Department Overview

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The Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) at Michigan State University is a unit within the College of Engineering. Our mission:

• To impart the highest quality instruction to our undergraduate and graduate students
• To conduct leading-edge research in computer science and engineering
• To provide leadership and service to our professional communities.

We are committed to excel in all three components of this mission.

Instruction

The CSE Department has about 27 tenure-stream faculty and each year awards approximately 100 BS, 40 MS, and 10 PhD degrees in Computer Science. We administer an undergraduate Computer Engineering degree program jointly with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

The quality of our undergraduate and graduate programs is due to 3 major guiding principles:

• Almost all of our courses are taught by full-time faculty members and reflect cutting-edge research developments. Small class sizes foster better communication between the students and the instructor.
• Our programs emphasize hands-on learning. Our instructional laboratory facilities undergo continual upgrades and replacements. Most courses include scheduled laboratory time with exclusive access to these facilities. Lab sessions have an instructor or teaching assistant present to provide support and answer questions.
• Our students are heavily recruited by Fortune 500 corporations, local and international companies, and other universities for graduate study and faculty positions.

Research

With most of its growth taking place over the last 15 years, the CSE Department is a young and research-active department.

CSE faculty members are graduates of many of the top departments in the country, and all are currently conducting externally-funded research.

The department is home to 9 research laboratories, with annual research expenditures exceeding $ 8 million.

Research areas of particular strength are:
• software engineering
• formal methods
• mobile computing
• distributed systems
• computer networking
• biometrics
• image processing
• multimedia technologies
• genetic algorithms
• robotics and machine intelligence

Funding sources include a broad spectrum of federal agencies (including NSF, DARPA, ONR, DOE, NIH, AFOSR, NASA, NSA), Michigan government agencies, and numerous corporate sponsors.

The faculty are aided in this research by an outstanding group of graduate and undergraduate research assistants. The number of faculty in the Department continues to grow, enabling us to strengthen existing research areas and expand into new ones.

Our collective research activities address a number of problems that are important to the nation's security and quality of life. Researchers protect critical infrastructures from cyber-terrorism, enhance how we find and organize information in databases, use biometrics to enhance security systems, explore the human genome, and design software used in safety-critical systems. y

Service

Students, staff, and faculty are engaged in professional and community service.

Faculty serve on:
• MSU, College, and Department committees that help shape the University
• Editorial boards of top journals
• Accreditation boards and other bodies involving computer science education
• National and international conference committees
• Outreach projects involving local schools, businesses, and non-profit organizations