Dean's Office

CIS Administration

CIS Units

• Computer Science Department
• Department of Statistical Science
• Program of Computer Graphics
• Information Science Program
• Computational Biology
• Computational Science and Engineering

CIS Institutes and Initiatives:

• Information Assurance Institute
• Intelligent Information Systems Institute
• National Science Digital Library
• Computational Sustainability: Computational Methods for a Sustainable Environment, Economy and Society
  (Chronicle article on NSF Expeditions in Computing)

Additional Information:

• Research Futures Report
• Faculty Task Force Report
• Maps, directions
• "Cornell's Brave New Digital World", Communique Magazine
• "Driving the Digital Revolution, The Cornell Chronicle Magazine vol.1 no. 1
• CIS Annual Report
• CIS Business Service Center

Cornell's Faculty of Computing and Information Science (CIS) engages with every college at Cornell and shares the information revolution with every Cornell student to invent the fields of tomorrow.

Founded on the recognition that the ideas and technology of computing and information science are relevant to every academic discipline, CIS capitalizes on interdisciplinary collaboration to accelerate knowledge creation and discovery. At the center of Cornell's Information Campus, CIS bridges information and innovation.

Committed to this mission, Cornell embraces a unique strategy: create a college-level Faculty of Computing and Information Science (CIS), with computer science at its core. This college-level structure can create new programs, organize and recruit faculty, and sponsor research. CIS offers undergraduate degrees in the colleges of Engineering, Arts & Sciences, and Agriculture & Life Sciences.

The mission of CIS is to integrate computing and information science—its ideas, technology, and modes of thought— into every academic field. This means working with seven colleges and four professional schools, which, combined, provide an unprecedented breadth of study.

CIS brings its Computer Science, Information Science and Statistical Science faculty together with faculty throughout the university—from Anthropology, Astronomy, Aerospace Engineering, Biology, Electrical and Computer Engineering, History, Mathematics, Operations Research, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, and the social sciences and the humanities. Already, 25 academic departments cross-list courses with CIS.

Cornell grants Ph.D.s in Computer Science, Information Science, Statistical Science and in Computational Biology. Undergraduates in Cornell’s three largest colleges can major in Computer Science and Information Science, and students in each of Cornell’s colleges can pursue a minor in these programs. Students are using the multidisciplinary interests of CIS faculty to study digital art, game design, and new media, among other newly emerging academic fields. Interdisciplinary research is affecting academic disciplines and stimulating a new level of student interest in computing. Just as the needs of computational science and engineering have led to dramatic advances in high-performance computing, other areas such as biology, law, and the social sciences are calling for new software methods, tools, and products that serve a broad spectrum of commercial and individual users. Cornell and CIS have driven such innovation and will continue do so in the future.

Ultimately, CIS will reach every Cornell undergraduate in more than 50 departments, as CIS and its subfields, like human-computer interaction, attract a more diverse group of students. This broad reach is critical, as the information technology sector seeks to expand its impact and attract more young people to careers in industry.