The University of Texas at Austin Department of Computer Science (UTCS) is ranked as a top-ten computer science department nationally and is the only top-ten computer science department within 1,000 miles of Austin, TX.

Department Chair

2317 Speedway, 2.308
Austin, Texas 78712
Phone: (512) 471-9590
Fax: (512) 471-9500

Rankings

 U.S. News and World Report ranks UTCS nationally:

By the Numbers

  • 2006 undergraduate and graduate students
  • 87% of graduates go on to immediate employment or graduate school.
  • UTCS has over 10,000 alumni and growing.
  • 210+ companies actively engaged in on-campus recruiting of CS students
  • The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has projected an 17% increase in need for CS degreed people from 2014 to 2024.
  • 11 percent Hispanic undergraduate enrollment
  • 25 percent female undergraduate enrollment
  • Students from 25 states and 14 countries

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

College of Natural Sciences

The College of Natural Sciences aims to ensure that everyone feels welcomed. By fostering an inclusive environment where people of all backgrounds are valued, the intellectual rigor and quality of research produced by the college is enriched. The Diversity, Equity & Inclusion page offers information and resources to empower students, faculty, and to offer their unique perspective on the Forty Acres.

Computer Science

UT Computer Science is committed to supporting and advocating for the full engagement and empowerment of underrepresented groups in the field of computing. The department seeks to advance the cause by recruiting, retaining, and educating a more diverse student population and supporting and celebrating a diverse and inclusive culture and community. For more on the department’s diversity initiatives, please visit our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion page.

FLIP Alliance

UT Computer Science is a founding member of the Diversifying Future Leadership in the Professoriate (FLIP) Alliance. 

The goal of the NSF-funded FLIP Alliance is to address the broadening participation challenge of increasing the diversity of the future leadership in the professoriate in computing at research universities as a way to achieve diversity across the field. In particular, the problem that we address is stark and straightforward: only 4.3% of the current tenure-track faculty in computing at these universities are from underrepresented groups.

The FLIP Alliance solution is equally stark and straightforward: we intentionally bring together the very small number of departments responsible for producing the majority of the professoriate with individuals and organizations that understand how to recruit, retain, and develop students from underrepresented groups in order to create a network that can quickly and radically change the demographic diversity of the professoriate across the entire field. 

We invite interested corporate partners to help us advance this mission through Diversity@TXCS and Student Conferences.

Support Students

We invite current and prospective students to join and stand with the department's student-led organizations focused on diversity, inclusion, and representation in computer science:

Students

At UT Computer Science, undergraduate students receive a rigorous educational experience, with options to pursue more than 50 courses that span the full spectrum of topics in modern computer science. All undergraduate students will develop a strong background in hardware architecture and mathematics as a foundation on which to build their computing education.

Consistently ranked as one of the nation’s top ten graduate programs in computer science, UT Computer Science is proud to be able to say that the education our students receive is second to none. During your time at UT Computer Science, you can expect to learn from both world-class faculty and from your peers, who are carefully selected because they possess the potential to shape the future of the field.

Faculty

UTCS supports about 52 faculty.

Faculty Awards and Honors

Research Areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
  • Computer Architecture
  • Data Mining, Machine Learning, and Natural Computation
  • Formal Methods
  • Graphics and Visualization
  • Model Driven Engineering
  • Operating systems, Distributed systems, and Networking
  • Programming Languages and Implementation
  • Scientific Computing
  • Security
  • Theoretical Computer Science

Special Programs

The Home of UTCS

  • Name: The Bill & Melinda Gates Computer Science Complex and Dell Computer Science Hall
  • Donors: The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, UT Board of Regents, and UT System
  • Location: Central campus, facing Speedway, adjacent to POB and on the footprint of Taylor Hall
  • Square Feet: 140,000 net assignable square feet
  • Capacity: The complex will accommodate a 40% increase in faculty and a 50% increase in computer science students, meeting a pressing demand for computing innovation and talent. It will house faculty, visitors and technical staff, spaces for visiting scholars and postdoctorates, graduate student spaces, almost 17,500 assignable square feet of flexible and highly programmable research laboratory space, a 200-seat lecture hall, seven classrooms, ten electronic seminar rooms and instructional laboratories, two dedicated study areas for undergraduates and graduate students, over 24 discussion areas, eight conference rooms, student organization offices, and other types of space to encourage interaction and collaboration.

Current Facilities

To provide the most advanced resources for teaching and research, the Department of Computer Science manages its own network and systems, which number over 1600 hosts. UTCS operates a general-purpose High Throughput Computing (HTC) cluster, Mastodon, which is managed using the HTCondor job scheduling software.

Other Research labs utilizing state of the art computing resources:

  • Lab for Advanced Systems Research
  • Graphics Lab
  • Real-Time System Lab
  • ACL2 Lab
  • Artificial Intelligence Laboratories
  • Networking Research Laboratory
  • Computer Architecture and Technology Laboratory
  • Computational Biology Laboratory
  • Visualization Laboratory
  • Wireless Networking Research Laboratory
  • Batory Lab
  • Virtual Reality Laboratory