The Computer Science program at Vassar integrates the study of important theoretical foundations with the study of powerful scientific methodologies that are central to the field, providing excellent preparation for graduate study in computer science as well as work in the profession. The program provides a solid background for further work in Computer Science. Intensive study of Computer Science in the context of a broad liberal arts education opens up perspectives and opportunities for cross-disciplinary work that are especially relevant in today’s world.
In addition to offering a full program of core computer science courses, Vassar’s Computer Science Department offers a range of courses in areas relevant to the broader liberal arts curriculum, including artificial intelligence, robotics, computational linguistics, graphics and animation, and bioinformatics. The Computer Science Department is an active participant in Vassar’s HHMI–funded Center for Collaborative Approaches to Science: CCAS
The department houses two computer laboratories containing machines running the Linux operating system. Several on-going research projects within the department offer students the opportunity to work with faculty on real problems both during the academic year and over the summer.
The Vassar College Computer Science Department is pleased to welcome back Barry Jones as a Visiting Associate Professor for 2009–2010 and 2010–2011!
Claire Crawford’08 will be attending graduate school in Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania.
Anca Sarb’09 will be attending graduate school in Software Systems Engineering at University College London.
Isaac Krull’09 will be attending graduate school in Materials Science at the University of Florida.
Elise Stickles’09 (Independent Computer Science / Anthropology) will be attending graduate school in Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Michael Thaler’09 (Japanese / CS Correlate) has been awarded a paid summer internship at Reflexions Data, a web consulting and development company founded by Vassar graduates, in White Plains, NY.
Philip Tully’10 has been awarded a summer internship at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, working on computational / cyberinsfrastructure for the project Assembling the Tree of Life for the Plant Sciences.
Arjun Agarwala’10 has been awarded a summer internship at Citigroup’s Investment Banking Division.
Stephen Matysik’11 recently traveled to Kobe, Japan, where he presented a paper he coauthored at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.
Carolyn Grabill’11, Prairie Rose Goodwin’11, Jamee Bateau’12, and Kristen Schau’12 have been awarded travel scholarships to attend the 2009 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing in Tucson, Arizona.
Congratulations to Barbara Liskov of MIT, recipient of the 2008 Association for Computing Machinery A.M. Turing Award.
Professor Liskov is the first woman ever to be awarded a Ph.D. from a Computer Science department (Stanford University, 1968), and only the second woman to win the Turing Award (the first was Fran Allen in 2006). There is no Nobel Prize for Computer Science, though the Turing Award, named for British mathematician Alan M. Turing, is generally regarded as the “Nobel Prize in Computing.”
Read more about Professor Liskov’s contributions to the field of Computer Science, and the 2008 A.M. Turing Award, in the ACM Press Release.
Read about Cloudera, a new Silicon Valley company formed to provide support and consulting for Hadoop, an open-source version of Google’s file system and MapReduce technology.
From the March 16, 2009 NYTimes: Bottling the Magic Behind Google and Facebook
