The Department of Computer Science at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

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 cit ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

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 ...

. As of November 2023, it has 66 faculty, 64 staff, 259 graduate students, and 2,774 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 LabAMLTN: Advanced Machine Learning Training NetworkCAIDA (Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making & Action)CVL: Computer Vision LabData Science InstituteDFP (Designing for People Cluster)DMM (Data Management and Mining Lab)DSI (Data Science Institute)eDAPT: Designing Interactive Technologies
*HAI:
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)PLAI (Programming Languages for Artificial Intelligence)SCL (Scientific Computing Laboratory)Security and Privacy GroupSPIN (Sensory Perception & Interaction Research Group)SPL (Software Practices Lab)SSL (Sensorimotor Systems Lab)Systopia (Systems research)

Ratings

The department is rated by Maclean's 2024 annual rankings as tied for the best computer science university program in Canada. The department is ranked 26th in the world by th
QS World University Subject Rankings
UBC is ranked as the 34th best university in the world b
QS World University Rankings

Notable faculty

* Cristina Conati – 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 UBC Computer Science Department, Computer Science Department of the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on computational complexi ...

–

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, ...

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 Canadians, American Canadian computer scientist. He is currently a professor of computer science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is best known for developing the conce ...

– 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 for the Java programming language, created at PARC. It is available in Eclipse Foundation open-source projects, both stand-alone and integrated into Eclipse. AspectJ has become a widely ...

extension for

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...

. He contributed to the design of the

Common Lisp Object System The Common Lisp Object System (CLOS) is the facility for object-oriented programming in American National Standards Institute, ANSI Common Lisp. CLOS is a powerful dynamic programming language, dynamic object system which differs radically from t ...

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 PARC (company), Xerox PARC) on the subject of metaobject protocol. Overview The book contains an explana ...

'', along with Jim Des Rivieres and Daniel G. Bobrow *

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 2013 ...

– Canada CIFAR AI Chair and Director of the UBC ICIC
Centre for Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making and Action (CAIDA)
* Alan Mackworth (Professor Emeretus) – Founding director of the UBC Laboratory for Computational Intelligence. He is the Past President of the

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

(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 university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

* Tamara Munzner – Expert in

information visualization Data and information visualization (data viz/vis or info viz/vis) is the practice of designing and creating Graphics, graphic or visual Representation (arts), representations of a large amount of complex quantitative and qualitative data and i ...

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 an American computer scientist. 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 was the Herchel ...

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

USENIX USENIX is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit membership organization based in Berkeley, California and founded in 1975 that supports advanced computing systems, operating system (OS), and computer networking research. It organizes several confe ...

References

External links