Graduate Programs

Back to Program List | Program Website

Computer Science

Introduction

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering offers a program of graduate study leading to the Master of Science degree in Computer Science.

The program balances theory, software, hardware, and practice with degree requirements concentrated in the areas of theory and software. Most courses are offered in the late afternoon to allow practicing computer professionals to begin the program on a part-time basis.

The department also offers the Master of Science in Computer Engineering degree and the Ph.D. in computer science and engineering, as well as graduate certificates in Database Management and Design, Software Engineering, and Software Management.

Admission

Students may be admitted to the graduate program in computer science with a baccalaureate degree in computer science, computer engineering, or a related area and appropriate experience; satisfaction of the admission requirements as set forth by the School of Graduate Studies; and a record that indicates potential for a professional career in computer science and/or computer engineering as evaluated by the department’s admission committee.

Students should come to the program with a knowledge of higher-level programming languages, data structures, concurrent programming, computer organization, operating systems, and digital hardware design. It may be possible to make up minor background deficiencies after admission to the program by taking appropriate courses.

Degree Requirements

Master of Science Degree in Computer Science

Requirements for the Master of Science in Computer Science degree are a department-approved program that must include the following:

Thesis Option
1. Completion of 48 graduate credit hours in an approved program of study, including 20 hours of formal coursework at the 700/800 level (CS 795, Independent Study, cannot be used to meet this requirement), of which at least 12 credit hours of formal coursework at the 700/800 level must be taken in the Computer Science specialty (courses with a CS prefix).

2. Completion of at least one course at Wright State University in each of the following areas, selected from the courses listed for each area:
CS Systems CEG 602, CS 607, CS 609, CEG 634, CS 714, CEG 720, CEG 730, CEG 830
Software CEG 660, CEG 760, CEG 763, CEG 860, CS 605, CS 701, CS 801
Language CS 680, CS 774, CS 776, CS 780, CS 781, CS 784, CS 884
Computer Science Theory CS 610, CS 658, CS 666, CS 740, CS 840

3. All CS and CEG graduate courses listed in the catalog, or approved to be listed in the next catalog (except CS 600, CEG 633, CS 700 and CEG 700), may be used to complete the credit hour requirements beyond those course requirements specified above. Other courses may be used to satisfy the requirements only if they are listed in the topic areas above or in a program of study that has been approved by the department prior to enrollment in the course.

4. Satisfactory completion of a master’s thesis with maximum of 12 hours of independent study (CS 795) and thesis (CS 799) included in the program of study.

Non-thesis Option
1. Completion of 48 graduate credit hours in an approved program of study, including 32 hours of formal coursework at the 700/800 level (CS 795, Independent Study, cannot be used to meet this requirement), of which at least 12 hours of formal coursework at the 700/800 level must be taken in the Computer Science specialty (courses with a CS prefix).

2. Completion of at least one course at Wright State University in each of the following areas, selected from the courses listed for each area:
CS Systems CEG 602, CS 607, CS 609, CEG 634, CS 714, CEG 720, CEG 730, CEG 830
Software CEG 660, CEG 760, CEG 763, CEG 860, CS 605, CS 701, CS 702
Language CS 680, CS 774, CS 776, CS 780, CS 781, CS 784, CS 884
Computer Science Theory CS 610, CS 658, CS 666, CS 740, CS 840

3. All CS and CEG graduate courses listed in the catalog, or approved to be listed in the next catalog (except CS 600, CEG 633, CS 700 and CEG 700), may be used to complete the credit hour requirements beyond those course requirements specified above. Other courses may be used to satisfy the requirements only if they are listed in the topic areas above or in a program of study that has been approved by the department prior to enrollment in the course.

4. A maximum of 4 quarter hours of independent study (CS 795) may be included in the program of study.

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering maintains a “three C policy” for graduate students: a graduate student who receives 9 or more credit hours of grades C, D, F, or U in computer science and computer engineering graduate courses will be recommended for dismissal from the degree program. Dismissal action will be taken by the School of Graduate Studies. The rule includes prerequisite courses taken for graduate credit (500/600 level), independent study, and thesis research. Note that repeating a course replaces the grade in the calculation of the GPA, but does not remove it from consideration of this rule.

A maximum of 12 graduate credit hours may be transferred after admission to the computer science degree program by petitioning the Graduate Study Committee.
Students who have been employed as teaching or research assistants through the School of Graduate Studies are required to complete the thesis option.

Facilities

A wide range of computing systems interconnected via the campus-wide network support all the degree programs in the department. Full Internet connectivity is provided from campus labs and from residence halls. A variety of high-end and special-purpose systems is available for research efforts through the Ohio Supercomputer Center. Wright State University is also an Internet 2 member. University and college systems include a variety of servers and workstations running current popular operating systems, including UNIX systems from SGI and Sun, and a variety of personal computer labs featuring current versions of Windows and Mac OS. Department facilities provide specialized systems and support equipment tailored to specific curriculum and research areas. These include an SGI Origin 2000 system with 32 parallel processors, an NCR Teradata 4850, an 8-processor SGI Onyx 2 system, a Linux-based Operating Systems and Internet Security lab, and a variety of workstations and personal computers providing software tools for project design and development. The program has laboratories dedicated to student and faculty study and research in the areas of assistive technology, vision interfaces and systems, medical image analysis, parallel and distributed computing, evolvable hardware, database systems, data mining, mobile information and communications, software engineering, artificial intelligence, adaptive vision, advanced computer networking, and bioinformatics.

Faculty

Professors
Nikolaos G. Bourbakis, (director, Information Technology Research Institute), information security (encryption, information hiding, compression), computer systems (distributed, formal languages, processors, modeling), applied artificial intelligence (knowledge representation, planning, learning, autonomous agents, natural language processing), machine vision and image processing (architectures, languages, algorithms), Robotics (navigation, grasping, 3-D space maps, walking)
James E. Brandeberry, P.E. (dean), digital electronics, microprocessors, system theory
Chien-In Henry Chen (Department of Electrical Engineering), computer aided design, simulation and testing of VLSI circuits and systems, specifically digital, analog, and mixed-signal design synthesis and testability, timing analysis and optimization for very-deep sub-micron ICs, and chip design for signal processing, communication, and networking
Soon M. Chung, database, data mining, xml, parallel and distributed processing, multimedia, computer architecture
Forouzan Golshani, (chair) digital video processing, image analysis, indexing and classification, correlated media synthesis, multimedia information systems, information security
A. Ardeshir Goshtasby, image and video understanding, medical image analysis, geometric modeling, curves and surfaces, multimodal image capture and fusion
Jack Jean, high-performance computer architectures, machine intelligence
Terry A. McKee (Department of Mathematics and Statistics), graph theory
Kuldip S. Rattan (Department of Electrical Engineering), fuzzy control, robotics, digital control systems, prosthetic/orthotics and microprocessor applications
Mateen M. Rizki, evolutionary computation, pattern recognition, image processing, machine intelligence
Thomas A. Sudkamp, fuzzy set theory, soft computing, approximate reasoning

Associate Professors
Guozhu Dong, database systems, data mining and knowledge discovery, data warehousing and integration, data cubes and OLAP, bioinformatics, knowledge management, information and internet security
Travis E. Doom, bioinformatics, digital design automation, computer architecture and operating systems, optimization theory, and engineering education
Daniel Lee, Computer/communication networks, wureless communicatinos, multimedia transport
Prabhaker Mateti, distributed computing, Internet security, formal methods in software design
Krishnaprasad Thirunarayan, semantic web: knowledge representation and reasoning, programming languages: specification, design and implementation

Assistant Professors
Natsuhiko Futamura, algorithms for high performance computing, parallel algorithms, computational biology, search algorithms, distribution independent spatial data structure and algorithms
John C. Gallagher, neural networks, computational neuroscience, machine intelligence, genetic algorithms, evolvable hardware, autonomous robotics
Yong Pei, information theory, communication systems and networks, image/video compression and communications, and distributed signal processing
Michael L. Raymer, evolutionary computation, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational biology, protein structure and function, protein-water interactions, bioinformatics
Bin Wang, computer communication and networks, providing quality of service assurance, quality of service routing, service provisioning in dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) optical networks, wireless and mobile networks, network security (including countering denial of service attacks), stochastic modeling, queuing analysis of systems, network simulation, protocol design and development

Graduate Assistantship

Teaching assistantships are available on a competitive basis for students who have established strong academic credentials and can demonstrate good communication and teaching skills. A number of departmental research assistantships are awarded annually based on exceptional performance or potential. Additional graduate support is available in the form of assistantships associated with research projects of the faculty. Scholarships are also available from the Dayton Area Graduate Studies Institute (DAGSI). Application forms for these assistantships and scholarships are available from the department for students admitted to the graduate program.

Research

A steadily increasing number of funded research projects support modern graduate research in such areas as database systems, knowledge-based systems, knowledge discovery from databases, parallel and distributed computing, machine intelligence, hardware systems and communications, neural networks, software systems and engineering, computer graphics and visualization, human-computer interaction, optical computing, and robotics. A strong research faculty in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering is assisted by qualified research faculty in mathematics, statistics, and electrical engineering.

Recent and current sources of research support include federal agencies, military agencies, and local industries. Research at Wright State University is not limited to on-campus laboratory facilities. Several industrial laboratories, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base laboratories, and the Major Shared Resource Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base are involved in joint research efforts with the university. The Information Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is closely associated with the Department of Computer Science and Engineering in seeking and pursuing research and development opportunities with state and federal agencies and local information-intensive industries. In addition, the university’s Wright Center of Innovation for Advanced Data Management and Analysis is a focal point for new technologies that advance data management solutions and data management innovation.