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Contact Us
Computer Science Department
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717

Location: 357 EPS Building
Tel: (406) 994-4780
Fax: (406) 994-4376
csinfo@cs.montana.edu

Department Head:
John Paxton
Research
Areas of Expertise

Would you like to know what kinds of research you can become involved in while studying in the Computer Science Department at Montana State University? Do you need some expert assistance for your business that might be met by hiring a faculty member through a consulting arrangement? Listed below are the various areas of expertise of the faculty in alphabetic order by faculty last names. You can visit the individual faculty member's page by clicking on his or her name.

  • Rafal Angryk. Data mining, database systems, mobile agents, artificial intelligence.
  • Hunter Lloyd. Multimedia and animation, internet technologies, computer literacy.
  • Brendan Mumey. Applied algorithms, optical and wireless networking, computational biology.
  • John Paxton. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer science education.
  • Rocky Ross. Web-based active learning resources, theoretical computer science.
  • John Sheppard. Machine learning, data mining, evolutionary computation, Bayesian methods, fault diagnosis and prognosis, domain ontologies. Numerical Intelligent Systems Laboratory
  • Denbigh Starkey. Computer graphics, scientific visualization.
  • Neil Tang. Networks, wireless networking.
  • Year Back Yoo. Supercomputing, parallel algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems, heterogeneous computing, operations research.
  • Binhai Zhu. Applied computational geometry, intelligent web searching, geographical information systems, spatial databases, design and analysis of algorithms, combinatorial optimization.

Strengths

The Department has strengths in a number of areas including

  • Algorithms
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computational Biology
  • Database
  • Datamining
  • Distributed Systems
  • Graphics
  • Machine Learning
  • Networks
  • Scientific Visualization
  • Theory of Computing
  • Web-based, active learning resources

Research Projects

The faculty have different areas of research interest and expertise. However, there are a number of active, focused research projects underway in the Department that involve Bachelor's, Master's, and/or PhD students as well as one or more faculty members. These projects are supported by grants from a variety of agencies and are often interdisciplinary in nature. To learn about these projects and the opportunities they present for students and other faculty collaborators, read on.


Example-based Image Querying for TRACE Solar Data Repository

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

The overall goal of this project is to create time-efficient mechanisms for classifying and querying multiple types of solar phenomena. There are several steps in our approach. The first step is to extract informative features from solar images. The second step is to build accurate classifiers for the solar phenomena. Finally, we plan to build an interface that allows querying of TRACE Solar Data repository, which uses the classifiers that have been produced. We are focused on development of querying mechanisms that allow the user to search through solar images based on the image of phenomena, in which he/she is interested.

Support: 

Currently, the work is supported by subcontract with Lockheed-Martin in Palo Alto, which has funds from NASA's TRACE Mission. The research is conducted in close collaboration with Dr. Petrus C. Martens, research professor at the MSU, who specializes in area of solar physics.

Opportunities: 

Opportunities exist for graduate and undergraduate Computer Science students who are interested in feature recognition and image processing.

2008-09-03


Semantically-Driven Querying of Web Documents

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

The objective of this research is to develop a new document organization technique, which simulates human-like processing of the text information (we focus on the problem of multiple levels of abstraction occurring in our natural language). The proposed approach is driven by recent discoveries in the areas of (1) graph-based data mining, (2) hierarchical clustering, and (3) ontology-based data processing. We want to develop mechanisms allowing for a human-like, sense-based querying rather than to continue development of searches dependent solely on the frequency of matching terms. This should allow a broad range of computer users, who are not experts in the searched topics, to have similar searching capabilities, as the experts have.

Support: 

The project is currently funded by RightNow Technologies, work is being done in close collaboration with their AI Lab. Additional support from the NSF is currently being sought.

Opportunities: 

Currently, research opportunities exist for graduate Computer Science students, who have strong interests in areas related to graph-based data mining and ontology-based data processing, and would like to have their theses related to these areas.

2008-09-03


Ad Hoc Routing For Rural Public Safety

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

Providing responsive and effective public safety requires highly coordinated and interoperable communications infrastructure and information systems. Achievement of these goals is particularly challenging in rural and sparsely populated areas, where the lack of communications infrastructure, large distances and difficult terrain contribute additional complexities. In this project, we explore the feasibility of using mobile ad hoc networks in rural areas for public safety related emergency communications. Specifically, we are evaluating existing standard ad hoc routing protocols using the real-life rural emergency scenarios and are developing a novel QoS aware protocol to meet all the performance requirements.

Support: 

This project is supported by Department of Homeland Security under the grant #2007-ST-086-000001.

Opportunities: 

Currently there is no RA opening for students but this may change in the near future.

2008-09-03


Algorithms/Bioinformatics Project

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

I am currently working on several projects in algorithms and bioinformatics (with research fundings pending from NSF). One of the problems is to dynamically label a set of sites (to put a label indicating whether it is good for cross-country skiing), this is from GIS applications. For bioinformatics areas, I am currently working on realistic computation of genomic distances (like with gene repetitions).

Support: 

Fundings from National Science Foundation are still pending. Check back with me in Oct/Nov, 2006.

Opportunities: 

If you are a student (at any level) who likes challenge, there is always a chance to participate in these projects.

2008-09-03


Assorted Computational Biology Problems

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

We are currently investigating problems in protein surface structure prediction (using a novel algorithm for mapping the epitope surface of a protein) and computational methods for investigating the dynamics of gene regulation using DNA microarrays (joint work with Tomas Gedeon in the math department).

Support: 

This work is currently unsupported but we expect to submit a large NIH grant soon in conjunction with investigators in the departments of chemistry and microbiology.  Previous work has been supported by NSF grant #9978582, amount $95,649.

Opportunities: 

Opportunities exist for research-interested students at the B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. levels.

2008-09-03


Bringing Underrepresented Groups to Computer Science

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

(Anne DeFrance & Rafal Angryk)

We are offering a Summer Camp for Middle-School Girls, who are interested in Computer Science. Curriculum for the camp includes learning to program, hands-on activities with computers and robots, building web pages, introduction to a database management system, and some interactions with women working in the computer science profession. The goal of this project is to encourage young females to pursue academic education in computer science.

Support: 

The project is currently supported by the NSF. Any donations from local businesses and other institutions are strongly encouraged.

Opportunities: 

Opportunities exist for graduate and undergraduate Computer Science students, who are interested in encouraging underrepresented groups to pursue careers in computer science. We are currently looking for undergraduate students who have interests (and skills!) to do website development, and a summer counselor work. A graduate student with strong educational interests is currently being sought to help with development of educational materials for middle-school girls, and their teachers.

2008-09-03


Cross-layer Optimization for Dynamic Spectrum Access Wireless Mesh Networks

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

This project focuses on the emerging Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs). Cross-layer design is strongly needed for such a network due to its two special features: dynamic spectrum availability and spectrum heterogeneity. We are conducting a comprehensive study on cross-layer optimization for DSA WMNs, and designing networking protocols under its guidance. Specifically, we concentrate on the bottom four layers of the network stack and seek joint congestion control, routing, spectrum sharing, and power control solutions with the objective of maximizing throughput, achieving certain fairness, and providing QoS support.

Support: 

This project is supported by NSF under the grant CNS-0721880.

Opportunities: 

Currently there is one RA opening for students in the M.S or Ph.D level.

2008-09-03


Investigating Whether Artificial Intelligence Can Be Used to Detect Birds in Nexrad Data

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

Rick Sojda of the Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center and I are collaborating on this project. The work involves machine learning and data reformulation to automate the process of detecting birds in radar data. This information can then be used to help determine appropriate (and inappropriate) sites to place windmills. Currently, a master's student (Reggie Mead) is working with us.

Support: 

The project is currently funded by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL).  The project was formerly supported by USGS.

2009-05-14


Network Algorithm Problems

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

We are engaged in studying algorithmic aspects of optical and wireless networking including proving that certain problems are theoretically difficult and devising new approaches to solving how to efficiently use network resources.

Support: 

Dr. Mumey has support from a 3 year NSF grant. Further support from DEPSCOR and the DOD is pending.

Opportunities: 

Opportunities exist for research-interested students at the B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. levels.

2008-09-03


A Tactical Automation, Assessment, and Performance Support System (TAAP)

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

This project is in collaboration with Advanced Acoustic Concepts (AAC), whose Montana Operations Center is located in Bozeman.  We will develop a Tactical Automation, Assessment, and Performance Support System (TAAP), a software system that will train, monitor, evaluate, and assist operators in complex environments.  An initial customer will be the US Navy.  The Navy will employ TAAP aboard Scaled Improved Performance Sonar (SIPS) ships for training, assisting, and evaluating sonar operators.  TAAP will automate simple and complex tasks, support operator task training and evaluation, and continuously monitor user and system performance in real-world applications and related processes.  In addition, the proposed system will provide recovery after system interruption, collect use and trend data, capture best-practice procedures based on identification and analysis of optimal task performance, and will provide a means to map system states.  This system will build on AAC's existing Navy-funded Phase II SBIR (N03-074), the Supportability Performance and Assessment System (SPAS).

Support: 

The project is supported by the US Navy under SBIR Phase II support to AAC and by a grant to Denbigh Starkey from AAC.  Phase III SBIR support from the Department of Defense is currently being sought.

Opportunities: 

At this time their are no positions available on the grant, but it is anticipated that this will change with future funding.

2008-09-03


Webworks Laboratory

Faculty Involved: 

Description:

The Webworks Laboratory, directed by Rocky Ross, is devoted to the design, implementation, and evaluation of teaching and learning resources that can be delivered on the web. Current work focuses on two major aspects:

  1. The creation of active learning applets that can be embedded in a web presentation of a topic (e.g., the theory of computing) that allows the learner to interact with and manipulate dynamic models (e.g., finite state automata, context free grammars, etc.) in context.

  2. The creation of hypertextbooks---web-based teaching and learning resources that incorporate text, graphics, active learning applets, sound, and video into a seamless whole---that can serve to augment or supplant traditional textbooks in courses.

Support: 

The activities of the Webworks Laboratory are supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and are interdisciplinary in nature.

Opportunities: 

There is no end to the number and kinds of projects that can be undertaken in the Laboratory. They range in size and complexity in ways that make them variously suitable for:

  • undergraduate senior projects

  • graduate projects for Master's students on the project option

  • Master's theses

  • PhD theses

The project has ongoing needs for new student participants. Some support may be available but is usually reserved for students who have already been in the Department for a while in order for the Webworks Director to determine their suitability to the needs of the Laboratory.

2008-09-03


Updated: 2009-05-28

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