Grad programs combine CS with other disciplines

Today’s computer science programs offer career opportunities well beyond programming and software design

“A graduate degree helps keep you one step ahead of the competition.”
– Narain Gehani, NJIT

By Sue Marquette Poremba
Contributing Editor

Today’s global society is making it more necessary than ever to hold an advanced degree, according to Narain Gehani, dean of the college of computing sciences at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT, Newark, NJ). “The masters degree has become the equivalent of the bachelors twenty years ago,” he says.

“The masters gives you more depth and expertise and betters your position in the job market,” Gehani adds. “If you’re considering academia, research in industry or entrepreneurship, you’ll find that a PhD provides even more opportunities.”

Even so, Dena Haritos Tsamitis, head of Carnegie Mellon University’s Information Networking Institute (Pittsburgh, PA), points out that many American students prefer to stop at a BS and enter the workforce.

“The challenge we face is a decreasing number of U.S. applicants and an increase in foreign applicants,” she says.

IT adaptability attracts diverse students
College deans and department heads think that advanced degrees in information science are particularly attractive to diverse students because computer science is a multi-disciplinary field. Subjects like health, education and biology have expanded information technology well beyond the boundaries of programming or software design.

Haritos Tsamitis says it’s important to create an environment that is welcoming to women and minorities. “We’re slowly attracting more women to our program,” she says. “When I was associate director of the institute, we had two women on staff. Now we’re at 30 percent.”

Another enticement at Carnegie Mellon is the Women in Information Networking Institute, which was developed to give female students a place to meet women in tech, find support for class work, and engage in social activities.

Sheila Bonde, dean of the graduate school at Brown University (Providence, RI), agrees with Tsamitis that it’s important to build a strong faculty representation to act as mentors and role models for students.

“We want a diverse population at Brown,” she says. “It’s a priority for us. In fact, we actively recruit underrepresented minorities at conferences and minority- serving institutions.”

Meg Kurdziolek: human-computer interaction at Virginia Tech
Meg Kurdziolek had taken math and science classes in high school, but nothing jumped out at her until she took a CS class. “I fell in love with it,” she says. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

She chose Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) because it was close to home, and earned her 2005 BSCS with a minor in mathematics.

As an undergrad, Kurdziolek got involved in research. She explains that professors post project descriptions on the school’s website and a posting on education technologies caught her eye.

The field interested her because she’d taught swimming and computer classes as summer jobs, and she’d worked at a summer technology camp. “Working on that project got me interested in educational technology,” she says.

Kurdziolek decided to stay at Virginia Tech for her graduate work because she enjoyed working on research projects with her advisor. She completed her MS in 2007 and is now finishing up work on a PhD in CS with a focus on human-computer interaction. She anticipates getting her degree in 2010.

The focus of her research is to make computers more useable and accessible in a teaching environment. For her dissertation, she did case studies and taped students using a particular technology in the classroom. “I’m describing how technology gets used in a classroom today,” she says, “and I’ll show how it can be better used in the future.”

Kurdziolek would like to stay in academia and have teaching and research responsibilities. “What I love about computer science is that it’s easily combined with other disciplines, so I’m able to pursue a career in computers and education,” she says.

She enjoys mentoring and finds it personally rewarding. “It’s important for women in computer science and technology to sit down with undergrads and new grads to offer advice based on personal experience,” she says.

Erika Poole: PhD in human- centered computing at Georgia Tech
Erika Poole planned to pursue a degree in music, but chose CS when she got a scholarship to Purdue. My parents hadn’t been enthusiastic about my first choice,” she notes. “Sometimes things choose you.”

She earned her 2004 BSCS at Purdue University (West Lafayette, IN) and her 2008 MSCS at Georgia Institute of Technology (Atlanta, GA). She’s now working on her PhD in human-centered computing and expects to finish in 2010. “Going to grad school turned out great,” she says. “It’s given me the freedom to do the things I want to do and the time to think about fresh ideas.”

Poole admits that the transition from undergrad to grad school was difficult. “You’re figuring out who you want to be,” she says. “And you have to learn how to work differently.”

When she arrived at Georgia Tech, Poole planned to work in educational technology, and did so for a semester. “It turns out that the school is really amazing at human-computer interaction,” she says. “I saw all kinds of cool projects going on, so I moved into this research.”

Poole refers to her current focus as “everyday expertise sharing.” She looks at how people who have technical problems at home go about getting help. “More recently, I’ve looked at how people share advice on health-related issues, particularly sports injuries, and how they use the Internet to find answers,” she notes.

In addition to her dissertation work, Poole is involved in a project that uses a fitness video game to get kids who don’t like gym class engaged in physical activity. “The kids wear pedometers on their shoes that connect to an online game,” she explains. “They compete against kids in other schools.”

Poole focuses on health and wellness both inside and outside the classroom. “I work as a fitness trainer at a gym,” she says. “It’s a great stress reliever.”

She’s also involved in Toastmasters International (www.toastmasters.org). She joined after freezing up during her first oral exam, and recommends it for all students who want to hone leadership and communication skills. “Toastmasters helped get me over my fears,” she says.

Anna Ritz: PhD in computational biology at Brown University
For two years as an undergrad at Carleton College (Northfield, MN), Anna Ritz worked on research projects. Carleton has no grad school, so professors depend on undergrads to help with research. “I really enjoyed doing research,” she says.

Ritz, who is from Wisconsin, started in English, but ended up earning her 2006 BS in CS. She explains that Carleton allows students to take three courses pass/fail. Since the field was new to her she used that option to try a few CS courses. “All I had to do was pass,” she says, “but it ended up becoming my major.”

She liked the interdisciplinary aspect of the major. “CS skills are very helpful in other fields,” she says. “I was able to collaborate with scientists from other departments.”

For grad school, Ritz chose Brown University (Providence, RI). She’d liked the school during her undergrad school search and Brown was starting a center for computational molecular biology. It’s not that the specific field interested her, but that the school was bringing in a lot of people for its new center. “I liked the idea of getting into something where everyone is enthusiastic,” she says.

Ritz is working on a PhD in CS with a focus on computational biology. She explains that today’s technology is generating biological data that can’t be analyzed by hand any more. “I’m working in an emerging field that creates algorithms from a computational side to infer things about the data.”

Ritz’s advisor focuses on cancer genomes, and her research looks at sequence data of a genome from a tumor and compares it to non-cancerous genomes. “I’m looking to see what it is about the cancer that’s messing up the genomes,” she explains.

Ritz admits that she doesn’t have a strong background in biology, but says, “My advisor’s attitude is that you pick the biology project you want to work on and then learn the specific biology that applies.”

After she finishes her degree, Ritz plans to do post-doctorate work as she decides whether to stay in academia or go into industry. “To be in a PhD program, you really have to love research,” she says. “If your career focus is research, it’s a path to consider.”

Gregory Johnson: PhD in green computing at Temple University
“Going green” is a familiar phrase, but “green computing?” Gregory Johnson’s PhD research at Temple University (Philadelphia, PA) focuses on sustainability and energy efficiency for computer hardware and software.

“With hardware, this means unplugging the computer when you aren’t using it, putting things on hibernate, and even operating computers that use less power,” Johnson explains. “As for software, we’re just now learning about the correlation between how much memory a software program uses and how much power that memory needs to run those programs. We want to develop more memory-efficient programs that will result in more power efficiency.”

It’s Johnson’s first year in this research track, but his third year in the information sciences degree program. “I liked Temple’s program,” he says. “There’s a lot of data management and that interests me.”

Johnson’s involved in a side project with the physical therapy department. A machine tracks a subject’s movement for research projects, using about thirty-five measurement pods. “Our role is to see if we can get the same amount of data by using a smaller number of pods,” he says.

On both projects, he works with his advisor, Dr Haibin Ling. “Dr Ling has been very encouraging and supportive, and has shared his interests in computer vision and green computing. He’s helped me progress as a successful researcher,” Johnson says.

Johnson grew up on Maryland’s eastern shore and earned his 2006 BSIS and his 2007 MS in a combined degree program at University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Grad school seemed only natural since his dad and brother have PhDs and his mom has a masters. “Education is like the family business,” he chuckles. “It’s easier to do now before I have a family and more responsibilities.”

After he graduates, Johnson plans to go into industry in database design and perhaps eventually into teaching. “Also I have a little dream to create my own business someday,” he says with a smile.

Nicholas Dedual: PhD focuses on augmented reality at Columbia
Grad school is nothing new for Nicholas Dedual. After getting his 2006 BS in computer engineering at Northeastern University (Boston, MA), he headed straight to grad school for an MS in EE and computer engineering at the University of Florida (Gainesville, FL). He finished the degree in 2008.

When he realized that his interests lay elsewhere, he moved on to Columbia University (New York, NY) for an MS in computer science, which he completed in December 2009. He’s now in a PhD program there.

“I’m interested in human-computer interaction, specifically augmented reality,” Dedual says. “My advisor, Dr Steven Feiner, is one of the premier researchers in the field.”

Dedual is currently working with Microsoft on a technology called Surface, a multi-touch, table-shaped device somewhat like the iPhone. “But it allows multiple users to manipulate and exchange information on its screen,” he explains. “My research involves interacting with multiple users while trying to present information in different ways and preserve information privacy at the same time.”

Dedual was born and raised in Puerto Rico, but he didn’t want to stay there. “I’d been to Boston during high school and fell in love with that city,” he says, “It’s one of the reasons I went to Northeastern.”

The move to Florida was challenging, but interesting for Dedual. “You have to adjust quickly or you’ll get surprised in a not very good way,” he says. “When I went on to Columbia, I had a better idea of what to expect in grad school, but I still wasn’t prepared for the course load.”

Dedual pursued a masters to gain more depth in a specific subset of knowledge. As for the PhD, he says, “I want to be amazing in my field.”

Tyelisa Shields: MS in info security at Carnegie Mellon
At Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, PA), Tyelisa Shields is among a group of students who were given the opportunity to participate in a bi-coastal grad program through the school’s Information Networking Institute.

She’s working on her MS in information technology with an emphasis on info security. She spends part of the degree program in Pittsburgh, and part of it in Silicon Valley.

After she finished her 2007 BSCS at Grambling State University (Grambling, LA), Shields worked in a nine-month co-op at IBM before pursuing her masters. She knew Carnegie Mellon had a great program, especially in info security. “I’m interested in computer forensics,” she says. “I thought a graduate degree would do a lot to help advance my career and move up the corporate ladder.”

Shields is working on two separate projects. One is securing cloud computing using database encryption. The other is a project that looks at why women don’t progress as much as they should in corporate America. “That research is being conducted with the Executive Women’s Forum, the group that sponsors my scholarship,” she says. “It’s providing a glimpse of what to expect in the future and what I must do to advance.”

In addition to her work on these research projects, Shields is involved with the Black Graduate Student Organization and Women in Information Networking Institute.

Computers have intrigued Shields since she was a little girl, but her interest in computer security started at IBM, where she worked on SQL code to ensure that data wasn’t compromised. After that experience, she knew she wanted to concentrate on info security.

Shields expects to graduate in 2010. She plans to go into the workforce and is already in negotiations about a future job.

Chitra Sridhar: MSCS at NJIT
Chitra Sridhar came to the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT, Newark, NJ) from her homeland of India specifically to work on her MSCS. She had worked for a year and a half at an Indian IT company after earning her 2006 BS degree at Visvesvaraya Technological University (Bangalore, India).

Sridhar wanted to improve her skills and experience a new culture. She chose NJIT because she had friends there. “I’d never been to the United States,” she says, “and I thought I could blend in here.”

During her first two semesters Sridhar has focused on classes, not research. “I do plan to do some networking, though,” she says.

Having worked in the IT industry has given her an edge in the classroom. “You understand deadlines,” she says. “It makes you more responsible.”

Sridhar is a former professional chess player. “I’m not a professional player anymore because I came here to study, first and foremost,” she says. Playing chess, she says, helped improve her analytical skills. “You’re always looking ahead, looking at patterns, and thinking ahead,” she explains. “I think all of these skills can be used in any field, and it fits perfectly into what I’m doing.”

Even without chess, Sridhar has an active life as a grad student. She’s been elected treasurer of the graduate school’s student association. She’s also an ambassador for international students and mentors new arrivals with their transition to NJIT.

“Being so involved in student life has given me the opportunity to meet many new people,” she says. “I probably wouldn’t have met most of them otherwise.”

Raafia Baboolal: masters in IA at Northeastern University
Raafia Baboolal grew up around computers. “Both my parents have computer science backgrounds and technology is just plain cool,” she says. But when she enrolled in a CS degree program, she got bored pretty quickly.

So Baboolal changed course and earned two degrees at University of Central Florida (Orlando FL) in 2008: a BS in interdisciplinary studies and a BS in psychology, with minors in English literature, computer science and information technology.

A cryptography class re-ignited her interest in computers. She’s now working on a masters in information assurance (IA) at Northeastern University (Boston, MA).

“The math is fascinating and I started looking into fields that would let me explore this area of computers,” she says. “The ultimate lure of IA, though, is the fact that it is a constantly evolving discipline that requires you to literally learn something new every day, as new viruses or ways to exploit computer systems emerge.”

Baboolal chose Northeastern because the IA program is welcoming to students from a diverse academic background. And the IA program does not require a final thesis and defense. “Instead,” Baboolal explains, “we have a capstone class that’s a practical application of our accumulated knowledge in the form of a research project where we show what we’ve learned over the past two years.”

In the program, students take classes from a technical track, with courses like computer system security or applied cryptography, and a contextual track, with courses like information system forensics or ethics, privacy and digital rights. Elective credits are interdisciplinary, drawing from computer science, criminal justice and business courses, nicely rounding out the curriculum.

Baboolal, who’s a native of Trinidad and Tobago, says she likes school and learning. “So I figured, why not continue?”

D/C

Sue Marquette Poremba is an engineering and construction writer in State College, PA

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