Information Technology and Web Science

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Director: Richard Plotka

Program Manager: Jeanne Luker

Program Home Page: http://itws.rpi.edu/

Information Technology and Web Science (ITWS) degrees available at Rensselaer include the Bachelor of Science in Information Technology and Web Science and the Master of Science in Information Technology. Opportunities for Ph.D. level work in Information Technology and Web Science are also available. Those holding these degrees are in great demand and command some of the highest starting salaries and bonuses in any profession.

Rensselaer’s ITWS degree programs are designed for students with an interest in computers that they wish to apply to other disciplines. Recognizing that Information Technology is the “enabler of the Information Age,” Rensselaer has made IT one of its top academic priorities. The Institute has developed a highly interdisciplinary program that emphasizes ITWS’s application to nearly every field from science and engineering to management to humanities and social sciences.

Rensselaer’s undergraduate and graduate ITWS degree programs consist of two components. The first is a set of core courses that focus on the effective use of computers to solve problems. The second is the Focus Track in which students employ their technical expertise to a problem domain or discipline of their choice.

Each of Rensselaer’s five schools offers Focus Track options to ITWS students. The ITWS curriculum draws its coursework from each of these academic schools. Many Rensselaer faculty members representing a wide variety of the disciplines taught at the Institute contribute to this program, thereby providing students with a broad range of perspectives on ITWS and the breadth of its impact on the world.

Faculty*

Professors

Adali, S.—Ph.D. (University of Maryland); heterogenous distributed information systems, database systems (Computer Science Department).

Bennett, K.—Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin); mathematical programming, machine learning, support vector machines, neural networks, artificial intelligence, parallel optimization, tabu search, automated drug discovery, data mining, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, molecular epidemiology, population biology, complementarity (Mathematical Sciences and Computer Science Departments).

Borca-Tasciuc, D.—Ph.D. (University of California, Los Angeles); thermal and thermoelectric transport in nanostructures, nanostructured materials, and devices, thermoelectric energy conversion, heat transfer, microelectromechanical systems (Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Department).

Breneman, C.M.—Ph.D. (University of California, Santa Barbara); physical organic chemistry (Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department).

Bringsjord, S.—Ph.D. (Brown University); logic, philosophical logic, philosophy of artificial intelligence (Cognitive Science Department).

Bystroff, C.—Ph.D. (University of California, San Diego); bioinformatics, protein folding, computational biology (Biology Department).

Carothers, C.—Ph.D. (Georgia Institute of Technology); computer simulation, parallel simulation, parallel systems (Computer Science Department).

Century, M.—M.A. (University of California, Berkeley); musicology, music composition, improvisation and performance (Arts Department).

De, S.—Sc.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); numerical methods in engineering, multimodal virtual environments, fast computational techniques of MEMS (Mechanical, Aerospace, and Nuclear Engineering Department).

Hendler, J.—Ph.D. (Brown University); artificial intelligence, semantic web, agent based computing, high performance processing (Senior Constellation Professor, Tetherless World) (Computer Science Department).

Isaacson, D.—Ph.D. (New York University); mathematical physics, biomedical applications (Mathematical Sciences Department).

Jackson, S. A.—Ph.D. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology); (President, Professor of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy; Professor of Engineering).

Kapila, A.—Ph.D. (Cornell University); applied mathematics, combustion, fluid mechanics (Mathematical Sciences Department).

Kar, K.—Ph.D. (University of Maryland): routing and traffic engineering, congestion control and resource allocation, ad-hoc and sensor networks, multicasting (Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Department).

Kimball, M. - Ph.D. (University of Kentucky); technical communication, usability, accessibility, information design (Department of Communication and Media). 

Magdon-Ismail, M.—Ph.D. (California Institute of Technology); machine learning, computational finance, bioinformatics (Computer Science Department).

McGuinness, D.—Ph.D. (Rutgers University); knowledge representation and reasoning, explanation, proof, trust, ontologies, semantic web (Constellation Professor, Tetherless World) (Computer Science Department).

Miller, B.—M.F.A. (New York University Graduate Film and Television Program); video art, media art (Arts Department).

Nierzwicki-Bauer, S.A.—Ph.D. (University of New Hampshire); plant molecular biology; subsurface microbiology (Biology Department).

Ravichandran, T.—Ph.D. (Southern Illinois University, Carbondale); management information systems (Lally School of Management and Technology).

Search, P.—M.A. (Goddard College); visual design theory and practice; interaction design and multimedia art; computer animation and hypermedia interface design; multi-literacy models for intercultural communication (Language, Literature, and Communication Department).

Wallace, W.—Ph.D. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); decision support systems, environmental management modeling process, disaster management (Industrial and Systems Engineering Department/joint in Civil Engineering and Cognitive Science Departments).

Xiang, N.—Ph.D. (Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany); architectural acoustics, acoustic signal processing (School of Architecture).

Associate Professors

Akera, A.—Ph.D. (University of Pennsylvania); history of scientific and technical computing, innovation studies (Science and Technology Studies Department).

Krueger, T.—M.Arch. (Columbia University); human-environment interaction, design (School of Architecture).

Kuruzovich, J.—Ph.D. (University of Maryland); information systems (Lally School of Management and Technology).

Piper, B.R.—Ph.D. (University of Utah); computer-aided geometric design, numerical analysis, computer graphics (Mathematical Sciences Department).

Assistant Professors

Malazita, J.—Ph.D. (Drexel University); game studies and production, digital art and design (Science and Technology Studies).

Professor of Practice

Plotka, R.—B.S. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); web development, web science, data science, IT strategy, IT management, algorithms, real-time applications, applications design and development, systems design and development (Information Technology and Web Science).

Senior Lecturer

Tozzi, C. - Ph.D. (Johns Hopkins University); IT, DevOps, open source, programming cultures, history of computing, IT and Society (Science and Technology Studies).

Fontaine, K. - Ph.D. (Walden University); data policy and ethics; public administration; data and technology management; informatics; program management (Information Technology and Web Science) (Program Manager, AIRC).

Lecturers

Callahan, B. R.—Ph.D. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); digital humanities, diversity in tech, collaboration, information security, Unix (Information Technology and Web Science).

McDermott, M.—Ph.D. (State University of New York at Albany); strategic management (Director of Undergraduate Programs) (Lally School of Management and Technology).

Munasinghe, T.—MSc (West Virginia University); data science, data analytics, xinformatics, web systems (Information Technology and Web Science).

Stewart, K.R. (Randy) - Ph.D. (North Carolina State University); chemistry and physics of surfaces, materials science, entrepreneurship, global strategy, strategic management (Information Technology and Web Science).

van Heuveln, B.—Ph.D. (State University of New York at Binghamton); philosophy of mind, artificial intelligence, logic, computation, reasoning, and cognition (Cognitive Science Department).

*Departmental faculty listings are accurate as of the date generated for inclusion in this catalog. For the most up-to-date listing of faculty positions, including end-of-year promotions, please refer to the Faculty Roster section of this catalog.  

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