The UAB Department of Computer Science has grown significantly in the past few years—both in the breadth of our academic program offerings and in our enrollment numbers. Currently, we offer four undergraduate programs, three master's programs, and a Ph.D. program. The combined number of majors at the undergraduate and graduate levels reached 920 in Spring 2022, representing a 318 percent increase from six years back. According to UAB’s most recent survey on first destinations of employment, 97 percent of our graduates found their first jobs within six months of graduating. Our graduates are highly sought-after by both industries and government agencies as cyber security specialists, software engineers, data scientists, IT system administrators, and application developers.
Also, many of our students have turned into successful entrepreneurs, often starting their own companies in cutting-edge technology sectors. Our faculty are proud to be able to prepare the future workforce and support economic development priorities in Alabama and beyond. The success of the department can be attributed to multiple factors, the most important of which being the dedication of our faculty and staff to their jobs. The people within our department have exercised both bravery and adaptiveness in the rapidly evolving computing discipline and its associated industries, and I am proud of them for doing so. The second contributing factor is our ability to identify and establish degrees collaboratively in high-demand fields, including cyber security, bioinformatics, and data science. The third factor is our commitment to continuously improving curricula to respond to the fast-changing computing profession, often by taking advice from industry advisors of the department. Further, the department has invested heavily in keeping computing labs up to date with the latest hardware and software required by the curricula.
The Department of Computer Science has also enjoyed fruitful collaborations with INTO UAB, an initiative that aims to increase the global diversity of the university’s student body. The department and INTO UAB have worked together to attract international students into our graduate programs. The collaboration has been a primary contributor to the phenomenal growth in enrollment numbers of the programs from 45 to 352 students in the past six years. To maintain our competitive edge, the department has focused our scholarly research in cyber security, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), biomedical applications, and high-performance computing. Our faculty conduct world class research in those areas, successively winning competitive research grants from federal, state, and industry funding programs. With the support and encouragement of stakeholders—including the newly established Phyllis and David Brasfield Endowed Faculty Scholar in Computer Science—the department plans to aggressively recruit multiple new faculty members of the highest caliber to support our growing academic programs and scholarly endeavors.
Going forward, we are excited to work with the Department of Mathematics in proposing a new B.S. in Data Science degree with the goal of producing graduates with in-demand skills in AI and data analytics. We are also working on new courses to be included in the Blazer Core Curriculum to ensure future students from all disciplines develop critical data analytical skills and build the knowledge necessary to practice safe and effective digital lives.
Read More: Computer science enrollment soars, powered by hot job market
