10 Years of Growth in Computer Science at UCSB
Over the past ten years, the Computer Science Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) has been growing at an amazing pace. Between 1996 and 2006, the sizes of our graduate and undergraduate programs have more than doubled, and the average research funding our department receives per year has quadrupled. More importantly, this outstanding growth has been accompanied by significant increases both in quality and recognition of our programs.
Growth in Funding and Faculty
In 1996, our department received a total of $1.3 million in research funding from 22 extramural grants. In 2005, our research funding peaked at $8.1 million that was obtained from 41 extramural grants - a two-fold increase in the number of grants and a six-fold increase in the amount of funding. In the most recent statistics published by the National Science Foundation (NSF), our department ranked #21 in federal funding for academic research.
This six-fold increase in funding was achieved by only a 60% increase in the size of our faculty. In the last ten years we added 11 new faculty positions to our department to reach our current faculty size of 29. Our 29 permanent faculty are committed to excellence in teaching and innovative research programs at the leading edge of computer science. Research interests of our faculty span a broad spectrum of areas in computer science and related disciplines: theory of computation, algorithm design and analysis, software engineering, computer engineering, parallel and distributed computing, databases, computational science and engineering, networks and internet technologies, multimedia computing, and computer security. Interdisciplinary research in our department increased significantly in the last ten years. Several faculty members have joint appointments in other departments such as Geography, Mechanical Engineering and Physics and have leadership positions in interdisciplinary programs such as Media Arts and Technology and Computational Science and Engineering.
Our faculty received numerous awards in the last ten years. Among our faculty are a member of the National Academy of Engineering; Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Computing Machinery, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Ten faculty members in our program are recipients of the NSF CAREER award. In the last five years, three members of our faculty were included in the MIT Technology Review's list of top innovators under the age of 35.
Graduate Program
In 1996, 45 PhD and 39 MS students were enrolled in our graduate program. Ten years later, in 2006, we had 111 PhD and 57 MS students, corresponding to a 147% increase in our PhD enrollment and a 46% increase in our MS enrollment. While increasing the size of our graduate program, we also improved the success rate of our students. In 1996 we graduated 2 PhD and 16 MS students, whereas, last year, we graduated 13 PhD and 42 MS students. This corresponds to more than 6-fold increase in our PhD production, and more than 2-fold increase in our MS production. In 2005, our department ranked 23rd among the Computer Science Departments in the nation in terms of the number of PhD degrees granted that year. In conjunction with this impressive growth during the last ten years, our graduate programs also significantly improved in quality and recognition. U.S. News and World Report ranked UCSB 34th among the top CS graduate programs in 2006. Our ranking of 34th is 15 steps higher than our ranking in 2002, representing the biggest jump among all CS graduate programs.
Our department's efforts in creating an outstanding graduate program has been recognized at the UCSB campus by two awards this year. In addition to an Outstanding Graduate Mentorship Award given to a member of our faculty by the UCSB Academic Senate, our Department received the Departmental Graduate Mentorship Award for the 2006-2007 academic year from the UCSB Graduate Council and Graduate Division. Our department was recognized for its exemplary efforts to recruit and retain top candidates, to increase diversity, and to create an open and collegial environment conducive to student success. The success of our graduate students after graduation has been a testament to the success of our graduate program. Our graduate students have been employed by top industry and academic institutions including: UCLA, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Case Western Reserve, Purdue, University of Florida, University of Delaware, University of Rochester, Cal Poly, Mount Holyoke, Cisco, Boeing, Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Inktomi, Yahoo, IBM, Citrix Online, Amazon.com, Ask.com, Apple, Hewlett Packard, Raytheon, Lucent and others.
Undergraduate Program
Our BS and BA degree programs are based on an undergraduate curriculum that contains a durable foundation and a comprehensive set of electives. Our BS degree is accredited by the Computer Science Accreditation Commission of the Accrediting Board for Engineers and Technology. Additionally, the department offers advanced degrees and opportunities for research experience through our 5-year B.S./M.S./M.A. programs.
In the last ten years, enrollment to our undergraduate programs increased from 246 students to 638 students. However, following a national trend, enrollment to our undergraduate programs decreased in the last couple of years compared to the peak enrollment in 2002. Recognizing the increasing need for computing professionals with an interdisciplinary background, our department launched the Computer Engineering Program jointly with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in 2000. More recently, we created three new interdisciplinary emphases in our BA program. The new BA program emphases focus on computing as a way to impact diverse areas, such as biology, geography and economics.
In creating these new programs and emphases and maintaining our existing programs our goal is to help our students become computer professionals who are prepared for long-term careers in information technology. Our department maintains a very high standard for teaching. In the last five years, three members of our faculty received Distinguished Teaching Awards from the UCSB Academic Senate.
In summary, in the past ten years, our Department has shown an outstanding performance in increasing the size and the quality of our graduate, undergraduate and research programs. While the data presented above point to an obvious upward trend of a department that is gaining visibility and reputation, we are particularly proud of our conscientious effort in fostering an open and collegial atmosphere for our students. We have an extremely dedicated, award winning faculty and staff who consider the success of our graduate and undergraduate programs a top priority. Our goal is to continue the momentum we gained in the last ten years in improving the quality of our graduate, undergraduate and research programs.
