Computer Science
Learning at a Research
Institution
The department of computer science has consistently been recognized
as
the leading department in Canada and one of the top departments in
North America. The breadth of offerings and the stature of our
faculty is
unparalleled in this country. We were the first department of
computer science in Canada and many of our graduates have become
faculty members at leading universities in North America and around
the
world.
We offer undergraduate specialist programs in computer science,
information systems, software engineering and human-computer
interaction as well as joint programs with mathematics, economics,
statistics, physics and the cognitive sciences disciplines. We also
participate in a specialist program in cognitive sciences and
artificial
intelligence, with other departments. Each year many of our second
and
third-year students take advantage of our Professional Experience
Year
(PEY) program and take off a year from their studies to work full
time in
industry.
The faculty members of the department are internationally recognized
for
their research contributions. Undergraduates and graduates are
taught by
some of the "stars" of the computer science world. There are five
faculty
who have been elected to the Royal Society of Canada - two of whom
are also fellows of the Royal Society of London, the only two
Canadian
computer scientists who have been awarded this honour.
For example, Stephen Cook developed the concept of NP-completeness,
concerning problems which likely would take thousands of years of
computer time to solve. Just what can and cannot be reasonably
computed is of enormous practical value and is now a standard topic
in undergraduate computer science programs around the world. For his
work on NP-completeness, Cook has won a Turing Award - the
equivalent of the Nobel Prize in computer science. Undergraduate
students at U of T can learn about this important topic first-hand
from
Cook.
Redefining
Inquiry
The department is the home of several research groups which are all
making important contributions and providing new insights in their
areas. Several of these groups have developed new approaches or
paradigms which have had a major effect on the course of
international research and computer science in general. Examples of
such areas include neural networks, computer vision, computer
graphics, knowledge representation and reasoning, human-computer
interaction, scientific computation and computer performance
evaluation.
Computer science research has become much more interdisciplinary in
recent years. Robotics and computer vision, computer animation,
facial
modelling and re-construction, artificial life and the use of
parallelism for
solving important classes of large scale problems are examples of
especially exciting areas.
Many of our faculty members are cross appointed to other departments
including electrical and computer engineering, medicine,
mathematics,
psychology, philosophy, as well as the Faculty of Management.
Connecting
Scholarship With the World
Our faculty members work in partnership with many industrial
partners,
including IBM, Nortel and Ontario Hydro. Some faculty members'
research has resulted in their own start-up companies with
successful
products and tools. Songnian Zhou's ground-breaking research into
parallel computing has resulted in his highly successful product,
LSF
(Load Sharing Facility) that harnesses the unused capacity of a
network
of computers, without interfering with the main job of these
computers.
Another example is the work of Demetri Terzopoulos and Eugene Fiume,
who use mathematics, physics, and engineering to develop new ways of
considering computer vision and graphics. This approach has
applications
in the medical and industrial fields. Their award-winning research
on fish
creates a form of artificial life, where fish autonomously move
through
water, feed, hunt and develop other natural behaviours. The
techniques
they employ have created excitement in the bio-medical imaging and
modeling, computer-aided design and computer animation communities.
One of the awards arising from this work is a prestigious ACM
Distinguished Dissertation Award given to Xiaoyuan Tu.
The department offers Computing Insights - a comprehensive
introduction
to computer science for about 70 high school students. This
three-week,
summer enrichment program provides talented students with an
understanding of what computer science really is.
Faculty members in the department of computer science hold key
executive positions in national and international academic and
professional societies. They also serve on the editorial boards of
most of
the leading computer science journals and are active in organizing
local
and international conferences.
Outstanding Alumni Include:
Brad Silverberg, senior vice president, Microsoft, John Gutag, chair
of
electrical engineering and computer science at MIT and Bill Reeves,
chief technical director of Pixar, maker of popular animated films A
Bug's Life and the Academy Award-winning Toy Story.
Contact
Information:
Department of Computer Science
University of Toronto, 10 King's College Road, Room 3303
Toronto, Ontario M5S 3G4
Phone: (416) 978-2980
Fax: (416) 978-1931 |
