not be counted towards the 33 credits required for a CS Master's degree. To obtain a master's degree, all students must demonstrate graduate level competence in the following core areas of computer science. To satisfy each core area requirement, the student must satisfactorily complete at least one of the courses given in each core area. Students may petition the department to waive any core area requirement under special circumstances, but such action is strongly discouraged.

Core Areas

Theory

Algorithms

Design

Systems

The department will accept at most 9 credit hours of transfer credit from other graduate programs. If appropriate, this transferred credit may be used to satisfy core area requirements. These credits must not have been used to satisfy the requirements of another academic degree earned by the candidate. With rare exceptions, these credits are limited to courses taken before matriculation at WPI.

Students funded by a teaching assistantship, research assistantship or fellowship must complete the thesis option.

For the Ph.D.

Students are advised to contact the department for detailed rules, as there are departmental guidelines, in addition to the university's requirements, for the Ph.D. degree.

Upon admission, the student is assigned an academic advisor and together they design a Plan of Study during the first semester of the student's Ph.D. program.

The student must take and perform acceptably on the Ph.D. qualifying examination, which includes both a written examination and a research component. Application to take the examination should be submitted to the department secretary at least two months prior to the examination date. The Ph.D. student is required to pass the examination prior to completing 36 Ph.D. credits.

Upon successful completion of the Ph.D. qualifying examination, the student becomes a computer science Ph.D. candidate. The student's Dissertation Committee must be formed within the first year of candidacy. The student selects a research advisor from within the CS department, and together they select, with the approval of the CS Graduate Committee, three additional members, at least one of whom must be from outside the WPI CS department. The Dissertation Committee will be responsible for supervising the comprehensive examination, and approving the dissertation proposal and final report.

The Ph.D. degree requirements consist of a coursework component and a research component, which together must total at least 60 credit hours beyond the master's degree requirement. The coursework component consists of at least 28 graduate credits, including 3 credits of graduate level mathematics.

The student may also enroll for research credits, but is only allowed up to 18 research credits prior to the acceptance of the written dissertation proposal by the Dissertation Committee. With the approval of the Dissertation Committee, the student applies for and takes the Ph.D. comprehensive examination. This examination must be passed prior to the completion of the dissertation defense and is normally taken after some initial dissertation research has been performed. With approval of the Dissertation Committee, the student applies for and takes the dissertation proposal examination, usually within one year of the Ph.D. candidacy.

The Ph.D. research component consists of at least 30 credits (including any research credits earned prior to the acceptance of the dissertation proposal and excluding any research credits applied toward a master's degree) leading to a dissertation and a public defense, which must be approved by the student's Dissertation Committee.

Facilities

WPI boasts excellent computing resources and network connectivity through the university's Computing & Communications Center and the CS Department's own systems. A wide range of machines provides web, mail, file, high-performance computation, and security services. An extensive software library is available free of charge to all campus users. The network backbone has 4 Gigabits of available bandwidth and offers high-speed connection to Internet2 via an OC-3 link to the Abilene network. Limited-access wired and wireless networking is available for research purposes. Other specialized resources include computing clusters, supercomputer access, Access Grid Node, and extremely large displays.

Off-Campus Research Opportunities

Computer science graduate students have opportunities for research and development in cooperation with several neighboring organizations, both for the master's thesis and Ph.D. dissertation. These and other opportunities provide real-world problems and experiences consistent with WPI's policy of extending learning beyond the classroom.

Admission Requirements

Applicants are expected to demonstrate sufficient background in core Computer Science for graduate-level work. Background in both theoretical and applied Computer Science, with significant programming experience and some collegelevel mathematics, is required. A bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a closely related field should be adequate preparation. Students from other backgrounds are welcome to apply if they can demonstrate their readiness through other means, such as the Computer Science GRE Subject exam. Work experience will be considered if it covers a broad spectrum of Computer Science at a technical or mathematical level.

A student may apply to the Ph.D. program upon completion of either a bachelor's (in which case the master's degree must first be completed) or master's degree in computer science, or with an equivalent background.

BS/MS Program

Overview

See the university rules for the BS/MS program.

Students enrolled in the BS/MS program may count certain courses towards both their undergraduate and graduate degrees. The Undergraduate Catalog states that for the BS/MS the conversion equivalence is:

Note: Courses, whose credit hours total no more than 40% of the credit hours required for the master's degree, and which meet all other requirements for each degree, may be used to satisfy requirements for both degrees. This means that only four courses can be shared between the BS and MS degrees.

The Regulations section (below) details which courses may be shared between the two degrees.

Process

The department recommends that students apply to the combined BS/MS program at the beginning of their junior year. In the application, the student indicates the four courses to be shared and secures the signatures from the instructors who will be teaching these courses. The student is responsible for informing the instructor that the course will be part of the combined BS/MS program. A course instructor may choose to assign additional work to the student for an undergraduate course to count towards the Graduate Degree.

Regulations

The CS department allows only selected 4000-level undergraduate courses to count towards the MS degree. Students must inform the instructor of their intent to count the course towards the MS degree; extra work may be assigned by the instructor. The 4000-level courses that may be counted towards both degrees are:

Certain pairs of undergraduate and graduate courses cover similar material. In most cases, students may not receive credit for both the undergraduate and graduate versions of the same course. Exceptions arise when the graduate course covers extensive material beyond the undergraduate course. The table below summarizes the restrictions on credit for similar courses across the undergraduate and graduate programs.

Undergraduate CourseCredit Not Also Allowed for Graduate CourseCredit Not Allowed for Undergraduate Course if You Previously Took

CS 504

CS 553

CS 553

CS 4341 Introduction to Artificial Intelligence

CS 534

CS 534

CS 4432 Database Systems II

CS 542

CS 542

CS 4513 Distributed Computing Systems

CS 502

CS 502

CS 4514 Computer Networks: Architecture and Implementation

CS 513

CS 513

CS 4533 Techniques of Programming Language Translation

CS 544

CS 4731 Computer Graphics

CS 543

Undergraduate courses listed in table above are viewed as mapping to the graduate courses listed in the second column. If an undergraduate course maps to a graduate course that satisfies a core area requirement for the MS degree, the undergraduate course satisfies that core area requirement. For example, a BS/MS student can satisfy the systems core area requirement for the MS by taking CS 4513 or CS 4514.

Research Interests

The current departmental activities include, among other areas, analysis of algorithms, artificial intelligence, computer vision, computer graphics, database and information systems, distributed systems, graph theory and computational complexity, network performance evaluation, programming languages, software engineering, visualization, and Web-based systems. Research groups meet weekly and focus on topics related to the above areas. Students are encouraged to participate in the meetings related to their area(s) of interest. Research and development projects and theses are available in these areas. Computer science students may also participate in computer applications research work being conducted in a number of other departments including electrical and computer engineering, mechanical engineering, biomedical and fire protection engineering. Students are also encouraged to undertake projects and theses in cooperation with neighboring computer manufacturers or commercial organizations.

Faculty

M. A. Gennert
Associate Professor and Department Head; Sc.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
E. O. Agu
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, Amherst
D. C. Brown
Professor; Ph.D., Ohio State University
M. L. Claypool
Associate Professor; Ph.D., University of Minnesota
D. J. Dougherty
Professor; Ph.D., University of Maryland
D. Finkel
Professor; Ph.D., University of Chicago
K. Fisler
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Indiana University
G. T. Heineman
Associate Professor; Ph.D., Columbia University
N. T. Heffernan
Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Carnegie-Mellon University
M. Hofri
Professor; D.Sc., Technion-ITT, Haifa, Israel
R. E. Kinicki
Associate Professor; Ph.D., Duke University
K. A. Lemone
Associate Professor; Ph.D., Northeastern University
R. W. Lindeman
Assistant Professor; Sc.D.; George Washington University
M. Mani
Assistant Professor; Ph.D.; UCLA
G. Pollice
Professor of Practice; M.S.; University of Massachusetts, Lowell
C. Ruiz
Associate Professor; Ph.D.; University of Maryland
E. Rundensteiner
Professor; Ph.D.; University of California, Irvine
G. Sarkozy
Affiliated Associate Professor; Ph.D.; Rutgers University
S. Selkow
Professor; Ph.D.; University of Pennsylvania
M. Ward
Professor; Ph.D.; University of Connecticut
C. Wills
Associate Professor; Ph.D.; Purdue University
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Last modified: June 27, 2007 15:35:58