College of Letters and Sciences

Computer Science


Welcome to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater!   We offer education in Computer Science, Cybersecurity and related computing areas that include Artificial Intelligence, Bioinformatics, Data Science, Game Development, and Web Development, both at undergraduate and graduate levels. Follow us on facebook for upcoming events »  Follow us on instagram 

The Department of Computer Science is the place to explore one's full potential. Students are encouraged to participate in our broad extra-curricular activities including: undergraduate research, programming contests, cybersecurity contests, out-of-class software projects, and entrepreneurship.

Our diverse group of faculty are committed to education and research. UW-W Computer Science Faculty are actively publishing and securing research grants in areas that include Artificial Intelligence,  Bioinformatics, Computer Vision and Machine Learning, Cybersecurity and Privacy, Software Engineering, and Theory of Computer Science. 

Many of our UW-Whitewater Computer Science Alumni are using their degree to succeed at leading companies in the computing industry. Our alumni are currently placed at Amazon,  American Family Insurance,  Apple,  EPIC,  Google,  IBM, and NorthWestern Mutual.  Alumni are also pursuing Ph.D. studies at elite research universities including the University of California- Berkeley, Dartmouth College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and University of Nevada - Las Vegas.  Whatever your dream career in the field of Computer Science may be, you can achieve it at UW-Whitewater! 

Master of Science in Computer Science
Master of Science in Cybersecurity
Sara Hooker Colloquium

Computer Science 

Major, Minor

CS Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity 

 Major, Minor

Bioinformatics minor

Bioinformatics 

Minor

Data Science Minor

Data Science 

Minor

Master in Computer Science

Master's Degree in Computer Science 

Masters in Cybersecurity

Master's Degree in Cybersecurity 

CS website development

Website Development and Adminstration 

Minor

Whiteboard

Whiteboard Club 

Programming Contest, 

Technical Interview  

ACM Computer Science

ACM Student Chapter

Software Projects,  Technical Talks,  Entrepreneurship 

Women in Computing

Women in Computing

Josh Day Colloquium

ISACA Student Chapter

Cybersecurity Contest, 

Tecnhical talks

Research

Research & Internship Workshop

Jumpstart on research and internship

undergrad research

Undergraduate Research

Projects and Opportunities 

CS high school students

CS for High School Students  

The Gamed Club

The GAMED Club

Game & Media Entertainment Developers

Colloquium

Colloquium Series

Research Talks

Tina Y Cao

Tina Y Cao

Lecturer 1

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

caoy@uww.edu

Laurentide Hall 2247 |

(262) 472-1371

Mark A Dorney

Mark A Dorney

Lecturer 1

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

DorneyMA11@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 104 |

(262) 472-1666

Arnab  Ganguly

Arnab Ganguly

Associate Professor

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

gangulya@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 104B |

(262) 472-5002

Athula D. A. Gunawardena

Athula D. A. Gunawardena

Professor

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

gunawara@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 110 |

(262) 472-1469

Hairi  Hairi

Hairi Hairi

Assistant Professor

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

hairif@uww.edu

(262) 472-4121

Jay R Jones

Jay R Jones


Department(s):

jonesj@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 104 |

(262) 472-1666

Jiehui  Ma

Jiehui Ma

Lecturer 2

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

maj@uww.edu

Laurentide Hall 2227 |

(262) 472-1456

Brian S Maresso

Brian S Maresso

Lecturer 1, Add'l Pay Non-Instructional

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

MaressoBS24@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 109 |

(262) 472-1992

Lopamudra  Mukherjee

Lopamudra Mukherjee

Associate Professor

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

mukherjl@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 107 |

(262) 472-5160

Hien M Nguyen

Hien M Nguyen

Associate Professor

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

nguyenh@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 106 |

(262) 472-5170

Zachary J Oster

Zachary J Oster

Associate Professor, Add'l Pay Non-Instructional

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

osterz@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 108 |

(262) 472-5006

Shawn C Pieper

Shawn C Pieper

Graduate Assistant

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

PieperSC10@uww.edu

Sue M Roberts

Sue M Roberts

Administrative Assistant III

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

robertss@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 104 |

(262) 472-1666

Bryce R Rothschadl

Bryce R Rothschadl

Graduate Assistant

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

RothschaBR19@uww.edu

Sobitha W Samaranayake

Sobitha W Samaranayake

Professor

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

samarans@uww.edu

Laurentide Hall 2225 |

Chandra  Sharma

Chandra Sharma

Assistant Professor

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

sharmac@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 111 |

(262) 472-5167

Ruzhen  Wei

Ruzhen Wei

Lecturer 1

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

weir@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 4009 |

(262) 472-1666

Jiazhen  Zhou

Jiazhen Zhou

Associate Professor

Department(s): COMPUTER SCIENCE

zhouj@uww.edu

Mcgraw Hall 104C |

(262) 472-5172

WF Johnston Scholarship   $425 - cs or secondary ed major or cs minor
Eric J. McLean  $600 - Junior or Senior highest gpa of those meeting criteria
McLean Family Scholarship   $ 500 – Females in science or math
Metcalf Family Scholarship   $ 2,000 – Females in science or math
Dr. Carol A. Cartwright Women in Leadership Scholarship $1,000

apply on-line (application deadline in February)

Other Scholarship Resources

2017 Scholarships and Awards
Anna Bennett

WF Johnston - Anna Bennett
Edward Karrels Internship Scholarship - Ryan Albert and Owen Kirkeby

2016 Scholarships and Awards

2016 Scholarship Recipients

Edward Karrels Internship Scholarship - Ryan Albert and Owen Kirkeby
WF Johnston - Jeremy Bernien
1st Year Physics - Lauren Shirley
McLean Family Scholarship - Jennifer K.
Metcalf Family Scholarship - Alexis Greenstreet

2015 Scholarships and Awards

Dean's award

2015 Math/Science Awards

Letters & Sciences Alumni Scholarship - Kyle Amundson
William Johnston Computer Science Scholarship - Trevor Sigmund
William C. Beck Scholarship - Kyle Amundson, Joshua Day
2015 Society of Information Management (SIM) Scholarship - Kathryn Deane
William Lowell Putnam Competition - December 2014 Joshua Day one of two top scorers for UW-W with a 12!
Undergraduate Research Day 2015 - Hans Perera and Tyler Wilcock's research poster on Parallel Computing wins 1st place in math/physics/computer science category.
NSF Predoctoral Research Fellowship - Alex Hall, alumnus and current Ph.D. student at UC-Berkeley.

2014 Scholarships

Caroll & Kay Flanagan Scholarship - Kyle Amundson, Adikaramge Perera
William Beck Scholarship - Joshua Day
William Johnston Computer Science Scholarship - Mitchell Elmer

2013 Awards

Antonio Fernandez – 1st Computer Science Graduate; Brian H. – Founding Vice President, UW-W Student Chapter ACM Organization; Michael C. – Founding President, UW-W Student Chapter ACM Organization, Student Instructional Assistant, Tutor and graduating MCS Major; Justin C.– Founding Treasurer, UW-W Student Chapter ACM Organization, and graduating MCS Major; Anthony L. – Founding Secretary, UW-W Student Chapter ACM Organization and incoming President; Joseph H. – Research Assistant, Student Instructional Assistant, Tutor and graduating MCS Major.

Please contact Sue Roberts at 262-472-1666 for more information.


Individuals attending tutoring MUST follow policies printed below and sign in after completion of each tutoring session.

Sign in for tutoring! 

POLICIES:

  • Treat staff and students respectfully
  • Keep speaking volume at an acceptable level that does not distract others from their work.
  • Please use language that is appropriate to a professional setting.

STUDENTS ATTENDING TUTORING SESSIONS WILL:

  • Sign in at link above
  • Be patient, remember that there may be other students that need tutoring help. Tutors will assist you as time and demands allow.
  • Come prepared for tutoring. Bring any relevant assignment descriptions, notes, and materials with you so that our tutors can do their best to understand the problem and assist you.
  • Read and attempt to do the assignment on your own before asking for help. Show your work on problems so far, regardless of whether you think it is good or bad.
  • Bring specific issues or concepts you are having difficulty with. Have specific questions for tutors instead of, "How do I do this?"
  • Cooperate with tutors and respect their recommendations, suggestions, and instruction on best practices.
  • Remember that the goal of the tutoring program is to help you through the learning process to become an independent student. Tutoring is not to be used in place of class attendance.

EXPECTATIONS OF TUTORS:

  • Help with concepts, debugging, and specific questions relating to projects and assignments. Tutors will not help complete assignments or give answers to quiz questions or write specific programming code.
  • Give guidance on how to start, research or study for a project.
  • Arrive prepared and on time for your scheduled tutoring hours.
  • Follow all campus policies and procedures as printed in the Department of Computer Science Student Employee Manual.
  • Report any issues or concerns to Academic Department Associate, Chair or appropriate faculty member.

LINK TO: debugging_tips

Tutoring Sign Up

ACM LogoWhat is  ACM?

ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) is the world's largest educational and scientific computing society, delivering resources that advance computing as a science.

If you are interested in organizing an ACM chapter on campus, please contact Dr. Arnab Ganguly at gangulya@uww.edu.

Our Hopes:
The establishment of an inclusive group that introduces members to different topics and ideas that cannot be found in the classroom.  This group would target students interested in the Computer Science field, but open to all majors. 

Algorithms & Data StructureComputational Biology, Data Science, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Networking, Software Engineering, Theory of Computer Science, User Modeling

PATENT

  • Athula Gunawardena, Michael C. Ferris, Robert R. Meyer, Optimal Delivery System for IMAT Radiotherapy, US Patent: US 2013/0077751 Al, Sponsored by Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), 2013.

PUBLICATIONS

Algorithms & Data Structure

Computational Biology

Data Science

Machine learning, Computer Vision:

Networking

Software Engineering

Theory of Computer Science

User Modeling

  • Interactive Degree Planner Project through WiSYS Technology Foundation and National Science Foundation (NSF)
  • Vehicular networking research projects
  • Computer Visioning research through NSF Grants
  • Office of Naval Research project (ONR Grants)

2020 Highlights

  • Jack Hodny, Rachel Drettwan, Joshua Mosher (Advised by Sungchul Lee) Undergraduate Research​ for IDEAL Project (NSF IIA 1839194)

2019 Highlights

  • Luke Veenhuis (advised by Hien Nguyen): 2019 Summer Research Internship at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
  • Rachel Drettwan, Jack Handy, Joshua Mosher (Advised by Sungchul Lee) Undergraduate Research​ for IDEAL Project (NSF IIA 1839194)
  • Rachel Drettwan (Advised by Sunghul Lee) Awarded Undergraduate Research Program (URP) Grant

2018 Highlights

  • Greg Hyde (advised by Hien Nguyen): 2018 Summer Research Internship at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
  • Jake Krueger
    • Awarded Undergraduate Research Grant 2018 (Advised by Sungchul Lee)
    • 1st place winner in the WiSys Quick Pitch competition at UWW
    • 2018 UWW UGR Poster – Final
    • Publication Poster on NCUR19@ATL at Kennesaw State University
    • Submitted 2018 Foxconn’s Smart Cities
  • UWW Summer Research Fellowship (SURF)
    • Jaycee Cleveland  (advised by Zach Oster), 2018
    • Phoebe Miller (advised by Jiazhen Zhou), 2018
  • Brian Maresso (graduate student, GECCO, advised by Hien Nguyen)
  • Greg Hyde, Ramnjit Boparai, Luke De Guelle, Luke Veenhuis (SPIE 18, CDM Book Chapter)Research paper submission

2017  Highlights

  • UWW Summer Research Fellowship (SURF): Brandon Allen and Ben Stockton (advised by Zach Oster), 2017; Jaycee Cleveland  (advised by Zach Oster), 2018; Phoebe Miller (advised by Jiazhen Zhou), 2018   
  • Research papers: Greg Hyde, Ramnjit Boparai, Luke De Guelle, Luke Veenhuis (SPIE 18, CDM Book Chapter)  

2016 Highlights 

  • Nyia Lor invited to present his research at Posters on the Rotunda in Madison, WI and his abstract was submitted to the 2017 Hmong National Development Conference. 
  • Two students presented research at 2016 Undergraduate Research Day, UW-Whitewater 
  • Four students presented their research at the 2016 Science Alliance Meeting at UW-W in March.
  • Four students presented their research at the department Advisory Board meeting in April.
  • Three papers accepted or being reviewed at conferences/journals.  1) Eugene Santos, Jr., Hien Nguyen, Jacob Russell, Joshua Day, Scott Pegelow, Alexis Greenstreeet; A Framework for Commander's Decision Making Processes by Exploiting Dynamic Contextual Information,; Accepted paper for Human Factor and Ergonomic Society annual meeting, September 2016.

2015 Highlights 

  • Neural Networks and Topic Modeling for Sentimental Analysis(Albert/Kirkeby; faculty mentor Hien Nguyen). Poster presentation won 4th place at LSMCE Conference in Indianapolis 
  • Temporal Segmentation of Video Sequence Using Subspace Representation
  • Internet of Things, 
  • Students: Trevor Sigmund and Nicholas Schneider; Faculty Advisor: Jiazhen Zhou. Presented at UG Research Day and department High School Day, Spring 2015. Research results used in a course project for COMPSCI 461 Mobile Computing Architecture Spring 2015.
  • Broadcast in Vehicular Network, Student: Jennifer Fox; Faculty Advisor: Jiazhen Zhou. Presented at Spring 2015 Undergraduate Research Day. Simulation program used in Zhou's paper "Scaling of On-Demand Broadcast Scheduling in Stressed Network".
  • Strategies for Proactive Caching of Information in Disaster Rescue Network, Student: Kevin Hill; Faculty Advisor: Jiazhen Zhou. 
  • 3D Mapping for the Visually Impaired, Students: Alex Repsold and Steven Smith. Faculty Advisor: Hien Nguyen.
  • Multi-Tiered Application to Solve Geological and Geographical Equations, Students: Garcy Hackney, Dustin Forman and Austin Fies; Faculty Advisor: Hien Nguyen.

2014 Research 

  • Two computer science research posters made it to the finals at Undergraduate Research Day, March 19, 2014. The poster Emily Paulson submitted for her work with professor Hien Nguyen, won in its category. 
  •  Parallel Computing Applications in Finite Geometries and Finance Engineering (2014/15) Students: Hans Perera, Tyler WIlcock; Faculty Advisor: Dr. Athula Gunawardena Received first place poster award for the Math/Physics/Computer Science category at UW-Whitewater Undergraduate Research Day 3/18/15.
  • Version Aware Word Documents, 2013/14 Students: Stephen Coakley, Jacob Mischka; Faculty Advisor: Cheng Thao Paper was presented at ACM Symposium on Document Engineering in Colorado, USA, September, 2014.   
  • NMF approach to Binary Hashing, Spring 2014 Student: Tyler Holmes; Faculty Advisor: Lopamudra Mukherjee 
  • Real-Time Monitoring with Wireless Sensor Networks, Presented at Fall 2014 UG Research Day and 2015 department High School Day; Students: Scott Rupprecht, Trevor Sigmund, Christian Lee and David Feldman; Faculty Advisor; Jiazhen Zhou. ·         A Tool for Visualizing Preferences in Conditional Importance Networks, 2/14/14; Student: Joshua Leinberger 
  •  Dynamic Context-Centric Commander's Decision Support through Real-time Inverse Reinforcement Learning, Spring 2014; Student: Shawn Reichard; Faculty Advisor: Hien Nguyen 
  •  Sparse Based Coding, Fall 2013 Student: Alex Hall; Faculty Advisor: Lopamudra Mukherjee Presentation at IEEE National Conference in Hawaii, Spring 2015.
  • Quick Response Code Security, Fall 2014 UG Research Day; Student: Jenna Hammes; Faculty Advisor: Jiazhen Zhou. Laer received UWW Research Scholar award to work on QR code format improvement (Spring 2015).

2013

  • Zigbee in Smart Meter Networks, collaborative project with UW-Madison, Students: Aaron BrownJoseph Gleeson, YuetLong Leung and Trevor Wilson; Faculty Advisors; Jiazhen Zhou and Xinyu Zhang.

2012

  • Mobility Management System for Managing Laptops on Campus; Students: Scott Rupprecht and Nathan Zalewski. Faculty Advisor: Jiazhen Zhou. Used as an example in design and coding for the COMPSCI 451 course Spring 2013. 
  • JAVA 3D application to assist in understanding plant development; Students Joshua Pomerenke and Thomas Kagan. Faculty Advisor: Hien Nguyen.
  • 2016 National Science Foundation, Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program, $225,000 for Interactive Degree Planner.
  • 2015-2018 Office of Naval Research Grants totalling $130,000 to Hien Nguyen (subcontracted through Dartmouth College).
  • 2012-2016, National Science Foundation Information and Intelligent Systems Research in Undergraduate Institutions three-year grant of $231,313 awarded to advance computer vision technology; Lopa Mukherjee, Principal.
  • 2015-2016 UW-W Professional Development Awards, $6,800 to Hien Nguyen and $5,000 to Lopamudra Mukherjee.
  • Fall 2013, AR-WiTAG Matching Grant of $42,100 awarded to Athula Gunawardena.2013 Grant Writing Fellowship awarded to Jiazhen Zhou.
  • Spring 2013, Strategic Initiative Grant of $49,000 awarded. Funded 12 students as Senior Project Assistants. Lopa Mukherjee, Principal; Hien Nguyen, Jiazhen Zhou, and Athula Gunawardena, Co-Principals.
  • Spring 2013, Wisconsin Small Company Advancement Program Award of $57,100 for Interactive Degree Planner project; Athula Gunawardena, Principal; Sobitha Samaranayake Co-Principal
  • 2011 Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) grant; awarded to Athula Gunawardena for System and method for intensity modulated arc therapy treatment planning.

 

Alumni Spotlights

Greg HydeAssociate Computer Science Professor Hien Nguyen saw something in UW-Whitewater senior Greg Hyde that told her he may want to put his dream of opening a pizza restaurant on hold for awhile.

As a member of a group of Nguyen's research students called The Scenario Development Team working on a project funded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Hyde had an opportunity to put his analytical skills to work.

The team evaluates a computational model to capture the decision- making process of naval commanders. UW-Whitewater students on the team collaborate on the work with students from Dartmouth University. Each week, the two groups communicate by teleconference. They develop scenarios, conduct experiments, collect data and report their findings to the ONR.

Nguyen this fall encouraged all of her students, including Hyde, to apply for a summer 2018 internship program which is called The Naval Research Enterprise Internship Program (NREIP). The program provides an opportunity for students to participate in research at a Department of Navy (DoN) laboratory during the summer ( https://nreip.asee.org/).

Modest by nature, Hyde, who is from Kenosha, wasn't expecting the response he got when he applied. He received word of his acceptance on Nov. 29.

"I didn't think my application was even going to be looked at," he said. "I didn't know how strong of an applicant I was, but she (Nguyen) definitely encouraged me. I wouldn't have applied if it hadn't been for Dr. Nguyen."

Hyde will graduate from the UW-Whitewater computer science program on Saturday and return to Whitewater in January for his first semester of graduate school in the program. Next summer he will travel to Washington D. C. for the internship and work in the Navy Center for Applied Research in Artificial Intelligence for as long as 14 weeks.

"It's right on the Potomac River in Washington," he said. "and they do a lot of projects in the water. What they are working on is automated underwater vehicles and AI (artificial intelligence), using reasoning and how to make it accomplish a goal and make it change goals dynamically.

"It's a ten-week program but usually they extend it to 14 (weeks) if you want to stay longer," Hyde added. "I might stay as long as I can just to soak up as much information as possible."

Nguyen said Hyde was competing for the internship against students from research institutions and even with graduate students nationwide.

"We are very proud of what Greg brings," Nguyen said. "One year ago, I think at one of the group meetings I said with your analytical skills you should work for DOD. He said all I ever wanted to do is to open a pizza restaurant.

"I said you can go to DC, work for awhile, get some money and you still can come back and open that restaurant." - UW-W News article written Fall 2017


In video, below, 2016 Graduate, Joshua Day and his mother, Rochelle Day speak to the UW System Board of Regents about their educational experiences and opportunities at UW-Whitewater.

Jiazhen Zhou
Department Chair and Associate Professor 
Phone: 262-472-5172
Location: McGraw Hall 104C

Sue Roberts
Department Associate 
Phone: 262-472-1666
Location: McGraw Hall 104

Zach Oster
Cybersecurity Coordinator & Associate Professor 
Phone: 262-472-5006
Location: McGraw Hall 108

Hien Nguyen
Graduate Program Coordinator & Associate Professor 
Phone: 262-472-5170
Location: McGraw Hall 106