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    CS Overview
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# CS Overview

What does a "computer scientist" do? Listed below are a number of broad
research areas along with some research questions that apply to that
area. Researchers in both academia and industry work on these questions,
breaking them down into more specific research questions and then doing
work to answer those. Additionally, professional software engineers,
product managers, and others in the tech world use their knowledge of
these topics as part of their day-to-day jobs building software or
working towards other technical goals like analyzing data, evaluating
systems, or advising on technical tradeoffs.

[The career center's Computer Science and Technology
page](https://www.wellesley.edu/careereducation/resources/computer-science-and-technology)
has some good general information on careers in computer science and
related fields, and also has lots of links to more information.

[The CS department's faculty page](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty)
lists CS faculty and includes short descriptions of research areas, with
links to individual pages that usually link to a personal site with lists
of publications and more in-depth research descriptions. You can also use
[Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com) to look up academic papers
by author or subject.

Find a topic below that you're interested in. 
Look at the [CS faculty page](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty),
check [the department courses
diagram](https://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs/Curriculum/dependencies.html), use
[Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com), search on social media, or
do a general web search to find some pieces of missing information about
that topic, and then fill in [this
form](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScDjY47FujFkoUkA4SQrkfLAfiKrpMHHRFLlV5soPleD-3Ezg/viewform?usp=sf_link)
to submit the info. You can fill it out multiple times for different
knowledge areas if you want.

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Human-Computer Interaction (HCI): How do we design software that's easy/fun/productive to use? How do we measure that?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Vinitha Gadiraju](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/gadiraju)
- [Catherine Delcourt](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/delcourt)
- [Orit Shaer](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/shaer)


**Wellesley Classes:** CS 220, CS 204, CS 320, CS 323, etc.

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** User Experience Designer

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Computer Systems & Architecture: Can we build better operating systems or computer hardware that will make all programs run faster or more efficiently? What will the hardware and operating systems of the future look like?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Alexa VanHattum](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/vanhattum)
- [Amy Banzaert](https://www.wellesley.edu/engineering/faculty/banzaert)
    ([Engineering program](https://www.wellesley.edu/engineering))

**Wellesley Classes:** [CS 240](https://cs.wellesley.edu/cs240),
    ENGR 160: Fundamentals of Engineering, ENGR 210: Experimental
    Techniques ([engineering course
    descriptions](https://www.wellesley.edu/engineering/courses))

**Example Papers:** [A computer-architecture approach to thermal
    management in computer systems: opportunities and
    challenges](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/1304072),
    [A Defect-Tolerant Computer Architecture: Opportunities for
    Nanotechnology](https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.280.5370.1716)

**Example Job Title:** Computer Systems Architect/Engineer; Systems
    Consultant; Computer Systems Analyst

**Someone who works in this area:** ???

Note: this blends into the adjacent entire field of computer engineering,
which itself touches electrical engineering.
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Scientific Computing: How can we leverage computers' precision and data processing abilities to make scientific breakthroughs? What questions in physics/chemistry/biology/etc. can computers help answer?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:** ???

**Wellesley Classes:** ???

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Computer Graphics: How can we use computers to draw images and animations? Can we make more realistic/complex/artistic renderings possible?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Scott Anderson](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/anderson)
- [Jordan Tynes](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/jtynes)

**Wellesley Classes:** CS 307: Computer Graphics

**Example Paper:** [Fast and Deep Facial
Deformations](http://graphics.berkeley.edu/papers/Bailey-FDF-2020-07/index.html)

**Example Job Title:** 3D Production Artist

**Someone who works in this area:**

- [Susan Kare (contributed interfaces to the first Apple Macintosh
    computer)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Kare)




</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Computational Media: How can we make computer-supported media like games or interactive stories? How do these differ from traditional medial like books or film? What's possible in new or emerging mediums like VR/AR, and how can we expand that?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Jordan Tynes](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/jtynes)
- [Peter Mawhorter](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/mawhorter)

**Wellesley Classes:** ???

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Social Computing: How do digital platforms like social media support and/or undermine human social activities? How does the design of these systems influence their users, and can we build platforms that better support social interactions?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Catherine Delcourt](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/delcourt)
- [Takis Metaxas](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/metaxas)
- [Eni Mustafaraj](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/metaxas)

**Wellesley Classes:** [CS 323: Social
    Computing](https://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs323)

**Example Paper:** [Social network sites and society: current trends and
    future possibilities](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1456202.1456204)

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Robotics: What can be accomplished by robots? How do we improve their capabilities via more advanced software and hardware?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:** N/A

**Wellesley Classes:** ???

**Example Paper:** [Socially Assistive Robots as Storytellers that Elicit
    Empathy](https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3538409) (also touches on
    social computing and computational media)

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Artificial Intelligence: Can we use algorithms to solve general problems that we normally think only humans can solve? Can we make algorithms that can tackle a wide variety of complex problems using a single design, rather than needing a programmer to do most of the problem-solving work?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Eni Mustafaraj](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/mustafaraj)
- [Carolyn Anderson](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/canderson)
- [Brian Tjaden](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/tjaden)
- [Scott Anderson](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/anderson)
- [Peter Mawhorter](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/mawhorter)

**Wellesley Classes:** [CS 232: Artificial Intelligence](cs.wellesley.edu/~cs232), [CS 305: Machine Learning](cs.wellesley.edu/~cs305), etc.

**Example Paper:** [On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots: Can Language Models be too Big? 🦜](https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922)

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** [Timnit Gebru](https://dair-community.social/@timnitGebru), [Emily M. Bender](https://dair-community.social/@emilymbender), [Abeba Birhane](https://scholar.social/@abebab)
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Data Science: How can we use computers to draw insights from massive and detailed databases? How can we tell whether a pattern we see in data is meaningful or just a fluke? Can computers help us find meaningful data patterns? How can we visualize or summarize data to help humans find patterns in it?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Eni Mustafaraj](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/mustafaraj)

**Wellesley Classes:** STAT 250, [CS 315: Data Science for the Web](https://catalog.wellesley.edu/courses.php?pos=25&doc_type=cs315), [Summer QAI Course](https://www.wellesley.edu/qai)

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** Data Scientist; Data Analyst
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Education: How can we best teach computer science, and/or how can we use software to benefit education more broadly? What teaching and assessment strategies work best, and what tools can we develop to support learning?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Smaranda Sandu](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/sandu)
- [Peter Mawhorter](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/mawhorter)
- [Sohie Lee](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/lee)
- [Lyn Turbak](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/turbak)

**Wellesley Classes:** N/A

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** Instructional Designer; Learning Scientist

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Networking: How can we design software and/or hardware for transmitting data from one place to another? How is information routed/stored in the internet, and how can we improve the efficiency/privacy of those processes?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Christine Bassem](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/bassem)

**Wellesley Classes:** ???

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Databases: How can we store and access large amounts of information efficiently? Can we design better systems for this in terms of efficiency and/or ease of use?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Scott Anderson](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/anderson)

**Wellesley Classes:** CS 304: Databases with Web Interfaces

**Example Papers:**

- [The Comparative Performance Analysis of Selected Relational
    Databases](https://ph.pollub.pl/index.php/jcsi/article/view/3767)
- [Content-addressable and associative memory: alternatives to the
    ubiquitous RAM](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/30732)

**Example Job Title:** Database Administrator; Systems Engineer

**Someone who works in this area:**

- [Daniel Abadi, Professor of Computer Science at the University of
    Maryland](https://cs.umd.edu/~abadi/)

</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Parallel/Distributed Computing: Can we speed up algorithms by running things in parallel on one or even multiple computers at once? What are the limitations of this, and how can we make it easier to do?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Christine Bassem](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/bassem)
- [Takis Metaxas](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/metaxas)

**Wellesley Classes:** [CS 242 Computer Networks](https://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs242/) ; [CS 323 Distributed Computing](https://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs343/)

**Example Papers:**

- [A brief introduction to distributed
    systems](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/S00607-016-0508-7)
- [Monitoring Distributed
    Systems](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/13677.22723)

**Example Job Title:** (Distributed) Systems Engineer

**Someone who works in this area:**

-  [Nancy Lynch, NEC Professor of Software Science and Engineering in the
    EECS department at MIT](https://people.csail.mit.edu/lynch/) heads
    the Theory of Distributed Systems research group at the Computer
    Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Quantum Computing: What possibilities does a "qubit" unlock? How can we write algorithms that quantum computers can run? How can we build larger and more powerful quantum computers?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:** N/A

**Wellesley Classes:** N/A

** MIT Classes:** [18.435[J] Quantum Computation](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-435j-quantum-computation-fall-2003/)

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** Quantum Computing Research Scientist, Security Engineer—Quantum Computing, 

**Someone who works in this area:** ???

**Example Book:**

- [Quantum Computing: Progress and
    Prospects](https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jjiPDwAAQBAJ)

</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Security: How can we force computers to do what we want even when they're supposed to be controlled by someone else? How do we build systems that are harder to take over? What vulnerabilities can we identify in existing systems, and how do we fix them? What viruses are being used to take over systems, and how can we defeat them?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:** N/A

**Wellesley Classes:** ???

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Programming Languages: How are programming languages implemented? What kinds of programming languages are possible? Can we design more powerful and/or easier-to-use languages?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Alexa VanHattum](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/vanhattum)
- [Lyn Turbak](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/turbak)

**Wellesley Classes:** ???

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Software Engineering: How are programs designed, and how is their construction managed and carried out? Can we come up with new techniques for managing the construction of programs that help teams work faster and/or eliminate bugs and vulnerabilities? Can we build new programming support tools that help people write better code faster?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Lyn Turbak](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/turbak)

**Wellesley Classes:** ???

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Algorithms / CS Theory: What are the theoretical limits of computation? Can we design faster algorithms for common problems that will speed up everyday tasks, or can we prove that that's impossible for some tasks? What kinds of theoretical future computers could perform common tasks faster?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Smaranda Sandu](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/sandu)
- [Brian Tjaden](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/tjaden)
- [Brian Brubach](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/brubach)
- [Christine Bassem](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/bassem)

**Wellesley Classes:** [CS 231:
    Fundamental Algorithms](https://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs231/), [CS 235:
    Theory of Computation](https://cs.wellesley.edu/~cs235/)

**Example Paper:** [Performance Analysis of Merge Sort
    Algorithms](https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9155623) (connects to systems/hardware as well)

**Example Job Title:** Systems Analyst, Researcher

**Someone who works in this area:**

**Famous people in this area:**

- [Donald Knuth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Knuth) ([faculty
    page](https://cs.stanford.edu/~knuth/); [Google
    Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=t0yrrzQAAAAJ&hl=en))
- [Alan Turing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing)

**Books:**

- [The Art of Computer
    Programming](https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=e3wLBAAAQBAJ)

</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Science Technology & Society; Ethics of Technology: How have science and technology influenced societies in the past? What influences do they have today? What unique ethical questions arise from technical systems, and how can we build more ethical systems?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Eni Mustafaraj](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/mustafaraj)
- [Julie Walsh](https://www.wellesley.edu/philosophy/faculty/walsh)
- [Amy Banzaert](https://www.wellesley.edu/engineering/faculty/banzaert)
    ([Engineering program](https://www.wellesley.edu/engineering))
- [Catia Confortini](https://www.wellesley.edu/peaceandjusticestudies/facultyandstaff/confortini)
    ([Peace and Justice
    Studies](https://www.wellesley.edu/peaceandjusticestudies))

**Wellesley Classes:** ENGR 305: Intersections of Technology, Social
    Justice, and Conflict ([engineering course
    descriptions](https://www.wellesley.edu/engineering/courses)), CS 334
    / PHIL 322: Seminar: Methods for Ethics of Technology ([philosophy
    courses](https://www.wellesley.edu/philosophy/courses))

**MIT Classes:** STS.012 Science in Action: Technologies and Controversies in Everyday Life, STS.004: Intersections: Science, Technology, and the World

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Computational Design: How can we used computers to help us in design processes, like architecture, fashion, or engineering? How can a computer's ability to coordinate many small details and automatically analyze and compare many different designs help designers design more complex or interesting artifacts?</summary>

**Wellesley Faculty:**

- [Peter Mawhorter](https://www.wellesley.edu/cs/faculty/mawhorter) (game
    design)

**Wellesley Classes:** ???

**Example Paper:** ???

**Example Job Title:** ???

**Someone who works in this area:** ???

**Links:**

-  [5 Ways Computational Design Will Change the Way you
    Work](https://www.archdaily.com/785602/5-ways-computational-design-will-change-the-way-you-work)
- [MIT Architecture Computation
    group](https://architecture.mit.edu/computation)
</details>

<details markdown="1">
<summary markdown="1">Other: this list isn't exhaustive. There are also many connections to specific other fields, like medicine or law.</summary>

Feel free to suggest a new sub-field and we'll add it above.

**Example Papers w/ links to other fields:**

- [Introduction to Computer Science and Economic
    Theory](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jet.2014.11.002)
</details>


@stop