The David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science is a professional school within the Faculty of Mathematics at the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a Public university, public research university located in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is on of land adjacent to uptown Waterloo and Waterloo Park. The university also op ...

. QS World University Rankings ranked the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science 21st in the world, 10th in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

and 2nd in Canada in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

in 2024.
QS World University Rankings ''U.S. News & World Report'' ranked the David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science 42nd in world and second in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

.
US News Best Global Universities. Retrieved 29 March 2022.

History

In 1965, when

Mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

was still a department within the

Faculty of Arts A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In North America, academic divisions are sometimes titled colleges, sc ...

, four third-year mathematics students (Richard Shirley, Angus German,

James G. Mitchell James George Mitchell is a Canadian computer scientist. He has worked on programming language design and implementation ( FORTRAN WATFOR, Mesa, Euclid, C++, Java), interactive programming systems, dynamic interpreting and compiling, document p ...

, and Bob Zarnke) wrote the

WATFOR WATFIV (Waterloo FORTRAN IV), developed at the University of Waterloo, Canada is an implementation of the Fortran computer programming language. It is the successor of WATFOR. WATFIV was used from the late 1960s into the mid-1980s. WATFIV was i ...

compiler for the FORTRAN programming language, under the direction of lecturer Peter Shantz. "Within a year it would be adopted by computing centres in over eight countries, and the number of student users at UW increased to over 2500." Later on in 1966, two mathematics lecturers ( Paul Dirksen and Paul H. Cress) led a team that developed WATFOR 360, for which they received the 1972

Grace Murray Hopper Award The Grace Murray Hopper Award (named for computer pioneer RADM Grace Hopper) has been awarded by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) since 1971. The award goes to a computer professional who makes a single, significant technical or serv ...

from the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

. UW's Faculty of Mathematics was later established in 1967. As a result, the ''Department of Applied Analysis and Computer Science'' (AA&CS) was created. By 1969, AA&CS had become the largest department in the faculty. At that point, the first two PhD degrees in computer science were awarded, to Byron L. Ehle, for a thesis on

numerical analysis Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic computation, symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of ...

, and to Hugh Williams, for a thesis on

computational number theory In mathematics and computer science, computational number theory, also known as algorithmic number theory, is the study of computational methods for investigating and solving problems in number theory and arithmetic geometry, including algorithm ...

. In 1975 the department dropped the words "Applied Analysis" and became simply the ''Department of Computer Science''. In 1982, the Institute for Computer Research (ICR) was established. Its goals were "to foster computer research..., facilitate interaction with industry, and encourage advanced education in computer science and engineering." Also that year, the Ontario government announced plans to build the Davis Centre, current home of the School of Computer Science. The groundbreaking was in April 1985 and the Davis Centre was formally dedicated on November 10, 1988. On May 1, 2002, the department officially became the ''School of Computer Science''. On November 18, 2005, it was renamed again to the ''David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science'', in recognition of the establishment of the

David R. Cheriton David Ross Cheriton (born March 29, 1951) is a Canadian computer scientist, businessman, philanthropist, and venture capitalist. He is a computer science professor at Stanford University, where he founded and leads the Distributed Systems Group. ...

Endowment for Excellence in Computer Science. Cheriton had recently donated $25 million to the university. Support for computing within the School of Computer Science had been historically provided by the Computer Science Computing Facility (CSCF) and ICR.

Programs

The David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science offers several diverse undergraduate programs including: *

Bachelor of Computer Science The Bachelor of Computer Science (abbreviated BCompSc or BCS) is a bachelor's degree for completion of an undergraduate program in computer science. In general, computer science degree programs emphasize the mathematical and theoretical foundatio ...

** Honours Computer Science *** Business Option ***

Bioinformatics Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field of science that develops methods and Bioinformatics software, software tools for understanding biological data, especially when the data sets are large and complex. Bioinformatics uses biology, ...

Option *** Digital Hardware Option *** Software Engineering Option ** Honours Data Science *

Bachelor of Mathematics A Bachelor of Mathematics (abbreviated B.Math, BMath, or BMaths) is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for successfully completing a program of study in mathematics or related disciplines, such as applied mathematics, actuarial science, comp ...

** Honours Computer Science *** Business Option *** Digital Hardware Option * Bachelor of Software Engineering * Bachelor of Computing and Financial Management In general, the philosophy of the undergraduate program is to build a solid foundation of mathematics and computer science during the first three years of the program, allowing students more flexibility in fourth year. Required courses for all computer science programs include courses in combinatorics, data structures, algorithms, compilers, software engineering and operating systems. The curriculum is also designed to encourage either significant depth in an area outside of computer science (such as in the Bioinformatics Option) or exposure to a variety of areas outside of the computer science. The school also offers Masters of Mathematics and Ph.D. graduate programs. * Master of Mathematics (Computer Science) * Ph.D. in Computer Science

Reputation

The university is well-regarded in the field of Computer Science, where it ranks 41st in the world and fourth in Canada according to the

Times Higher Education World University Rankings The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', often referred to as the THE Rankings, is the annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli Symon ...

, and 22nd in the world and second in Canada in the

QS World University Rankings The ''QS World University Rankings'' is a portfolio of comparative college and university rankings compiled by Quacquarelli Symonds, a higher education analytics firm. Its first and earliest edition was published in collaboration with '' Times ...

in 2019.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:David R. Cheriton School Of Computer Science University of Waterloo David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science (University of Waterloo) Educational institutions established in 2002 2002 establishments in Ontario Computer science institutes

History

Programs

Reputation

References

Further reading

External links