In this blog I will talk about the Brandeis Computer Science department. I am the chair (for another six months) and then I'm on sabbatical. Currently I'm teaching the "Introduction to Computers" course (CS2a) which is very interesting and has over 50 students from widely varied backgrounds (academically and geographically) who are willing to wake up for a 9:00 am class.
I'm also working on preparing a proposal for a "Center for Scientific Informatics." The grant, if awarded, will allow us to start building a shared infrastructure for cluster computing, data archiving, and 3d graphics. On top of this physical infrastructure we will build an academic program and provide support for Scientific Informatics in the form of operations staff for the hardware, programmers to help scientists get the most out of the hardware and to scale up to teragrid projects, and administrators to coordinate resource sharing and scheduling.
At the beginning of next month a visiting committee of distinguished Computer Scientists will be visiting our department and reviewing our academic programs, research infrastructure, and the way Computer Science fits into the greater mission of the University. We are looking forward to their visit and their input into the future of Computer Science here at Brandeis.
Yet another interesting project I'm involved in is the Prospect Hill Computer Center project where we are working with residents of the largest public housing project in Waltham to set up and staff a computer center. Mark Auslander, in Anthropology, is taking the lead in organizing joint projects with Prospect Hill and we are excited about the opportunity to partner with an important Waltham community! The students in CS2a will be helping to staff the help desk and to run a few evening workshops this semester at Prospect Hill.
I'll post more on these projects and others as the semester continues... for now, its back to proposal writing!
