| |
|
|
Welcome to the IS Department at UMBC
Welcome to the Department of Information Systems
at UMBC. More than 1,400 undergraduate and graduate students are
currently enrolled in our programs. The IS Department continues
to be the largest producer of information technology students in
the Maryland area. Our faculty and students examine, design, and
evaluate information technologies for individuals and organizations,
making our students ideal employees for public and private sector
organizations with significant IT requirements. Our location in
the Baltimore-Washington corridor affords access to many major federal
and private R&D facilities, agencies, and businesses that provide
excellent opportunities for internships, field work, and employment.
The department's new location in the Information
Technology/Engineering Building provides outstanding research and
educational laboratories to support IS faculty and students. Six
new assistant professors have joined the faculty in the last two
years, resulting in a total of 27 full-time faculty. The department's
students and faculty are involved in a wide-range of educational
and research activities. The primary research interests of most
IS faculty fit into five core areas: Artificial Intelligence/Knowledge
Management, Database/Data Mining, Decision Making Support Systems,
Human-Computer Interaction, and Software Engineering. Other
faculty are more naturally associated with application domains that
cut across two or more of these core research areas, building on
collaborations with faculty in other departments here at UMBC. These
application domains include Computer-Supported Collaborative
Work, E-government, Health/Bio-informatics, Mobile/Ubiquitous Computing,
and Online Communities. While the department has outstanding
researchers in each of these areas, we are particularly strong in
the Database/Data mining and Human-Computer Interaction areas. Research
funding continues to increase with the
National Science Foundation (NSF) being the single largest source
of external funding for IS research at UMBC. Additional support
comes from government agencies (e.g., the
National Security Agency), corporations (e.g.,
Aether Systems, Motorola),
and foundations (e.g., the IBM Foundation for the Business of Government).
Our undergraduates continue to be in high demand
for both full-time positions and internships with more than seventy
different organizations recruiting interns from our programs just
last year. Undergraduates are actively engaged in research projects,
including an NSF-funded Research
Experiences for Undergraduates Site that focuses on human computer
interaction research. Our
Master's students are employed by public and private sector
organizations across the country and overseas. While many Master's
students are here on campus, others enroll in our growing
online MS program which provides students with access to a
comprehensive Master's degree in Information Systems developed and
taught by the IS faculty at UMBC. Finally, our
PhD program continues to grow every year. PhD students are actively
engaged in numerous research projects. Some of their accomplishments,
in just the last year, include presenting papers at numerous international
conferences, being selected for internships with major research
laboratories including IBM's
TJ Watson Research Center, and being invited to participate
in several highly selective doctoral consortiums held in conjunction
with important international conferences. Our PhD graduates go on
to have successful careers in academia, corporate research labs,
and government organizations.
With the support of a dedicated staff, IS faculty
and students strive to advance the application of information technologies
to address the needs of both individuals and organizations. Once
again, welcome to the IS Department at UMBC. I hope you will visit
our Web site periodically to read about departmental activities
as well as the accomplishments of our faculty, staff, and students.
|
