Message from the Chair of Department of Computer Science
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the Department of Computer Science at RIT (CS@RIT), home to more than 40 faculty and 1400 students with expertise across the discipline. We offer an ABET-accredited 5-year BS degree in Computer Science that includes one year of co-op education and produces graduates who have gone on to great success in industry and academia. Our MS program is the largest and most successful graduate program at RIT, attracting students from around the world, and we also offer several advanced certificates in different areas within CS. The PhD program, administered within the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences allows students the opportunity to work with CS faculty members to expand their knowledge in a variety of CS areas. Together, these programs offer our students at all levels the opportunity to engage in research, experiential learning, and depth of study within the discipline, alongside dedicated faculty and a strong team of student-centered advisors and staff.
The department is also privileged to work with a large network of alumni, and an advisory board that includes members from Amazon, Google, Intel, and Xerox along with other leading technical companies and high-profile universities. This enables us to maintain a relevant curriculum and strong network for our new graduates, leading to a job placement rate of over 98%. Our research profile is also strong and growing, with several million dollars of grants awarded in the last five years, and five new tenure-track faculty with excellent research profiles hired since 2018. Active research areas within the department include algorithms, computing education, cryptography, data science, distributed systems, graphics and visualization, machine learning and pattern recognition, programming languages, security, and theory. Our faculty, both tenure-track and lecturers, are dedicated to teaching and providing an engaging, rigorous, and welcoming classroom environment. We are proud to be the home of five different winners of RIT's most prestigious teaching awards.
It is an exciting time to be a member of the Computer Science profession, with the chance to contribute to society in many important ways. Here at CS@RIT, we continue to grow and improve as we strive to be an environment where students, staff and faculty can all work together to enable each other’s success!
Zachary Butler,
Professor and Chair