Research

Computer Science / Research

The department maintains a number of active research and scholarship programs, including the following:

Faculty Research

  • Digital Libraries — Harry Plantinga built and maintains the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, a digital library of well-known Christian literature, and Hymnary.org, a comprehensive repository of Christian hymns, that are two of the most commonly visited Christian websites on the world-wide-web. This work is funded by a variety of sources and employs a number of students throughout the year.
  • High-Performance Computing — Joel Adams designs and builds high performance Beowulf clusters (see Borg, Dahl & Microwulf), and applies their computational power to hard problems in the sciences. This work has been funded by the NSF, employs student interns, and serves as the basis for the high-performance computing course (see CS 374).
  • Intelligent User Interfaces and Machine Learning — Ken Arnold studies studies how people use intelligent systems for creative productivity, which has led to ground-breaking work on how predictive typing affects what people write and how.
  • Software Engineering - Patrick Bailey is an experienced software engineer who has made regular contributions to software development publications, including Better Software Magazine, and is the editor of the Dynamic Link.

These programs have brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars of grant funding for faculty and student research collaboration.

Christian Scholarship in Computing

The department also studies the Christian underpinnings of computing. Derek Schuurman's work focuses on this area. For details on this work, see Derek's book, Shaping a Digital World, a recent interview he did with Jason Thacker, and other materials available at Christianity and Computing.

Computer Science Education

Vic Norman's research focuses on advanced pedagogical techniques for computer science. In addition, the department has written books and lab materials for courses using a variety of programming environments.

Student Research

In addition to participating in faculty research projects (listed above), students run their own research projects. One common place for this work is the senior projects course. For details, see CS 396/398.

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