Ph.D. Student FAQ
How do I contact the Computer Science Department?
- Telephone:
- (201) 216-5328 (Sherry Dorso)
- (201) 216-5578 (Dawn Garcia)
- FAX:
- 201-216-8249
- Postal address:
- Dept of Computer Science, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
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What mailing lists should I be on?
PhD students should be on all of these mailing lists:
- cs-grads for announcements specific to CS graduate students.
- cs-phd-students for announcements specific to CS Ph.D. students.
- cs-announce for general announcements from the CS Department (many people outside CS subscribe to this mailing list).
- cs-seminars is for the announcement of research seminars.
In addition, acm-team is provided for students who are involved in or want to be involved in the ACM Programming Contest.
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How do I get an account on CS machines, and why would I want to?
First of all, the "why": CS provides a laboratory of Unix machines for assignment work, and certain courses require that you use Unix, in particular, the systems courses (CS 392 Systems Programming, CS 492 Operating Systems, CS 521 TCP/IP Networks, CS 549 Distributed Systems, etc). Other courses may require you to submit your assignments via submission scripts on the Unix machines. You should at least know enough Unix to be able to protect your files (so others don't copy your assignments), and to make sure your mail is forwarded to wherever you read it. Of course you should really know much more beyond this.
In general, any modern IT professional should at a minimum be familiar with Unix as well as Windows (and ideally should also be conversant in other operating systems such as Mac OS/X, which actually has a Unix kernel). If you have not done so already, you should consider installing a Unix OS such as Linux alongside Windows on your own computer, making it "dual-bootable" (you can choose at start-up whether you want to run Unix or Windows), or buy an OS/X box.
The procedures for getting an account are explained in the FAQ for the Computer Science lab.
If you have an ISSA computer account but read mail on pipeline (or anywhere else), please make sure to add a .forward file in your home directory, so that any mail sent to your ISSA account is forwarded to where you read your email. This .forward file should be world-readable (not writable) and should contain a single line with the email address where you usually check your email. If you check your email on your ISSA account, you should not have a .forward file (SMTP does not like mail loops).
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Why don't I get an account on CS (ISSA) machines as soon as I enter Stevens?
You must be physically present when your account is created, to enter your password. The system will not allow you enter a password that it does not consider secure enough.
Theoretically it should be possible to synchronize ISSA IT passwords with Stevens IT passwords so this physical presence is not necessary. Unfortunately the initial passwords assigned by Stevens IT are not considered sufficiently secure by ISSA IT.
It is also possible have an ISSA computer account created without being physically present, using cryptographic techniques (ssh keys). See the CS Lab FAQ for more information.
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Does Stevens take part in the ACM Programming Contest?
Yes. Paul DeMarco in particular organized Stevens programming teams in 2002-4. They came joint third in 2002 and fourth in 2004 in the ACM Greater New York Regional Programming Contest, which was very well indeed. The Regional Contest is typically held in late October or early November. Preparation involves weekly meetings at least during the Fall term, and even better over the summer, perhaps virtual meetings, where people do example problems and discuss them. There is software that you can use to administer practice sessions. The department will pick up the tab and provide assistance for attending the Contest, e.g., a faculty member may rent a van and drive the team to the contest. Our system administrators will be happy to provide any assistance. Contact Steve Gabarro if you are interested and want to participate.
You can find out more details about the ACM Regional Programming Contest here. The top two teams in the Regional Contest go on to a National Contest. The winners of that contest go on to an International Contest.
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How can I find out more about research?
Stevens Computer Science is home to world-class research in Cybersecurity, Graphics/Vision/Visualization, Programming Languages, Software Engineering, Theoretical Computer Science, and Networks. There are concrete things you can do to get involved in this research:
- Attend the Computer Science research seminars, where researchers come to describe their latest results. Talks are generally on Mondays 2-3pm in Room 110 of the Babbio building. They are announced on cs-announce, and you can also see a list of the talks at the CS Seminar web page.
- Take a course with a faculty member whose research you are interested in, and talk to them.
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(PhD) When are the PhD Qualifying Exams held?
The qualifying examinations are held at the end of each semester, in time to be part of the biannual review of Ph.D. students' progress by the Department.
Find out more information about the Ph.D. Qualifying Examinations at the Quals web site.
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Who's in charge?
Hal Raveche is President of Stevens Institute of Technology.
George Korfiatis is Provost of Stevens Institute of Technology.
Michael Bruno is Dean of the School of Engineering and Science.
Daniel Duchamp is the Director of the Computer Science Department.
Dave Naumann is the chair of the PhD Studies committee.
Brian Moriarty is the System Administrators for CS IT.
Sherry Dorso and Dawn Garcia are the Administrative Assistants in the Computer Science Department.
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Where can I get advice?
In addition to your advisor, the PhD Studies committee is available to discuss your questions, concerns and suggestions. The current chair is Prof Naumann; the other members are Profs Dietrich, Kamberov, Oliensis, and Wetzel. Our goal is to foster a fruitful and comfortable working relationships among students, advisors, and the department.
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