# University of Illinois Department of Computer Science

The University of Illinois Department of Computer Science is the academic department encompassing the discipline of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. According to U.S. News & World Report, both its undergraduate and graduate programs rank in the top five among American universities, and according to Computer Science Open Rankings, the department ranks equally high in placing Ph.D. students in tenure-track positions at top universities and winning best paper awards. The department also ranks in the top two among all universities for faculty submissions to reputable journals and academic conferences, as determined by CSRankings.org. From before its official founding in 1964 to today, the department's faculty members and alumni have contributed to projects including the ORDVAC, PLATO, Mosaic (web browser), JavaScript and LLVM, and have founded companies including Siebel Systems, Netscape, Mozilla, PayPal, Yelp, YouTube, and Malwarebytes.

## History

In 1949, the University of Illinois created the Digital Computer Laboratory following the joint funding between the university and the U.S. Army to create the ORDVAC and ILLIAC I computers under the direction of physicist Ralph Meagher. The ORDVAC and ILLIAC computers the two earliest von-Neumann architecture machines to be constructed. Once completed in 1952, the ILLIAC I inspired machines such as the MISTIC, MUSASINO-1, SILLIAC, and CYCLONE, as well as providing the impetus for the university to continue its research in computing through the ILLIAC II project. Yet despite such advances in high-performance computing, faculty at the Digital Computer Laboratory continued to conduct research in other fields of computing as well, such as in Human-Computer Interaction through the PLATO project, the first computer music (the ILLIAC Suite), computational numerical methods through the work of Donald B. Gillies, and James E. Robertson, the 'R' co-inventor of the SRT division algorithm, to name a few. Given this explosion in research in computing, in 1964, the University of Illinois reorganized the Digital Computer Laboratory into the Department of Computer Science, and by 1967, the department awarded its first PhD and master's degrees in Computer Science. In 1982, UIUC physicist Larry Smarr wrote a blistering critique of America's supercomputing resources, and as a result the National Science Foundation established the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in 1985. NCSA was one of the first places in industry or academia to develop software for the 3 major operating systems at the time – Macintosh, PC, and UNIX. NCSA in 1986 released NCSA Telnet and in 1993 it released the Mosaic web browser. In 2004, the Department of Computer Science moved out of the Digital Computer Laboratory building into the Thomas M. Siebel Center for Computer Science following a gift from alumnus Thomas Siebel.

## Degrees and programs
### Undergraduate

The department offers 14 undergraduate degree programs, all leading to Bachelor of Science degrees, through six different colleges:
* Computer Science (Engineering)
* Computer Science and Physics (Engineering)
* Mathematics and Computer Science (Liberal Arts and Science)
* Statistics and Computer Science (LAS)
* Computer Science and Chemistry (LAS)
* Computer Science and Linguistics (LAS)
* Computer Science and Anthropology (LAS)
* Computer Science and Astronomy (LAS)
* Computer Science and Economics (LAS)
* Computer Science and Geography and Geographic Information Systems (LAS)
* Computer Science and Advertising (Media)
* Computer Science and Philosophy (LAS)
* Computer Science and Animal Sciences (Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences)
* Computer Science and Crop Sciences (Agricultural, Consumer, and Environmental Sciences)
* Computer Science and Music (Fine and Applied Arts)
The department also sponsors a minor in computer science available to all UIUC students.
The department also offers two 5-year bachelors/masters programs through the College of Engineering: Bachelor of Science/Master of Science (B.S./M.S.) in Computer Science and Bachelors of Science/Masters of Computer Science(B.S./M.C.S.).

### Graduate

* Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
* Master of Science (M.S.) in Computer Science
* Professional Masters of Computer Science (M.C.S.)
** Online MCS is offered in partnership with Coursera.
** MCS in Data Science(MCS-DS) Track is offered in partnership with the School of Information Science, the Department of Statistics, and Coursera
* Master of Science in Bioinformatics (M.S. Bioinformatics)

## In popular culture

In the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the antagonist and sentient computer HAL 9000 says it was made operational at the HAL Plant in Urbana, Illinois which was meant to represent the Coordinated Science Laboratory where the ILLIAC project was conducted.

## Notable faculty

* Sarita Adve, principal investigator for the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center
* Vikram Adve, helped to create LLVM along with Chris Lattner, Former Interim Head of the Department of Computer Science
* Gul Agha, director of the Open Systems Laboratory and researcher in concurrent computation
* Prith Banerjee, former senior Vice President of Research at Hewlett Packard and director of HP Labs
* Roy H. Campbell, Sohaib and Sara Abbasi Professor of Computer Science
* Timothy M. Chan, Founder Professor of Computer Science
* Herbert Edelsbrunner, recipient of the National Science Foundation's Alan T. Waterman Award
* David Forsyth, Professor of Computer Science
* C. William Gear, mathematician specialized in numerical analysis, computer graphics, and software development
* Donald B. Gillies, mathematician and computer scientist specialized in game theory and computer architecture
* Bill Gropp, Thomas M. Siebel Chair Professor, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and co-creator of Message Passing Interface, IEEE Computer Society President-Elect (2021)
* Jiawei Han, Abel Bliss Professor specialized in data mining
* Michael Heath, director of the Center for the Simulation of Advanced Rockets and former interim department head (2007–2009)
* Thomas Huang, researcher and professor emeritus specialized in Human-Computer Interaction
* Ralph Johnson, Research Associate Professor and co-author of Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
* David Kuck, sole software designer on the ILLIAC IV and developer of the CEDAR project
* Steven M. LaValle, principal scientist at Oculus Rift
* Chung Laung Liu, Professor of Computer Science
* Ursula Martin, computer scientist specialized in theoretical computer science and formal methods and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
* Bruce McCormick, professor of physics, computer science, and bioengineering
* Klara Nahrstedt, Ralph and Catherine Fisher Professor of Computer Science and director of the Coordinated Science Laboratory
* David Plaisted, faculty at the Department of Computer Science until professorship at UNC-Chapel Hill
* Daniel Reed, former department head (1996–2001) and former director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (2000–2003)
* Edward Reingold, specialized in algorithms and data structures
* Dan Roth, Professor of Computer Science
* Rob A. Rutenbar, Abel Bliss Professor and former department head (2010–2017), noted for advances in computer hardware
* Marc Snir, Michael Faiman and Saburo Muroga Professor of Computer Science and former department head (2001–2007)
* Shang-Hua Teng, Professor of Computer Science and Gödel Prize laureate
* Josep Torrellas, Willett Faculty Scholar in Computer Science and research faculty for the Universal Parallel Computing Research Center
* Marianne Winslett, professor emerita of computer science
* Stephen Wolfram, former Professor of Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science and founder of Wolfram Research
* Frances Yao, Professor of Computer Science and staff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center
* Yuanyuan Zhou, Professor of Computer Science and founder of Emphora, Pattern Insight, and Whova

## Notable alumni

* Sohaib Abbasi B.S. 1978, M.S. 1980, former CEO of Informatica
* Nancy Amato Ph.D. 1995, Unocal Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, steering member of CRA-W, and current head of the Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
* Daniel E. Atkins III Ph.D. 1970, Inaugural Director of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure for the U.S. National Science Foundation.
* Marc Andreessen B.S. 1993, Mosaic (web browser), Netscape
* Eric Bina M.S. 1988, Mosaic (web browser), Netscape
* Ed Boon B.S., Mortal Kombat
* Rick Cattell B.S. 1974, co-founder of Object Data Management Group, ACM Fellow, winner of the 1978 ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award
* Steve Chen B.S. 2002, YouTube
* Steve S. Chen Ph.D. 1975, Cray Computer
* Edward Davidson Ph.D. 1968, professor emeritus in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
* Steve Dorner B.S. 1983, Eudora (email client)
* Brendan Eich M.S. 1986, JavaScript, Mozilla
* Clarence Ellis Ph.D. 1969, First African-American Computer Science Doctorate recipient and pioneer in Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) and Groupware
* Ping Fu M.S. 1990, Geomagic
* Mary Jane Irwin M.S. 1971, PhD. 1975, NAE member; computer architecture researcher
* Jawed Karim B.S. 2004, YouTube
* Robert L. Mercer M.S. 1970, Ph.D. 1972, co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies and pioneer in Computational Linguistics
* Marcin Kleczynski B.S. 2012, CEO and founder of Malwarebytes
* Pete Koomen M.S. 2006, co-founder and CTO of Optimizely
* Chris Lattner Ph.D. 2005, LLVM
* Der-Tsai Lee M.S. 1976, Ph.D. 1978, 14th President of National Chung Hsing University
* Max Levchin B.S. 1997, PayPal, Slide
* Nimit Maru B.S. 2004, co-founder and CEO of Fullstack Academy
* Robert McCool, B.S. 1995, author of the original NCSA HTTPd web server and the Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
* Mary T. McDowell B.S. 1986, former CEO of Polycom, former executive vice president at Nokia
* Peng T. Ong M.S. 1988, co-founder of Match.com
* Ray Ozzie B.S. 1979, Lotus Notes, Groove Networks, and former CTO and Chief Software Architect at Microsoft.
* Anna Patterson Ph.D. 1998, Vice President of Engineering, Artificial Intelligence at Google and co-founder of Cuil
* Linda Petzold B.S. 1974, Ph.D. 1978, Professor of Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, NAE member, and J. H. Wilkinson Prize for Numerical Software recipient; computational science and engineering researcher
* Fontaine Richardson Ph.D. 1968, founder of Applicon
* Thomas Siebel M.S. 1985, founder, chairman, and CEO of Siebel Systems; founder, chairman, and CEO of C3.ai
* Russel Simmons B.S. 1998, co-founder and initial CTO of Yelp, Inc and a member of the PayPal Mafia
* Anil Singhal M.C.S. 1979, co-founder and CEO of NetScout Systems
* James E. Smith M.S. 1974, Ph.D. 1976, winner of the 1999 Eckert–Mauchly Award
* Jeremy Stoppleman B.S. 1999, co-founder and CEO of Yelp, Inc.
* Parisa Tabriz B.S. 2005, M.S. 2007, computer security expert at Google and Forbes 2012 "Top 30 People Under 30 To Watch in the Technology Industry"
* Mark Tebbe B.S. 1983, Adjunct Professor of Entrepreneurship at Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago and co-founder of Answers Corporation
* Andrew Yao Ph.D. 1975, Turing Award winner, theoretical computer science researcher