mikeyv@seqp4.ORG (Michael Vernick) (10/14/89)
Having worked in industry for 5 years after receiving a Masters in C.S. I have just started taking part-time grad courses in CS at a local university. I've now decided to apply for full-time status as a Ph.D. student though I am not sure where I should I apply. I am interested in a 'Systems' type program. My main field of expertise is database systems. I am also interested in distributed systems, parallel computing, and software engineering. I am looking for suggestions of schools to look into, especially schools on the East Coast. I already have info on MIT, and CMU. Thanks in advance. Mike Vernick
russ@prism.gatech.EDU (Russell Shackelford) (10/16/89)
In article <160@seqp4.UUCP>, mikeyv@seqp4.ORG (Michael Vernick) writes: > Having worked in industry for 5 years after receiving a Masters in C.S. > I have just started taking part-time grad courses in CS at a local university. > I've now decided to apply for full-time status as a Ph.D. student though I > am not sure where I should I apply. I am interested in a 'Systems' type > program. My main field of expertise is database systems. I am also > interested in distributed systems, parallel computing, and software > engineering. I am looking for suggestions of schools to look into, > especially schools on the East Coast. I already have info on > MIT, and CMU. Thanks in advance. > It is my understanding that MIT and CMU are at the top of the heap. This brings with it both advantages and liabilities. Obviously, it is more difficult to get in there. It is also true that such places are well- stocked with priests and bishops. If you wanna pay dues under priests and bishops, that's fine. If you don't, and if you have the gumption to do well without kissing their shoes, then there are numerous alternatives. One alternative with which I am familiar, having been ordained there myself, is Ga Tech. CS at Ga Tech HAS been in the School of Information and Computer Science in the GT equivalent of the Arts and Sciences college, not in the Engineering College (where EE is). This is somewhat of a historical fluke, as CS got put into what had been the School of Information, where a curious collection of philosphers, psychologist, linguists, etc. were busy trying to figure out what Information is, and wht to do with it. All of those guys are just about gone, via retirement, and the place gradually became dominated by CS types. The name became meaningless, i.e., it should have been just the School of CS. It rose in the early 80's to mid-teens in the rankings. I don't know, but I suspect it dropped back down somewhat in the mid-late 80's, a prisoner to a College that didn't understand what CS needed, etc. Big Changes are afoot. New GT prez is one John Patrick Crecine, who was stolen away from CMU (had been VP there), and who is 1/3 of Next computers Bd of Dir's (along with Jobs and Perot). He has succeeded in pushing thru a re-org of the place, with CS elevated to being its very own College of Computing. Thus, CS is in a more powerful position, structurally, than it used to be. It is also true that a strong CS presence is central to Crecine's agenda for the overall elevation of GT. His personal idea is that it should be the College of Computing and Cognitive Sciences, but that will take some more doing. However, it is clear (to me, anyway), that GT is a place where CS will be happening bigtime albeit with growing pains. GT is in Atlanta, which is great place (as far as big cities go). Good climate. Good attitude. Good people. Lousy pro-sports teams. You can't have everything. GT has a rep. for paying well, but I dunno what the truth is. As a doc student, I got tuition plus $850/mo. Faculty is expanding (growth of 7 this year, target of 50 CS faculty). Probably worth a look. Write to College of Computing, AECAL, Ga Tech, Atlanta, 30332. 404-894-3152 (I think, better check on the phone num). -- Russell Shackelford School of Information and Computer Science Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332 russ@prism.gatech.edu (404) 834-4759
waldorf@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM (jerry waldorf) (10/16/89)
In article <2533@hydra.gatech.EDU> russ@prism.gatech.EDU (Russell Shackelford) writes: >it should have been just the School of CS. It rose in the early 80's to >mid-teens in the rankings. I don't know, but I suspect it dropped back >down somewhat in the mid-late 80's, a prisoner to a College that didn't >understand what CS needed, etc. Where is everyone getting these rankings. If anyone has a reliable source of these rankings can you please give me the title of the publication. Do these rankings come out once a year? Please respond.
reggie@dinsdale.nm.paradyne.com (George W. Leach) (10/17/89)
Mike,
Twice I sent this via e-mail and twice it was bounced back!
In article <160@seqp4.UUCP> you write:
>Having worked in industry for 5 years after receiving a Masters in C.S.
>I have just started taking part-time grad courses in CS at a local university.
>I've now decided to apply for full-time status as a Ph.D. student though I
>am not sure where I should I apply. I am interested in a 'Systems' type
>program. My main field of expertise is database systems. I am also
>interested in distributed systems, parallel computing, and software
>engineering. I am looking for suggestions of schools to look into,
>especially schools on the East Coast. I already have info on
>MIT, and CMU. Thanks in advance.
Well, databases made me think of Cal Berkeley. The home of Ingres.
Larry Rowe (larry@postgres.berkeley.edu) and Michael Stonebraker are now
working on Postgres, which is attempting to integrate data, object, and
knowledge management into a DBMS. Cal Berkeley is one of the top ranked
programs in the country, often spoken of in the same breath as MIT and CMU.
Then there is the Oregon Graduate Center. Jacob Stein and David Maier
have been working on Object-oriented databases there. Servio Logic is a
commercial venture that has sprung out of their work. Try contacting
David Maier (ogcvax!maier).
On the east coast, there is the COINS Project at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst. Try contacting either Eliot Moss (Moss@cs.umass.edu)
or Steven Sinofsky (Sinofsky@cs.umass.edu).
There is also the RAID Project at Purdue University. RAID is a
distributed database system. Contact Bharat Bhargava (bb@cs.purdue.edu).
Va-On Tam has been investigating distributed databases using distributed
shared memory (which seems to be a hot topic in distributed operating systems
literature these days). He is at Harvard University (tam@harvard.edu).
Distributed and parallel computing opens up a number of possibilities.
I just so happen to have a list I compiled of mostly distributed operating
system projects. Here it is:
PROJECT: HCS
CONTACT: David Notkin (notkin@cs.washington.edu)
Department of Computer Science, FR-35
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195
(206) 545-3798
PROJECT: Hyper UNIX
CONTACT: Kurt Zeilenga (zeilenga@hc.dspo.gov)
Parallel Processing Research Group
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
PROJECT: Sprite
CONTACT: Fred Douglis (douglis@ginger.Berkeley.EDU)
John Ousterhout (ouster@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu)
(spriters@ginger.Berkeley.EDU)
Computer Science Division
571 Evans Hall
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
(415) 642-0865
PROJECT: ISIS
CONTACT: Ken Birman (ken@gvax.cs.cornell.edu)
Department of Computer Science
4105 Upson Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853
(607) 255-9199
PROJECT: V
CONTACT: David Cheriton (cheriton@cs.stanford.edu)
Tony Mason (mason@pescadero.stanford.edu)
Distributed Systems Group
Stanford University
PROJECT: Parallel OS
CONTACT: Bob Bruce (rab@mimsy.umd.edu)
University of Maryland
Laboratory for Parallel Computation
Department of Computer Science
College Park, MD 20742
PROJECT: Synthesis
CONTACT: Calton Pu (calton@cs.columbia.edu)
Department of Computer Science
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027
(212) 280-8110
PROJECT: Symunix 2
CONTACT: Jan Edler (edler@nyu.edu)
New York University
251 Mercer Street
New York, NY 10012
(212) 998-3353
PROJECT: Saguaro
CONTACT: Richard D. Schlichting (rick@arizona.edu)
Department of Computer Science
The University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721
PROJECT: Psyche
CONTACT: Michael L. Scott (scott@cs.rochester.edu)
(716) 275-7745
Thomas J. LeBlanc (leblanc@cs.rochester.edu)
(716) 275-5426
Department of Computer Science
University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627
PROJECT: Cosmos
CONTACT: John Nicol (john@computing.lancaster.ac.uk)
(cosmos@comp.lancs.ac.uk)
The COSMOS Research Group
Department of Computing
University of Lancaster
Bailrigg
Lancaster, LA1 4YR,
UNITED KINGDOM
+44 (0) 524 65201 Ext 4145, 4146
PROJECT: ?
CONTACT: Darrell Long (darrell@spica.ucsc.edu)
University of California
San Diego, CA
PROJECT: Trillium
CONTACT: Greg Burns (gdburns@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu)
Cornell Theory Center
265 Olin Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853-5201
PROJECT: Mach
CONTACT: Rick Rashid (rashid@cs.cmu.edu)
(mach@cs.cmu.edu)
Department of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(412) 268-2617
PROJECT: Avalon
CONTACT: Pamela Reyner Scott (REYNER@CS.CMU.EDU)
Carnegie Mellon University
Computer Science Department
Schenley Park
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
PROJECT: Allegro
CONTACT: Mark A. Linton (linton@lurch.stanford.edu)
Center for Integrated Systems, Rm. 213,
Stanford University
Stanford, CA 94305
PROJECT: Clouds
CONTACT: Richard LeBlanc (rich@gatech.edu)
School of ICS
Georgia Tech
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
-or-
Gene Spafford (spaf@purdue.edu)
Department of Computer Science
Purdue University
PROJECT: Argus
CONTACT: Barbara Liskov (liskov@lcs.mit.edu)
MIT
Laboratory for Computer Sciences
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139
PROJECT: Mercury
CONTACT: William Weihl (weihl@xx.lcs.mit.edu)
MIT
Laboratory for Computer Sciences
545 Technology Square
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 253-6030
PROJECT: ?
CONTACT: Va-On Tam (tam@harvard.edu)
Meichun Hsu
Center for Research in Computing Technology
Aiken Computation Lab
33 Oxford Street
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
PROJECT: Linda
CONTACT: David Gelernter (gelernter@cs.yale.edu)
Department of Computer Science
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut
PROJECT: ?
CONTACT: Luis L. Cova (cova@princeton.edu)
Rafael Alonso
Department of Computer Science
Princeton University
Princeton, New Jersey 08544
(609) 452-3869
PROJECT: DASH
CONTACT: David Anderson (anderson@arpa.berkeley.edu)
Dominico Ferrari (ferarri@arpa.berkeley.edu)
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720
PROJECT: DEMOS/MP
CONTACT: Barton Miller (miller@cs.wisc.edu)
Computer Sciences Department
University of Wisconsin
1210 West Dayton Street
Madison, Wisconsin 53706
PROJECT: Locus
CONTACT: Gerald Popek (popek@maui.cs.ucla.edu)
Department of Computer Science
University of California at Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA
(213) 825-6507
I hope this helps. It probably confussed matters :-) I think
that what you should do is to decide just what it is that you want to
do. Then you will have an easier time choosing which program to attend.
Personalities of people involved with programs is important as well. A
friend of mine had to change his thesis topic due to the fact that he
could not get along with the advisor at his university who specialized
in databases. Another person I know had to stop working on his PhD
because there was no one at his university who specialized in his area
of interest.
George
George W. Leach AT&T Paradyne
(uunet|att)!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-133
Phone: 1-813-530-2376 P.O. Box 2826
FAX: 1-813-530-8224 Largo, FL 34649-2826 USAelm@chilli.Berkeley.EDU (ethan miller) (10/19/89)
In <6665@pdn.paradyne.com> reggie@dinsdale.paradyne.com (George Leach) writes:
%PROJECT: Parallel OS
%CONTACT: Bob Bruce (rab@mimsy.umd.edu)
% University of Maryland
% Laboratory for Parallel Computation
% Department of Computer Science
% College Park, MD 20742
I suspect Bob Bruce is no longer working on this project, as he is
working here at Berkeley on Sprite. He probably knows who to contact,
though.
ethan
=================================
ethan miller--cs grad student elm@ginger.berkeley.edu
#include <std/disclaimer.h> {...}!ucbvax!ginger!elm
"I like the Austrian way better." -- Dr. Henry Jones, Jr.chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) (10/19/89)
In article <6665@pdn.paradyne.com> reggie@dinsdale.nm.paradyne.com (George W. Leach) writes: [list of distributed O/S projects, much deleted] >PROJECT: Parallel OS >CONTACT: Bob Bruce (rab@mimsy.umd.edu) > University of Maryland > Laboratory for Parallel Computation > Department of Computer Science > College Park, MD 20742 This project is gone (along with most if not all of LPC itself), and rab is now working on the Sprite project at UC Berkeley (in Evans hall on the 6th floor, more or less right above the CSRG [4.4BSD]...). (ZMob and McMob are collecting dust in the medium-size machine room down the hall and around the corner from my office.) -- `They were supposed to be green.' In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) Domain: chris@cs.umd.edu Path: uunet!mimsy!chris
gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu (10/20/89)
> I am interested in a 'Systems' type program. My main field of > expertise is database systems. I am also interested in distributed > systems, parallel computing, and software engineering. "Systems" and "Software Engineering" are very interesting, but they're tough areas to get a Ph.D. in. If Illinois is a good barometer, do not expect to make a large software project into your Ph.d. The Ph.D. is fundamentally different from the M.S. in this respect. Also, thesis in these areas takes THE LONGEST of nearly all the disciplines of C.S. (except perhaps AI). If you want to teach, it's hard to survive in the Systems area, because during your first five years you have little manpower, you probably need several dedicated machines and also need decent low-level tools (both these facilities are hard to find at even the hardware-rich schools). There are a number of large, stagnant distributed systems projects rotting at various schools. Many of these systems are dormant, so don't expect to contribute to these projects. Make sure you investigate the distributed systems projects carefully. Perhaps you should exploit your interests in database and/or parallel systems. I know it's not on the Coast, but Illinois has several parallel processing and supercomputing projects (the Cedar project, the Tapestry hypercube OS project, and NCSA). You can go to a school and become a coder on some high-profile software system (X11, Ingres, 4.xBSD), but this is not the same as advancing towards a Ph.D. Don't equate a high-profile implementation project with high-impact research. Tonight I was reading the 8th RDS (reliable distributed systems) proceedings, and I recall several "classics" [Lamport78] [Gifford79] [Lampson81] [Reed83] that were never implemented by their authors. Disclaimer: These are the views of an (?impartial?) former systems person.
rpandey@upas.CS.ORST.EDU (Rajeev Pandey) (10/21/89)
waldorf@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM (jerry waldorf) writes: >In article <2533@hydra.gatech.EDU> russ@prism.gatech.EDU (Russell Shackelford) writes: > >it should have been just the School of CS. It rose in the early 80's to > >mid-teens in the rankings. I don't know, but I suspect it dropped back > >down somewhat in the mid-late 80's, a prisoner to a College that didn't > >understand what CS needed, etc. > Where is everyone getting these rankings. If anyone has a reliable > source of these rankings can you please give me the title of the publication. > Do these rankings come out once a year? Please respond. I have seen rankings for graduate schools in the various fields in those CPC Career Planning Guides that seemed to manifest themselves in large quantities at the college Placement Office. I believe the source of the rankings was the National Academy of Sciences (although I am not sure). Other career placement guides also had rankings (from different sources), and just like in athletics, they differed by a litle, but not much. The last time I looked was in 1987, so I'm not sure if they still list the rankings. -------- Department of Computer Science | Rajeev "Raju" Pandey Computer Science Building 100 | Oregon State University | Internet: rpandey@cs.orst.edu Corvallis, OR 97331-3902 U.S.A. | UUCP: tektronix!orstcs!rpandey (503) 737-3273 fax: (503) 737-3014| UUCP: hplabs!hp-pcd!orstcs!rpandey -------- Department of Computer Science | Rajeev "Raju" Pandey Computer Science Building 100 | Oregon State University | Internet: rpandey@cs.orst.edu Corvallis, OR 97331-3902 U.S.A. | UUCP: tektronix!orstcs!rpandey (503) 737-3273 fax: (503) 737-3014| UUCP: hplabs!hp-pcd!orstcs!rpandey