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Main Departmental Office
Discovery Park, Room F201
3940 N. Elm

Mailing address:
1155 Union Circle #311366
Denton, TX 76203-5017
940-565-2767

Web site: www.cse.unt.edu

Barrett Bryant, Chair

Faculty 

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering offers graduate programs leading to the following degrees:

• Master of Science with a major in computer engineering 
• Master of Science with a major in computer science 
• Doctor of Philosophy with a major in computer science and engineering 

The objective of the master’s degree is to produce professional computer scientists capable of contributing technically to the basic core areas of computer science and computer engineering as well as to application areas. The objective of the doctoral degree is to produce professionals capable of conducting and directing research within the discipline of computer science and engineering.

The department is committed to overall excellence in graduate education. Consequently, the programs of study for these degrees include a mixture of course, laboratory and research work designed to place graduates at the forefront of technical excellence.

The department also supports an interdisciplinary doctorate with a major in information science. See the Department of Library and Information Sciences section of this catalog for more information.

Research

The Department of Computer Science and Engineering has a comprehensive research program. Current faculty research interests include databases, game programming, wired and wireless networks, computer security, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, computer systems architecture, collaborative learning, parallel and distributed processing, numerical analyses, wireless communication, image understanding and computer vision, sensor fusion, data mining, computational epidemiology, VLSI design, medical imaging, compilers, algorithm analyses, human factors, cryptography and bioinformatics.

The Center for Computational Epidemiology and Response Analysis (CeCERA) is a UNT center that operates under the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. THe Department of Computer Sciecne and Engineering’s Computational Epidemiology Research Laboratory (CERL) is part of CeCERA. CERL applied computational science paradigms to the domain of public health researchers.

The Center for Information and Computer Security (CICS) has helped UNT earn the designation of “Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance Education” from the National Security Agency for its strong computer and information security program. This designation places UNT among the top institutions in the country in the field of computer security.

The Net-Centric Software and Systems Center is an NSF sponsored Industry/University Collaborative Research Center (IUCRC). In Net-centric and cloud computing paradigms, we no longer view applications as having a fixed set of capabilities. Instead, we see them as a set of highly reliable services that are dynamically created from acquired services, then verified and validated in the field in real-time. The focus of Net-Centric IUCRC research includes software services, quality assurance, security, performance optimizations and systems development.

The Network Security Laboratory was established to increase general wireline and wireless security awareness of computer science and engineering graduates, to produce skilled security specialists, and to conduct research and development activities to advance the state-of-the-art in wireline and wireless security and communication.

The Computer Systems Research Laboratory focuses its work on researching multithreaded and multicore architectures for both embedded and high-performance applications. Research includes work in processing architectures, memory systems, cache memories and software tools to utilize the special capabilities of underlying hardware systems, and in developing both hardware and software solutions to improve performance, reduce energy consumption and prevent security breaches.

The Dependable Computing Systems Lab aims to explore in-depth understanding of reliability, availability, and performance in distributed and cloud computing systems, and develop innovative system technologies.

The Laboratory for Recreational Computing (LARC) serves as a center for research, education and development in the field of video game programming.

The Geometric Computing Laboratory conducts research to improve the theoretical efficiency of algorithms with particular focus on geometric problems. GCL has been successful in mentoring students and involving them in synergistic activities associated with international conferences funded by UNT/National Science Foundation.

The Language and Information Technologies Laboratory focuses on research on natural language processing, information retrieval, and applied machine learning, with current projects covering a number of topics in lexical semantics, graph-based natural language processing and information retrieval, and multilingual natural language processing.

The NanoSystem Design Laboratory conducts research in design and CAD for low-power high-performance nanoscale mixed-signal, mixed discipline systems.

The Computational Epidemiology Research Laboratory (CERL) applies computational science paradigms to the domain of public health, thereby providing tools for epidemiologists and public health researchers. CERL is part of CeCERA (the UNT Center for Computational Epidemiology and Response Analysis).

The Wireless Sensor Laboratory (WiSL) was established with the following mission: to increase general wireless communications awareness among computer science and engineering graduates, produce skilled wireless specialists, and conduct research and development activities to advance the state-of-the-art in wireless sensors.

The Computer Vision and Intelligent Systems (CoVIS) Laboratory seeks to advance the understanding of the theories of machine learning for processing complex data and to develop applications in areas such as medicine and geo-information. The center’s research focuses on both algorithm innovation and hardware integration, which includes computer vision, pattern recognition, data mining, and artificial intelligence. The CoVIS lab is facilitated with state-of-the-art computing resources and various imaging technologies. The lab provides both graduate and undergraduate students a unique, collaborative research cohort to further their career goals.

The Information Management and Knowledge Discovery Lab (IMKD) focuses on information processing and data mining for emerging applications (e.g., spatial, spatio-temporal, streaming, web and sensor databases). Current projects include a number of topics in spatial data mining, geo-stream processing, modeling network similarity, trajectory modeling and privacy preserving. The lab conducts both fundamental and applied research and development to enable the use of information technology for many application domains, such as environmental monitoring, transportation and social networking.

The Multimedia Information Laboratory conducts research on multimedia (videos and images) processing, multimedia information extraction, and multimedia information modeling and retrieval, which includes video and image segmentation, motion and color analysis, image quality analysis, and object recognition by region clustering and classification. The lab is one of the pioneers in medical image and video processing, and it pursues cutting-edge research on various endoscopies.

The Trusted Secure Systems Laboratory conducts research on building trusted and secure computing systems.

Faculty research has been supported through grants from federal and state institutions and private industry including the National Science Foundation, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Google and Microsoft. The department enjoys a friendly working relationship with local and national companies. The department’s Advisory Council is composed of representatives from government agencies and high-tech firms. During the past few years they have helped obtain research funding, fellowships and internships for students in the department.

Degree Programs

The department offers graduate programs leading to the following degrees:

• Master of Science with a major in computer engineering;
• Master of Science with a major in computer science, and
• Doctor of Philosophy with a major in computer science and engineering.

Information regarding these degree programs, including admission requirements and degree requirements, can be obtained from the department’s web site.

Admission to graduate degree programs in computer science and computer engineering is competitive. Applications, complete with transcripts, GRE scores (UNT computer science and engineering graduates are exempt.) and TOEFL scores, must reach the computer science and engineering department by the following dates to be considered for the term/semester indicated.

October 1 — spring term/semester
March 1 — fall term/semester

Note that fall applications must be received by March 1 in order to be considered for an assistantship. Students must submit a completed application for assistantship by the above deadline to be considered for financial assistance. Applications are available on the department’s web site.

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