A top-ranked department with an ambitious vision. The department is top ranked with a long and distinguished track record. It also has a strong and clear vision of what it wants to do for the next few decades: become the major force in computing at UW and in the state, impacting domain sciences and the state economy, and become a major force in the computing world. Much has happened in the department in the past few years, in pushing this vision. The department is full of young and mid-career people, with more hiring on the way.
Significant growth now and in the foreseeable future.
Like many other CS departments around the nation, our
enrollment is through the roof. The graph on the right shows that CS
is now the largest major on the UW-Madison campus, and the trajectory
is striking.
The department will have 38 tenure-track faculty by the end of 2018. It is authorized to grow to 50 in the near future, and has been hiring aggressively (for both research and teaching positions). We can hire even more using our own fund. The department is also working on diversifying its revenue streams and is receiving significant support from the college and the university.
Great new colleagues joining the department. We have been highly successful in recruiting, despite a very tough hiring climate (numerous other CS departments are also hiring). For example, in 2017 we hired six new colleagues, greatly adding to our growing strengths in machine learning, data science, systems, data management, programing languages, architecture, and theory. We have also been successful in hiring a number of great faculty associates.
Many interesting and high-impact initiatives in the work. The growth of computing in all corners of society has forced a re-evaluation of the role of the department, making it more central, giving it more resources, and yet tasking it with more responsibilities. This has led to many exciting and high-impact initiatives. Examples include initiatives to generate revenues, to hire and grow the faculty, to expand educational offerings, and to push a "Computing for Wisconsin" agenda, among others. Recently, the Chancellor has also set up a task force to explore what is the best way to structure and grow computing at UW-Madison, including the option of creating a school or college.
A very collegial environment. The department is extremely collegial. There is no real faction in the department, and no political infighting. Of course, there are different personalities. But by and large, people get along and are nice to one another. There are all sorts of gathering, such as weekly faculty lunches, semester-end socializing (usually at a bar :), and departmental holiday party (at a faculty member's house). This makes the department a very pleasant place to work.
Students and alumni are fantastic. The student body is large, diverse, and vibrant. The alumni base is simply fantastic. UW CS alumni are all over the world, and remember the department fondly (and the reverse is true, of course). Many of them come back regularly to visit, recruit, contribute, and reminiscence. "Once a badger always a badger", as they say here.
A great collaboration culture. Collaboration is
greatly encouraged here, and as a result, the department has
collaborated extensively. The picture on the left shows that in recent
year (as of 2017) it has collaborated with 36 departments across 9 out of 11
schools/colleges of UW Madison (the only exception is School of
Pharmacy and Law School). The red and blue lines indicate these
collaborations. Among these 36 departments, the CS department has
been involved in grants (or helped apply for funding) with 33
departments (see the blue lines). It has also explored collaboration
with Law School and also Dept of Classic (yellow lines). As such, CS
has collaborated with, is central to, and has helped raise funding for,
many of the fields of studies at UW-Madison.
In particular, CS has an extensive and great collaboration track record with the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics (BMI), the Department of Electrical and Computer Enginering (ECE), the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery (WID), and the Morgridge Institute of Research (MIR), among others.
A strong and growing IT presence. The number of IT startups and labs in Greater Madison is still small, but growing. In particular, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon all have labs here, with good connections to the CS department. Gener8tor, a nationally ranked accelerator that invests in high-growth startups, is also working closely with the CS department to foster the IT startup scene in Greater Madison and beyond.
A great university with many advantages. UW-Madison has several wonderful advantages: