DONALD BREN SCHOOL OF INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCES

Hal S. Stern, Dean

6210 Donald Bren Hall
Academic Counseling: (949) 824-5156
http://www.ics.uci.edu/

Undergraduate Program in ICS
Graduate Program in ICS
Courses in ICS

Department of Computer Science
Department of Informatics
Department of Statistics

Overview

The Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences (Bren ICS) embodies excellence, creativity, and collaborative innovation in computer science and information technology. From its inception 40 years ago to its current status as the only independent computing school in the University of California system, Bren ICS is well-positioned to continue its tradition of exploring and advancing the boundaries of a broad, multidisciplinary field on a national and international scale.

A $20-million endowment from The Irvine Company Chairman Donald Bren in 2004 drives the School's vigorous recruitment and retention of distinguished faculty scholars. The faculty have extensive training in traditional computer science, as well as engineering, mathematics, the arts, and the social sciences. The School's stand-alone structure, as opposed to being part of an engineering school, enables the faculty to take the broadest possible view of computer science and information technology studies. This breadth is reflected in the diverse set of academic degree options for undergraduates and graduates, some which are interdisciplinary and jointly administered with other academic units.

The School's three departments, Computer Science, Informatics, and Statistics, fuel a wide range of instructional and research efforts including: computer architecture and embedded systems; security, privacy, and cryptography; programming languages and compilers; artificial intelligence and machine learning; visual computing; biomedical informatics; scientific computing; theory of computing; statistics; information access and management; software and information systems design, and engineering; interactive and collaborative technology; ubiquitous computing; operations research and arts computation engineering. The vibrant Bren ICS community continues to explore innovative topics ranging from building complete computer systems on chips smaller than a human fingernail to developing user interface systems that allow engineers on opposite sides of the world to collaborate effectively. Bren ICS research continues to focus on how computing and information technology can be used to solve a broad set of real-world problems such as improving how first responders communicate during a crisis, optimizing transportation systems, analyzing data to expedite biological research, and improving network security.

Faculty are active participants and leaders of numerous research institutes spanning computer science, including the Ada Byron Research Center (ABRC); Institute for Genomics and Bioinformatics (IGB); Institute for Software Research (ISR); Center for Games and Virtual Worlds; Center for Embedded Computer Systems (CECS); Center for Ethnography; Center for Interactive Knowledge and Design; California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2); Center for Machine Learning and Data Mining; Center for Organizational Research; Center for Research on Information Technology and Organizations (CRITO); Genetic Epidemiology Research Institute; Center for Pervasive Communications and Computing (CPCC); Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing and Interaction (LUCI), and Secure Computing and Network Center (SCONCE); Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences; Institute for Transportation Studies and Network Systems Center.

Faculty and student-driven research in the Bren School is supported through a variety of grants, gifts, and contracts from public and private institutions such as the State of California, the U.S. Department of Education, various U.S. defense agencies, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, NASA, and various companies, including Apple, Boeing, Cisco, Conexant, Google, HP, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Raytheon, Sun, Toshiba, and Unisys. Since 2001, ICS has received nearly $100 million in extramural funding, in addition to the recent $20-million endowment.

Faculty and alumni of the Bren School of ICS have contributed some of computing's most significant advancements, including revolutionizing computer-aided drafting techniques; the creation of the current Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1); development of the Internet standards for HTTP and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI); the founding of the Apache HTTP Server Project that produces the software for over 60 percent of public Internet Web sites; and the creation of the Domain Name System (DNS) that translates Web and e-mail addresses into the numeric system used to route information along the Internet.

The Bren School is actively committed to increasing diversity in the computing and information technology fields. The Ada Byron Research Center was created in 2003 to address research and outreach topics aimed at increasing the participation of women and other underrepresented populations in computer science, engineering, digital media, and related information technology areas. Bren ICS is an active partner of the National Center for Women & Information Technology, whose overarching goal is parity in the professional information technology workforce.

FACILITIES AND COMPUTING RESOURCES

Donald Bren Hall, a six-story building completed in 2007, houses classrooms, research labs, meeting rooms and facilities, and faculty, graduate student, and administrative staff offices. The building's innovative use of space and technology is designed to promote faculty/student interactions and facilitate collaborative scholarly work.

The School offers a wide range of research and instructional computing equipment, including many advanced workstations, servers, and other specialized hardware and software. High-speed wireless networking is available in all Bren ICS buildings, classrooms, and labs.

DEGREES