Computer Science Department

Department Chairperson: Quoc-Nam Tran, Ph.D.
Graduate Program Director: Quoc-Nam Tran, Ph.D.

Department of Computer Science
Arts & Sciences, Room 202
414 East Clark Street
Vermillion, SD 57069
Phone: 605-677-5388
cs@usd.edu
www.usd.edu/csci

FACULTY

Professor:

Quoc-Nam Tran, Ph.D., Research Institute of Symbolic Computation, Johannes Kepler University of Linz, Austria. Specialization: Bioinformatics and Groebner Basis Computation.

Associate Professor:

Douglas Goodman, Ph.D., University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. Specialization: Simulation, Real-time Systems, and Graphics.

Assistant Professor:

Etienne Z. Gnimpieba, Ph.D., University of Technology of Compiègne, France. Specialization: Bioinformatics and Data Integration in Life Sciences.
Erliang Zeng, Ph.D., Florida International University. Bioinformatics, Specialization: Computational Systems Biology Data Mining.

Research Assistant Professor:

Carol Lushbough, M.A., University of South Dakota. Specialization: Bioinformatics.

DEGREE

Master of Science, Plan A and Plan B 

SPECIALIZATION

Human-Computer Interaction - Plan A only
Informatics - Plan A and Plan B

Program Description

All graduate programs are designed to produce individuals with a strong, broad-based core of advanced computer science knowledge. These programs are recommended for students with professional goals in Computer Science such as continuing graduate education, working for national laboratories and other federal or state agencies, securing employment in private industry, or post-secondary education. Graduates of the programs are well prepared to accept the current and future challenges of the field.

ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS

1. Completed Graduate Application form found at: https://usd-web.usd.edu/apps/grad-app/login.cfm and a non-refundable application fee of $35.
2. One official transcript verifying receipt of an undergraduate degree and previous graduate credit (in English or with translation) must accompany an application. Official transcript of all academic work at the undergraduate and graduate levels are required for international students. The USD Graduate School and/or academic departments retain the right to require an Educational Credential Evaluators/World Education Services (ECE/WES) evaluation for a student if such an evaluation is deemed necessary.
3. A minimum undergraduate cumulative GPA of 2.7 on conferred degree and/or graduate cumulative GPA of 3.0 or better, based on a 4.0 scale, on all graduate coursework is required for full admission. Each graduate program may admit students on provisional status per university policy.  This is equivalent to first class or distinction for international students applying to computer science.
4. Applicants with degrees from countries other than the United States who have obtained an undergraduate or graduate degree from a regionally accredited American college or university are not required to submit an approved English proficiency exam score. For all other applicants, a minimum score of 79 on the Internet-Based TOEFL (iBT) or 550 on the Paper-Based TOEFL (PBT), a minimum IELTS score of 6.0, or a minimum PTE score of 53 is required for graduate admission. Applicants from or who have obtained an undergraduate or graduate degree from these English-speaking countries (UK, Australia, Canada [except Quebec], Ireland, or New Zealand) are not required to submit an approved English proficiency exam score if their academic records indicate that English was the classroom language for the majority of their schoolwork.
5. Applicants are required to submit a statement of purpose or goal statement.

Additional Program Admission Requirements:

6. Official test scores. The minimum desirable GRE for admission is 980 (v>= 320 and q>=660) on the old scale, and 292 (v>= 140 and q>=150) on the new scale.
7. Two (2) professional letters of recommendation are required.

Subject to faculty approval, those who do not meet all of the criteria above may be admitted on a provisional basis to any departmental graduate program.