It is my pleasure to welcome you to this newsletter about the Department of Computer Science at George Mason University. As you make your way through the newsletter, you’ll see that we have a lot to be proud of and many exciting things going on. We are experiencing rapid growth in both our faculty recruitment and student enrollments.
In the past two years, we have hired over two dozen new faculty, who are adding to our strengths in machine learning, software engineering, cyber security, robotics, and other important areas of the discipline. One nice result of this growth is that we now rank among the top 50 CS departments in the country according to csrankings.org.
We continue to attract a large number of excellent students to our undergraduate programs, and this year saw a significant increase in our Masters and PhD students, all of which reflects growing recognition of the high quality of our educational offerings. We also were able to significantly grow the proportion of female students enrolling in our undergraduate programs, thanks to our new Break Through Tech efforts.
Research activity remains healthy in the department despite the disruptions caused by the CoVID-19 pandemic, and in just the past year, two more of our faculty were awarded NSF CAREER awards, bringing our departmental total to 19. I could tell you more, but I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the rest of this newsletter. I sincerely hope you find this opportunity to learn about our department enlightening and rewarding.
David S. Rosenblum
Planning Research Corporation Professor and Department Chair