The UBC Computer Science (UBC CS) department at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

was established in May 1968. UBC CS is located at the UBC Point Grey campus in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. As of September 2022, it has 65 faculty, 62 staff, 248 graduate students, and 2,763 undergraduates.

History

The Computer Science department was established in May 1968 by six founding UBC faculty members: # After more than a decade working with Atomic Energy of Canada, Dr. Kennedy joined the department in January 1966 as Director of the Computing Centre, a position he held until June 1980. The Computing Centre served computing needs across the university, including Computer Science. In addition, he became a professor in the Department of Computer Science in 1968. # Hugh Dempster was one of the founding members of the department of Computer Science in 1968. Prior to that, Hugh had worked at UBC in the Computing Centre. # Edward Argyle, another founding member, had worked at the Dominion Radio Astrophysical Lab in Penticton, and published widely on computer science and astrophysics. # Founding member, Wilfred J. Hansen wrote one of the founding texts on data structures, "Data Structures" and "Data Structures in Pascal". # John L. Allard was a founding faculty member. # John J.E.L. Peck was the first Department Head and remained so until 1977.

Research activities

The department's research activities are organized around a number of collaborative research groups:
AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Algorithms LabCAIDA (Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making & Action)Data Science InstituteDFP (Designing for People Cluster)DMM (Data Management and Mining Lab)Human-AI InteractionImager Laboratory for Graphics, Visualization and HCIInfoVis (Information Visualization Group)ISD (Integrated System Design ISD)MILD (Mathematics of Information, Learning and DataML (Machine Learning)

NLP (Natural Language Processing)NSS (Networks, Systems and Security Lab)PLAI (Programming Languages for Artificial Intelligence)SCL (Scientific Computing Laboratory)SPIN (Sensory Perception & interaction Research Group)SPL (Software Practices Lab)SSL (Sensorimotor Systems Lab)Systopia (Systems research)VisCog (Visual Cognition Lab)

Ratings

The department is rated by Maclean's 2022 annual rankings as tied for the best computer science university program in Canada. The department is ranked 25th in the world by the

QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for the ...

. UBC is ranked as the 45th best university in the world by QS World University Rankings.

Notable faculty

Cristina Conati Cristina Conati is an Italian and Canadian computer scientist specializing in artificial intelligence and computer-human interaction. She is a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia, and has served as president of the ...

- Multiple papers and awards, previous President of AAAC
Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing)
*

Anne Condon Anne Elizabeth Condon, is an Irish-Canadian computer scientist, professor, and former head of the Computer Science Department of the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on computational complexity theory, DNA computing, and ...

–

bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combi ...

and

computational complexity In computer science, the computational complexity or simply complexity of an algorithm is the amount of resources required to run it. Particular focus is given to computation time (generally measured by the number of needed elementary operations) ...

, former department chair. *

Gregor Kiczales Gregor Kiczales is an American computer scientist. He is currently a full time professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is best known for developing the concept of aspect-orient ...

– His best known work is on

Aspect-oriented programming In computing, aspect-oriented programming (AOP) is a programming paradigm that aims to increase modularity by allowing the separation of cross-cutting concerns. It does so by adding behavior to existing code (an advice) ''without'' modifying t ...

and the

AspectJ AspectJ is an aspect-oriented programming (AOP) extension created at PARC for the Java programming language. It is available in Eclipse Foundation open-source projects, both stand-alone and integrated into Eclipse. AspectJ has become a widely us ...

extension for

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

Xerox PARC PARC (Palo Alto Research Center; formerly Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. Founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, the company was originally a division of Xero ...

. He contributed to the design of the

Common Lisp Object System The Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) is the facility for object-oriented programming which is part of ANSI Common Lisp. CLOS is a powerful dynamic object system which differs radically from the OOP facilities found in more static languages such as ...

, and is the author of the book ''

The Art of the Metaobject Protocol ''The Art of the Metaobject Protocol'' (AMOP) is a 1991 book by Gregor Kiczales, Jim des Rivieres, and Daniel G. Bobrow (all three working for Xerox PARC) on the subject of metaobject protocol. Overview The book contains an explanation of what a m ...

'', along with Jim Des Rivieres and

Daniel G. Bobrow Daniel Gureasko Bobrow (29 November 1935 – 20 March 2017) was an American computer scientist who created an oft-cited artificial intelligence program STUDENT (computer program), STUDENT, with which he earned his PhD., worked at BBN Technologies ( ...

Kevin Leyton-Brown Kevin Leyton-Brown (born May 12, 1975) is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. He received his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 2003. He was the recipient of a 2014 NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship, a 201 ...

- Canada CIFAR AI Chair and Director of the UBC ICIC
Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making and Action (CAIDA)
*

Alan Mackworth Alan Mackworth is a professor emeritus in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. He is known as "The Founding Father" of RoboCup. He is a former president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial ...

– Founding director of the UBC Laboratory for Computational Intelligence. He is Past President of the

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) is an international scientific society devoted to promote research in, and responsible use of, artificial intelligence. AAAI also aims to increase public understanding of artif ...

(AAAI). *

Joanna McGrenere Joanna McGrenere is a Canadian computer scientist specializing in human–computer interaction, adaptive user interfaces, and universal usability. She is a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia. Education McGrenere ...

- An expert in Human-Computer Interaction, and founder of th
Designing for People
initiative at

UBC The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top three ...

* Tamara Munzner - Expert in

information visualization Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

and author of several books on the subject matter * Gail Murphy - Vice President of Research & Innovation (UBC), co-founder and Director at Tasktop Technologies Incorporated (now Planview) *

Margo Seltzer Margo Ilene Seltzer is a professor and researcher in computer systems. She is currently the Canada 150 Research Chair in Computer Systems and the Cheriton Family Chair in Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. Previously, Seltzer ...

– Canada 150 Research Chair in Computer Systems and the Cheriton Family Chair in Computer Science. Former president of USENIX.

References

External links