General Information

The Department of Computer Science at the University of Toronto was the first computer science department established in Canada, and is characterized by a breadth of research and teaching interests, and the high quality of its faculty and graduate students. In the most recent study we're aware of the department was rated as the foremost Canadian computer science department and among the best in North America. Currently, there are about 55 faculty members affiliated with the department in various ways, 15 post-doctoral fellows, research associates and visitors, 170 graduate students, and 450 undergraduate majors and specialists.

Faculty members as a whole enjoy a strong international reputation reflected in their involvement in international organizations and prestigious positions as editors for leading computer science journals. Awards of which we are particularly proud include: the Turing Award (Prof. S.A. Cook, 1982; this is the Nobel Prize of computer science); the Fulkerson Prize in Discrete Mathematics (Prof. A. Lehman, 1991); the IJCAI Award for Research Excellence presented by the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (Prof. R. Reiter, 1993); and the Order of Canada (Prof. C.C. Gotlieb, 1996).

Seven faculty members, Professors A.B. Borodin, S.A. Cook, C.C. Gotlieb, G. Hinton, T.E. Hull, J.N.P. Hume and R. Reiter, have been named Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada; three faculty members, Professors S.A. Cook, H.J. Levesque and D. Terzopoulos, have been awarded the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship; three faculty members, Professors R.C. Holt, G. Hinton and K.C. Sevcik, have been awarded the Information Technology Association of Canada Award; six of the faculty, Professors G. Hinton, A.D. Jepson, H.J. Levesque, R. Reiter, D. Terzopoulos and J.K. Tsotsos, have been Fellows of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research; four faculty members, Professors G. Hinton, H.J. Levesque, J. Mylopoulos and R. Reiter, are Fellows of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (there are only five Fellows in Canada); since 1983, they have received or shared four awards for best paper at the conference of American Association for Artificial Intelligence. Professor H.J. Levesque won the Computers and Thought Award in 1985, the first time this award was presented outside the United States. In 1994, when ACM initiated a Fellow program, there were five founding Fellows named from Canadian universities. These included Professors C.C. Gotlieb, T.E. Hull and J.N.P. Hume. Profesors S.A. Cook and G. Hinton have been elected as Fellows of the Royal Society (London) in 1998.

The department has produced a large portion of the computer science Ph.D.'s in Canada. Graduates of our department are now on the faculties of most Canadian universities (Alberta, UBC, Calgary, Carleton, Dalhousie, McGill, Memorial, Montreal, New Brunswick, Quebec, Queen's, Ryerson, Saskatchewan, Simon Fraser, St. Mary's, Toronto, Victoria, Waterloo, Western Ontario, York), as well as on the faculties of many leading universities throughout the world. Five of those who took positions in the United States have received the U.S. Presidential Young Investigator Award.

Many of our graduate students go on to interesting and well-paid careers in industry. For example, Brad Silverberg is now the senior vice-president (Applications and Internet Client Group) of Microsoft Corporation. Another, Bill Reeves, has won an Academy Award for his work in animation. Xiaoyuan Tu won an ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award for the best computer science Ph.D. thesis in the world.

Our department is supported with research grants from a number of sources including the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS), and the Communications and Information Technology Ontario (CITO).

Our department has strong ties with other departments, particularly Electrical and Computer Engineering. The establishment of the Computer Systems Research Group (CSRG) grew from and has maintained this close cooperation. The Human-Computer Interaction Group has research ties with the Departments of Psychology, Sociology and the Knowledge Media Design Institute (KMDI); the Artificial Intelligence Group has research connections with the Departments of Psychology and Philosophy. Several of our faculty members are cross appointed with other departments, specifically, the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mathematics, Psychology, Philosophy, Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, the Faculty of Management and the Faculty of Information Studies.