The goal of academic computer science is not just to ensure that students have the necessary understanding and skills to succeed in the workplace, but also to expand the realm of knowledge in the area. Academic computer science research often focuses on long-term or fundamental questions that are often not addressed in industry because there may not be an immediate economic benefit. For example, the Internet developed as an academic project over decades. It is difficult to imagine any single company spending that amount of time or the money required since no one could have predicted the huge success it has had.

Georgetown provides an exceptional environment where students can participate in research at all levels. The Department of Computer Science frequently has students funded under the Georgetown Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (GUROP), both throughout the school year and, through competative application, over the summer. Many of our undergraduates publish papers in top conferences and journals and go on to top graduate schools in computer science.

Our areas of research are as diverse as our faculty. Currently, we have on-going projects in algorithms, artificial intelligence, bioinformatics, database systems, data mining, information assurance, machine learning, and non-standard parallel computing.

Computing Resources

In addition to numerous PCs and workstations, the department has several high-end severs and a 24-node cluster, named hydra.