INDUSTRY

School of Computer Science and School of Interactive Computing Mark Higher Education’s First Step Toward Creating Sub-disciplines in Computing: The College of Computing at Georgia Tech, a national leader in the creation of real-world computing breakthroughs that drive social and scientific progress, today announced that it has formed the School of Computer Science and the School of Interactive Computing under the College of Computing umbrella. This move, along with a planned future formation of the School of Computational Science and Engineering, marks the first time a college-level computing program has delineated the field into separate but related bodies of study. “With the continued growth and expansion of the global technology sector, the term ‘computer science’ has become too narrow in scope to encompass the number of different disciplines rapidly growing out of this sector,” said Rich DeMillo, Dean of Computing at Georgia Tech. “At the College of Computing at Georgia Tech, we have identified the need to further segment the ‘computing’ field so that proper attention is given to emerging sub-disciplines such as media computation or robotics. With the creation of these new schools, we are taking the next logical step make sure future generations of computing students are educated in the context most relevant to their interests and talents.” The new School of Computer Science (SCS), chaired by Dr. Ellen Zegura, will focus on the roots of the computing discipline. Students will be exposed to mathematical foundations and system building principles and practices. Research questions will address foundational issues such as algorithms and complexity, to systems issues of robustness and performance. SCS will naturally engage mathematics, electrical and computer engineering, systems engineering and management to collaborate on multidisciplinary problems. Dr. Aaron Bobick will chair the School of Interactive Computing (SIC), focusing on computing’s interaction with users and the environment. Students learn as much about modeling people or the world as they do about computers. Research questions focus broadly on how computers impact the quality of people’s lives. SIC connects to a large range of non-computing disciplines including psychology, mechanical engineering, music and art. Both the School of Computer Science and School of Interactive Computing will officially begin operation immediately. “When creating the College back in 1990, the Institute foresaw the limitations of calling it the College of Computer Science,” said Gary Schuster, Provost of the Georgia Institute of Technology. “As an educational program, the College of Computing has always been at the forefront of transformation and it’s exciting that today we are still taking the lead on defining what the field will become.”