From: compsci@owlnet.rice.edu (Comp Sci Templates)
Newsgroups: soc.college.gradinfo
Subject: Computer Science, Rice University
Date: 20 Dec 92 04:21:59 GMT
Organization: Rice University


			 Graduate Admissions
		    Department of Computer Science
			   Rice University
			    P.O. Box 1892
		       Houston, TX  77251-1892

Phone: (713) 527-4834            Email: compsci@owlnet.rice.edu

Graduate Program

The focus of our graduate program is the degree of Doctor of
Philosophy.  Between four to six years are normally required to
complete the work for the Ph.D. degree.  The department places strong
emphasis on steady progress towards and timely completion of the
degree, although exceptions are made for students whose previous
background does not include computer science.  The Master of Computer
Science degree is also offered; it is a professional degree and
usually takes one to two years to complete.

Upon entering the department, every student is assigned a faculty
member and a senior graduate student. They serve as advisors during
the first few semesters. Then, the student becomes actively involved
in research and is associated with the thesis supervisor of his
choice.

Coursework and Examinations

There is no formal course requirement for the Ph.D. degree.  Most
incoming students use their first year coursework as preparation for
the comprehensive examination; well-prepared students may take the
examination without additional coursework. This examination is a test
of breadth of knowledge in computer science, and covers four areas:
programming languages and compilers, architecture and operating
systems, mathematical foundations of computer science, and algorithms.
The comprehensive examination is offered twice a year, in January and
in May.

We encourage students to become involved in research with a faculty
member as quickly as possible.  Typically, this happens during the
summer of the first year or during the second year.  The second year
is also, for many students, a time for taking advanced courses and
seminars in the area of their interest, and a time for preparing for
the qualifying examination.  Unlike the comprehensive, the qualifying
examination covers one specific area of computer science, presumably
the one in which a student wishes to pursue thesis research.
Qualifying examinations in the various areas are scheduled by
agreement between the student(s) and the examination committee.

Research

Research and dissertation work is the essential component of every
Ph.D.  degree. Many thesis topics evolve out of the research in the
department.  While working with a faculty member, a student finds some
interesting problem and develops it into a thesis proposal.  At this
point the student chooses the thesis advisor and a thesis committee,
consisting of the advisor, a second faculty member from the
department, and a faculty member from another department.  After
presenting the thesis proposal in a departmental colloquium, the
student is expected to solve the problems raised in the proposal and
write a coherent and perceptive account of the work in a dissertation.
As the final step, the student must pass a public oral defense of his
dissertation.

Teaching

Teaching is an integral part of graduate education at Rice.  Teaching
experience not only aids in solidifying knowledge of the material, but
also provides invaluable practice in clearly formulating concepts and
ideas, so vital for anyone pursuing a career in research and/or
teaching.  All graduate students assist with teaching courses for four
semesters.  The amount of work varies somewhat from course to course,
but is not expected to exceed eight hours a week.  Teaching
assignments involve grading papers, assisting in lab exercises,
running tutorials, and occasional lecturing.  Entering students assist
in introductory courses, advanced students in senior or graduate
courses.  To the extent possible, a student's preferences are taken
into account in determining his teaching duties.

Financial Support

Ph.D. students in the department normally receive financial support.
For their first year, students are usually awarded Rice University
fellowships, which carry a stipend plus tuition.  In subsequent years,
most students receive financial support, including stipend and
tuition, through research assistantships supported by various grants.

Rice University Presidential Fellowships are awarded on a competitive
basis to applicants with exceptional credentials.  These fellowships
carry an additional monetary stipend and are awarded for up to two
years.

Students in the department also compete for a variety of external
fellowships.  Currently, several hold NSF and IBM Fellowships, which
carry a higher stipend level than that paid by Rice.  Incoming
students are encouraged to apply for National Science Foundation
Predoctoral Fellowships.  Applications for these awards should
originate from the student in October or November during the senior
year.  The appropriate forms may be obtained from the National Science
Foundation, Fellowship Office, Washington, DC 20418.  Rice University
is also one of the fourteen institutions at which fellowships from the
Fannie and John Hertz Foundation are tenable.  Application materials
for these fellowships may be obtained from the Fannie and John Hertz
Foundation, 1281 Westwood Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90024.

Levels of support are reviewed annually by the department and adjusted
to reflect changes in the cost of living in the Houston area.
Stipends are set at a rate that is competitive with other major
schools.  It is departmental policy to supplement external fellowships
that provide lower stipends than the rate paid by Rice, so that the
recipients are not penalized financially.  Continuing support is
dependent on satisfactory progress towards completion of the Ph.D.
degree. No support is available for students in the Master of Computer
Science program.

Admission

Three basic criteria are used in the selection of a prospective
graduate student: (1) scholastic record, as reflected by the courses
chosen and the quality of performance; (2) the evaluation made by
teachers and advisors; and (3) Graduate Record Examination (GRE)
scores.  For foreign students, we also take into account the scores on
the Test of English as a Foreign Language exam (TOEFL).

Annually, about eight to twelve students enter the department as Ph.D.
students, selected out of a pool of approximately 400 applicants.
Typical GRE scores for admitted applicants are around the 90th
percentile on the verbal aptitude test, and in the 90th to 99th
percentile for the mathematical aptitude and advanced tests.  Although
these numbers can be expected to change somewhat from year to year-in
particular, the size of the incoming classes will grow as the
department acquires more faculty-they provide a good indication of the
competitiveness of the admission process.  The numbers should not be
interpreted as cut-off scores to get into the department: the
admission committee bases its decisions on a collection of evidence,
of which test scores are but one component.  In fact, the department
encourages applications from highly motivated students with
backgrounds other than computer science.

Applicants should complete an application form and send it together
with supporting material to:

Graduate Admissions
Department of Computer Science
Rice University
P.O. Box 1892
Houston, TX  77251-1892

This should include a complete transcript of undergraduate (and
graduate, if any) coursework, three letters of recommendation, and GRE
test scores.  Applicants are expected to take both the standard GRE
aptitude test and an advanced test in either Mathematics, Computer
Science, or Engineering.  Applicants whose native language is not
English are required to supply TOEFL test scores as well.
Arrangements to take these examinations should be made directly with
the Educational Testing Service, PO Box 955, Princeton, NJ 08540.

The deadline for complete applications is February 1.  To meet the
application deadline, applicants should take the GRE and TOEFL tests
no later than November of the previous year, and request that the
results be sent to the Department of Computer Science at Rice
University.

The Master of Computer Science Program

To earn the degree of Master of Computer Science, a student must
complete an approved program of at least thirty semester hours of
graduate study.  At least twenty-four hours of coursework must be
taken while in residence at Rice.  Since this degree is intended for
people who plan a career as practitioners rather than researchers, it
does not require a thesis or an oral examination.

Facilities

The needs of computer science research are met by a collection of
dedicated research systems.  The principal computing resource is a
local area network containing about 100 SUN Microsystems workstations
running either UNIX or the V-System, a large timeshared SUN, six IBM
RT/PC-II workstations, a VAX 11/750 system running 4.3 Berkeley Unix,
and a collection of miscellaneous personal computers, laser printers,
and other devices.  Additionally, an IBM 3081D-32 running VM/CMS is
dedicated to supporting IBM-sponsored computer science research at
Rice. A 16-processor Intel Hypercube, a 20-processor Sequent S81, an
8192-processor CM-2 from Thinking Machines and a 16-processor loosely
coupled multiprocessor are available for experimentation with parallel
computation.  This collection of machines provides a stimulating
environment for experimental computer science research.  Additionally,
a large pool of SUNs and MacIntoshes are used in computer science
courses.  Rice is an active member of CSNet and is the lead
institution in Sesquinet, the southwest regional network.  It has an
NSFNet backbone connection through NCAR, and a connection into BitNet.
The campus has a fiber-optic backbone network to connect individual
departmental networks.


Faculty

One of the most important criteria in choosing a graduate school is
the assurance of finding a faculty member who can provide stimulating
guidance and interesing research topics. The members of our faculty
have many interests. Their academic backgrounds and research interests
are described below.

Preston Briggs, Research Scientist
Ph.D. (1991), Rice University
Preston Briggs conducts research in compiler optimization.

Robert (Corky) Cartwright, Professor 
Ph.D. (1977), Stanford University
Robert (Corky) Cartwright's research focuses on abstract programming
and specification languages, program semantics, and program
validation.

Bruce F. Duba, Lecturer
M.S. (1985), Indiana University
Bruce Duba's research interests include all aspects of the design and
implementation of programming languages.

Keith D. Cooper, Associate Professor
Ph.D. (1983), Rice University
Keith Cooper's research interests include programming environments,
interprocedural analysis and optimization, and compiling for advanced
architecture microprocessors.

Alan L. Cox, Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (1991), University of Rochester
Alan Cox's thesis describes ``The Design and Evaluation of a Coherent
Memory Abstraction for NUMA Multiprocessors.''

John E. Dennis, Noah Harding Professor and Chairman
Ph.D. (1966) University of Utah
John Dennis conducts research in the numerical solution to problems in
nonlinear optimization.

Hristo Djidjev, Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (1984), University of Sofia, Bulgaria
Hristo Djidjev conducts research into algorithmic aspects of graph
theory, and studies the computation of small graph separators in
particular.

Michael Fagan, Research Scientist
Ph.D. (1991), Rice University
Michael Fagan's research focuses on aspects of typing in programming
languages.

Matthias Felleisen, Associate Professor 
Ph.D. (1987), Indiana University
Matthias Felleisen's research interests cover all conceptual aspects
of programming languages.

Ron Goldman, Professor
Ph.D. Mathematics (1973), Johns Hopkins University
Ron Goldman's research interests lie in the mathematical representation,
manipulation, and analysis of shape using computers.

G. Anthony Gorry, Professor
Ph.D. (1967), Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Artificial Intelligence.  Medical applications.

Ken Kennedy, Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science
Ph.D. (1971), New York University
Ken Kennedy's research interests include parallel computing in science
and engineering, scientific programming environments, optimization of
compiled code, computer architecture, performance analysis and graph
algorithms.

Charles Koelbel, Research Scientist
Ph.D. (1990), Purdue University
Charles Koelbel's recent work has concerned compilation for parallel
architectures and the specification of the Fortran D standard for
specification of parallel programs.

Mark Krentel, Assistant Professor 
Ph.D. (1987) Cornell University
Mark Krentel's research interests are in theoretical aspects of
computer science, focusing on combinatorial optimization, design and
analysis of algorithms, computational complexity and NP-completeness.

John Mellor-Crummey, Faculty Fellow
Ph.D. (1989), University of Rochester
John Mellor-Crummey's research interests focus on aspects of
large-scale parallel computation including debugging and performance
analysis, multiprocessor architectures, multiprocessor operating
systems, and concurrent data structures.

Doug Moore, Research Scientist
Ph.D. (1992), Cornell University
Doug Moore's research interests include parallel computing, geometric
computing, and scientific visualization.

Alejandro Schaffer, Assistant Professor
Ph.D. (1988), Stanford University
Alejandro Schaffer is interested in the design and analysis of
combinatorial algorithms, graph theory, combinatorics, parallel and
distributed computing, computational geometry, and data structures.

Linda Torczon, Faculty Fellow
Ph.D. (1985), Rice University
Linda Torczon's research interests include programming environments,
code generation, and interprocedural data-flow analysis and
optimization.

Joe Warren, Associate Professor 
Ph.D. (1986), Cornell University
Joe Warren's research interests focus on the application of computers
to geometric problems.  Specific areas of interest include geometric
modeling (the construction and manipulation of data structures for
representing geometric objects) and computational geometry (algorithms
for solving geometric problems).

Willy E. Zwaenepoel, Associate Professor 
Ph.D. (1984) Stanford University
Since joining the faculty at Rice in 1984, Willy Zwaenepoel has worked
on fault tolerance for distributed applications, optimistic
computations, and distributed shared memory.

About Rice

Rice is a private, independent, and coeducational institution,
dedicated since its opening in 1912 to the advancement of letters,
science, and art.  The university includes undergraduate and graduate
programs in seven academic units: the School of Architecture, the
School of Humanities, the School of Social Sciences, the Wiess School
of Natural Sciences, the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the
Shepherd School of Music, and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of
Business Administration.

Rice purposely maintains a relatively small enrollment of
approximately 2,600 undergraduates and 1,200 graduate students.  The
student to teacher ratio is nine to one.  The majority of
undergraduate students lives on campus in one of the eight residential
colleges.  Graduate students live off campus.  Nice, inexpensive rooms
and apartments are often available within a short distance of the
campus.  Graduate student housing is also available in the Rice
Graduate House, located adjacent to the campus.  The facility offers
rooms, either private or shared, group kitchens, a commons and meeting
room, and free transportation to academic buildings.  Rooms in the
Graduate House must be reserved on a space-available basis by July 15
for the Fall semester.  Graduate student interests within the
university are represented by the Graduate Student Association, which
also sponsors social and other activities.

Rice's 300-acre campus, a grassy lawn canopied by live oaks,
accommodates forty buildings and the largest stadium in Houston.  The
university's Fondren Library maintains an open shelf policy to provide
easy access to its holdings, which include over one million volumes
and over 8,000 current periodicals.