Who will train the next generation of computational scientists and engineers? UCSB, with its tradition and climate for interdisciplinary research and education and its strong programs in computer science, mathematics, engineering and science, is in a unique position to offer the broad multidisciplinary educational experience with strong foundations in both the enabling technologies of computer science and mathematics and the applications in engineering and science which we envision as a model for CSE education in the future. Furthermore, the existence of the educational infrastructure to support a graduate degree emphasis in CSE at UCSB will benefit virtually all departments in engineering and science by providing coherent sequences which will be offered every year of core courses in the key areas of computational and applied mathematics and high performance computing, as well as interesting and timely elective courses. The Emphasis will be of benefit not only in the training of students with the CSE specialty, but also more broadly in the training of engineering and science students for whom a strong background in mathematical and computational techniques has become essential.
The existence of a recognized Emphasis in CSE will enable us to attract the best qualified graduate students and to provide them with the educational background to enable them to make lasting research contributions to both the development and the effective use of CSE tools for the solution of engineering and scientific problems of ever-increasing complexity. We have received many inquiries from prospective students who want a CSE-like program. There is a strong demand for CSE-trained graduates from industry and national laboratories, and the structure of our proposed Emphasis will allow our students to compete successfully for academic jobs either in traditional departments or the CSE departments of the future.
Several funding agencies have launched interdisciplinary initiatives in the information sciences and computational areas, such as NSF and DOE. Having a formal Emphasis in this area in place will help UCSB to compete more successfully for research and education/training funds.
The existence of a recognized Emphasis will also be attractive to world-class faculty hires. Several recent high-profile faculty candidates in Engineering have inquired about the specifics of the proposed CSE program at UCSB.
In recent years, we have instituted specializations in the departments of computer science, mathematics and mechanical and environmental engineering with a nearly identical structure to what we propose here. What we hope to achieve with the Emphasis is to coordinate these specializations in the near future across engineering, mathematics and the physical sciences, to achieve greater synergy in education and research between computational scientists in the various departments, and to formalize CSE graduate education at UCSB, giving it more visibility both within and outside this campus and a greater potential to recruit top students and faculty.