DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND GRADUATE SCHOOL, BALTIMORE PROGRAMS OF STUDY The Department of Computer Science offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees. Its programs provide opportunities for studies in all important areas of computer science, with emphases in telecommunications and computer networking, computability and algorithms, computer architecture and VLSI, programming languages, software engineering, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and symbolic and numerical computation. To receive a master's degree, a student must complete 33 credits of approved course work. Transfer of up to 6 credits is allowed, subject to departmental approval. The policy of the department is to keep the doctoral program select. Only students of demonstrated ability and adequate preparation may pursue the doctoral degree. The central concern of the Ph.D. program is the involvement of its students in an environment of high-quality research. Therefore, applicants to the program are judged for their research potential. The student is required to complete a set of core courses and to pass a written comprehensive examination. Each entering student has an adviser who helps design a program that meets the degree requirements. RESEARCH FACILITIES In the Fall of 1992, the Computer Science Department moved into a new building for Engineering and Computer Science. The department maintains an extensive research computing facility, which includes a large network of over 50 Unix workstations (SGI, SUN, DEC), several large compute servers (SGI, SUN), and numerous other machines, including Macintoshes, PCs and transputers. Special research groups include the Center for Telecommunications Research and the Imaging Research Center. General campus computing facilities include several large SGI and DEC systems running Unix or VMS, a 16-node SGI multiprocessor system with over 1GB of shared memory, several SGI workstation laboratories, and a number of PC and Macintosh laboratories. The department is part of the University of Maryland Institute of Advanced Computer Science (UMIACS) and has access to its research facilities which include a Connection Machine CM-5. The University is a member of the San Diego Supercomputing Center consortium through which is has access to a number of large supercomputers. FINANCIAL AID Various types of financial aid are available. Research and teaching assistants receive stipends of approximately $9000 and up in 1992-93, plus remission of tuition. Graduate School fellowships, government loans, and work-study opportunities are offered. In addition, fellowships and grants-in-aid are available for minority students. COST OF STUDY Tuition for graduate courses is $162 per credit hour for Maryland residents and $290 per credit hour for nonresidents in 1992-93. Fees of $210 per semester are also levied. LIVING AND HOUSING COSTS UMBC housing and board in campus apartments for graduate students costs approximately $4900 plus utilities for the 1992-93 academic year. Off-campus housing is available at competitive rates. STUDENT GROUP UMBC currently has about 10,700 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs. The graduate enrollment of 1,570 is expected to increase rapidly as present programs expand. We offer BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science and currently have approximately 700 undergraduate majors. There are about 140 graduate students, of whom 60 are full-time students; 50 students are in the Ph.D. program. LOCATION The University of Maryland Graduate School, Baltimore has two campuses: UMAB located in downtown Baltimore and UMBC located just outside the Baltimore city limits on a 475 acre suburban site. The Computer Science Department is located on the UMBC campus. This location is adjacent to I-95, the Baltimore beltway and the BWI airport and provides convenient access to both the Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas and the immense concentration of academic, government, cultural and recreational facilities. THE UNIVERSITY AND THE DEPARTMENT The UM Graduate School, Baltimore has both the oldest (UMAB) and youngest (UMBC) campuses in the University of Maryland system. The UMBC campus was founded in 1963 and has as its mission to be a medium-sized public research university with a special emphasis on science and technology. UMBC currently has about 10,700 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs. The campus also has an Information Systems Department which offers BS, BA, MS and Ph.D. degrees, a Visual Arts Department with a new MFA degree program in Digital Image Processing and a EE Department with an active program in communication technology. The UMAB campus includes the state's medical school, law school, dental school and other professional programs in addition to a number of high quality graduate programs. The resulting combined Graduate School has a strong research program with over $120M per year in external research funding from a wide variety of Government agencies and industry. The UMBC CS Department consists of 16 full time research faculty and 24 adjunct faculty. APPLYING In addition to the completed application form and official college transcripts, applicants are requested to have three letters of recommendation submitted on their behalf. A score on the Graduate Record Examinations General Test is also required. Details are available with the application form. Application deadlines are specified by the Graduate School, but the application review process begins by December 15 for admission in the fall semester and by June 15 for admission in the following spring semester. The application fee is $40. THE FACULTY AND THEIR RESEARCH TIM FININ, Professor and Chair; Ph.D., Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Artificial intelligence, knowledge representation and reasoning, knowledge and database systems, natural language processing, logic programming. Dr. Finin is currently working on several problems involving the integration of intelligent information systems. One focus is the development of a language and protocol intended to support interoperability among intelligent agents in a distributed application. Another focus involves the integration of databases and knowledge representation and reasoning systems. He is also interested in document and text understanding applications which integrate natural language processing, information retrieval and knowledge-based reasoning. RICHARD CHANG, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Cornell. Computational complexity theory, structural complexity, analysis of algorithms. Dr. Chang is currently investigating the structural complexity of the approximation versions of NP-complete problems. In particular, he is investigating the lower bounds on the complexity of these problems in terms of bounded queries. He is also interested in comparing various notions of completeness and incompleteness. KEITH HUMENIK, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Stevens. Probability, statistics, and combinatorics, and applications to computer science. Dr. Humenik is currently working on problems in database and distributed systems, distributed hypertext and statistical expert system development for signal validation and sensor surveillance in nuclear reactors. He is also interested in queueing theory, automata theory and formal languages, network reliability and graph theory, and network and combinatorial optimization. SAMUEL LOMONACO, Professor; Ph.D., Princeton. Algebraic coding theory, cryptography, programming languages, supercomputing, parallel processing, heterogeneous computing. Dr. Lomonaco is currently carrying out various research projects in the above areas. WEI LIU, Visiting Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Georgia Tech. Computer and communication networks, data communications, protocol modeling and performance analysis, network management systems, computer architecture, performance evaluation of database systems. JAMES MAYFIELD, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Berkeley. Dr. Mayfield's research interests lie in natural language processing, information extraction, and hypertext. HOWARD MOTTELER, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Maryland College Park. Parallel processing and distributed computation. Dr. Motteler's recent work includes research in self-stabilizing systems, conformance testing for communication protocols, and developing applications for atmospheric science on large-scale parallel hardware. CHARLES NICHOLAS, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Ohio State. Electronic document processing, software engineering, and database management. Dr. Nicholas' recent research projects include a study of the document interchange standards SGML and ODA, simulation of distributed hypertext systems, and the use of AI techniques in hypertext query languages. SHIETUNG PENG, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Texas at Dallas. Parallel processing, design and analysis of parallel algorithms, VLSI systems. Dr. Peng's current research works include: designing parallel algorithms for optimal locations in tree networks, stochastic global optimization for VLSI layouts, and parallel algorithms/architectures for adaptive signal processing. YUN PENG, Research Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Maryland College Park. Artificial intelligence,....He is also interested in graph- theoretic optimization problems and scheduling problems, neural network learning, and computer simulations of aspects of the origin of life. JAMES SASAKI, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Cornell. Programming languages, language design, formal semantics, and program verification. Dr. Sasaki's interests include methods for reasoning about languages; semantics and methods for defining semantics; programming logics; and datatypes (especially higher-order and dependent types). Current work includes lazy monadic structures and implementation of constructive and mixed constructive type theories. ALAN T. SHERMAN, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., MIT. VLSI layout algorithms. Dr. Sherman's main ongoing research explores relationships among algebraic and security properties of cryptographic functions. His recent work also includes projects in cryptanalysis, automatic language recognition, approximation algorithms for the Geometric Steiner Tree Problem, reversible computation, and probabilistic polynomial-time complexity classes. DEEPINDER SIDHU, Professor; Ph.D., SUNY at Stony Brook. Computer networks, distributed systems, distributed and heterogeneous databases, parallel and distributed algorithms, computer and communication security, distributed artificial intelligence, high performance computing. Dr. Sidhu's current research projects are: proving and testing convergence in iteration systems, routing in large and dynamic networks, distributed algorithm for finding multiple disjoint paths, congestion control in high speed networks, testing hierarchies for protocols, conditions for fault masking in protocol test sequences, efficient methods for protocol conformance test generation, and formal methods in protocol development. BROOKE STEPHENS, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Maryland College Park. Parallel processing, database systems, numerical analysis. Dr. Stephen's primary research interests include computational fluid dynamics, and resource allocation problems relating to distributed systems. Secondary research interests include matrix theory, combinatorics, and certain optimization problems. YAACOV YESHA, Associate Professor; Ph.D., Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel). Parallel computing, parallel algorithms, computational complexity, algorithms, theory of computing. Dr. Yesha is working on designing efficient algorithms for the optimal scheduling of parallel programs on parallel architectures, and on designing efficient parallel algorithms for solving discrete problems. He is also interested in lower bounds for parallel and sequential computation, and in the structure of complexity classes. YELENA YESHA, Assistant Professor; Ph.D., Ohio State. Distributed systems, database systems, performance modeling. Dr. Yesha is currently working on designing tools for optimizing availability in replicated database systems, designing efficient and highly fault tolerant mutual exclusion algorithms and developing analytical performance models for distributed and parallel systems. CORRESPONDENCE AND INFORMATION For information on programs or applications for assistantships: Director, Graduate Studies Department of Computer Science University of Maryland Baltimore County 5401 Wilkens Avenue Baltimore, Maryland 21228-5398 Telephone: 410-455-3000 Electronic Mail: CMSCGRAD@CS.UMBC.EDU Fax: 410-455-3969 For application forms and general information: Vice President for Graduate Studies and Research University of Maryland Graduate School, Baltimore 5401 Wilkens Avenue Baltimore, Maryland 21228-5398 Telephone: 410-455-2538