Welcome to the Computer Science Department at Stevens Institute of Technology. I'm pleased that you are considering research in our department. Some of the most successful companies of the last fifty years grew out of student computer science research. Although one might think that the state of information technology is maturing, if anything the original problems are only increasing in scale as IT is deployed in ever more diverse ways. The Internet itself, a product of DARPA and NSF research, has become the focus of great concern, as it introduces new threats at the same time that it becomes ever more indispensable in our lives. All of this demonstrates the ever growing need for research that addresses these problems. A Ph.D. in Computer Science research will mark you as an individual of rare ability and authority in your career, whether you are continuing from undergraduate study into research, or returning from working in business or government because you want to chart your own career path.

If you have not done so already, we encourage you to browse the web pages of the faculty, and view their research interests and accomplishments. Our faculty is doing world-class research in security, programming languages, graphics and vision, software engineering and computer networks. We publish in the top journals and conferences in our fields, with funding from the most competitive funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation. We regularly collaborate with colleagues in the greater New York City area. For example, we are involved in running the biannual Stevens / Columbia University / IBM Research Security and Privacy Day, a research meeting that began at Stevens. We also regularly consult with companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Google, Verizon, Lucent Technologies and Daimler-Chrysler.

We are committed to involving our students early in research. If you are accepted into our program, you will be guaranteed of financial support. You will be immediately teamed with a faculty advisor with whom you should begin research. Your progress will be reviewed by the entire department at the end of each semester. You will regularly be exposed to research talks and meetings, and you will be expected to give talks yourself to inform others of your research activity. This marks our commitment to getting you involved early and vigorously in the exciting and challenging field of computer science research.

We look forward to attending your research talks here at Stevens, as you grow into a research scientist and colleague!