National Retail Federation Foundation Scholarships

Congratulations to CS majors Sarah Hall, Anthony Nardiello and Grace Walkuski, who received NRF Foundation scholarships to attend the 2019 NRF Conference from January 13 - 15 in New York City.  At this world's largest retail conference, students will learn about computer science related internships and full time opportunities.  [December 2018]

ACM Regional Programming Contest

Two teams of Montana State University Computer Science majors traveled to Montana Tech to compete in the ACM Regional Programming Contest on November 3rd.  Both Bobcats #1 (Peter Gifford, Karl Molina, Dana Parker) and Bobcats #2 (Kevin Browder, Jordan Pottruff, Elliott Pryor) solved three problems.  Congratulations on a solid showing! [November 2018]

Distinguished Alumni Award

Congratulations to Reggie Kwan, 1985 Computer Science M.S. recipient, who was honored with a Distinguished Alumni Award during Homecoming Weekend.  Reggie's leadership has benefitted Montana Tech as department head, Caritas Institute of Higher Education as president and Open University of Hong Kong as vice president.  [October 2018]

Distinguished Faculty Award

Congratulations to Rocky Ross, who was honored with a Distinguished Faculty Award during Homecoming Weekend.  Rocky enjoyed a 32 year career as a computer science professor at Montana State from 1983 until 2015.  In addition to being an acclaimed educator, Rocky helped build the Computer Science Department and served as interim department head.  [October 2018]

Computer Science Mental Health Research in the News

MSU featured Indika Kahanda's work with the Montana branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in this news item.  [September 2018]

New Computer Science Bachelor of Arts Degree

MSU featured our new B.A. degree in this news item.  [September 2018]

Data-Driven Improvement to Institutional Repository Access and Visibility

Indika Kahanda is a collaborator on a one-year, $50K grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services.  Dr. Kahanda will oversee Xuying Swift, a computer science senior, to investigate whether machine learning can improve the quality of institutional repository content metadata.  Congratulations!  [August 2018]

Center for Mental Health Research and Recovery (CMHRR) Funding

Indika Kahanda, recently received $36K in funding to support a graduate research assistant for two years.  Computer Science M.S. student Mohammed Anani will explore machine learning techniques that assist MSU researchers conduct better brain analysis using Electroencephalograms and Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.  Congratulations!  [August 2018]

Fiscal Year 2018 Research Expenditures

From July 1, 2017 through June 30, 2018, the Gianforte School of Computing contributed more than $1,075,000 to Montana State University's Research Enterprise.  Congratulations to all faculty, staff and students who made this possible! [August 2018]

Pioneering New Approaches to Explore Pangenomic Space at Scale

Congratulations to Brendan Mumey (PI) and Indika Kahanda (co-PI) on their new, 3-year $379K NSF grant!  The project will develop new software tools for pangenomic analysis that help scientists understand how organisms adapt their genomes to their environments.  Their approach makes use of a graph-based representation of a pangenome and exploits this representation to efficiently find both shared and unique regions of interest. [July 2018]

New Computer Science Bachelor of Arts Degree

MSU featured our new B.A. degree in this news item.  [May 2018]

NASA Mining Competition

Montana State University's 2018 robot was one of six to qualify out of 48 entries.  MSU's robot was designed, constructed and programmed by a team that included computer science, electrical engineering and mechanical engineering students.  The computer science students included Carl Fee, Kyle Melton and Angus Tomlinson.  Congratulations! [May 2018]

2018 College of Engineering Awards

Congratulations to Brittany Fasy, who received the College of Engineering's Excellence in Outreach Award and to John Paxton, who received the College of Engineering's Excellence in Advancing Diversity Award!   To learn more about Dr. Fasy's outreach, check out this video.  [May 2018]

2018 Gianforte School of Computing Awards

  • Outstanding Ph.D. Researcher: Alan Cleary
  • Outstanding M.S. Researcher: Mohammed Anani
  • Outstanding Teaching Assistant: Isaac Griffith
  • Outstanding Undergraduate Course Assistants: Jachike Madubuko, Marie Morin
  • Outstanding Faculty Research: Mike Wittie
  • Outstanding Faculty Service: Hunter Lloyd
  • Student Selected Professor of the Year: Clem Izurieta

Computer Science B.A.

Starting in Fall Semester 2018, we are pleased to be able to offer a Computer Science B.A. degree!  The degree is intended to better serve students who have an interest in computing, as well as an interest in a non-STEM area.  Eventually, information about this new degree will appear in MSU's 2018-2019 Undergraduate Catalog and DegreeWorks.  [March 2018]

MSU TechLink Army Contract

Congratulations to Dr. Clem Izurieta and Dr. John Sheppard, who received $500,000 in new funding that supports eight computer science students to continue quality assurance testing for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.  MSU News Story. [March 2018]

John Ruffato Business Start-Up Challenge

Computer Science  majors Payton Harrison,Zach Schallenberger and Zach Taylor, as well as business student Joaquin Monterrosa, have been selected as one of 12 teams to compete in the John Ruffato Business Start-Up Challenge at The University of Montana on April 13th.  The team designed a socially conscious, environmentally responsible, mobile app prototype named Freats (for Free Eats).  The team will pitch the concept to judges in the hopes of receiving cash to extend the prototype.  Best wishes!  MSU News Article.  [March 2018]

Fall Semester 2018 Notable Offerings

  • CSCI 351, Systems Administration, 3 credits.  CSCI 351 is typically offered in the spring.
  • CSCI 446, Artificial Intelligence, 3 credits.  This course is offered every second year.
  • CSCI 494, Special Topics: Start-Up Entrepreneurship, 1 credit.  The course will be taught by Rob Irizarry, who is Oracle's Director of Customer Experience.  The course counts as one of the 12 technical elective credits for the professional option and as an elective credit for the interdisciplinary option.  The course can not be used to meet M.S. or Ph.D. requirements.
  • CSCI 550, Data Mining, 3 credits.  This course is offered every second year.
  • CSCI 591, Special Topics: Biomedical Natural Language Processing, 3 credits.  This is a new course offered by Dr. Indika Kahanda.
  • ESOF 523, Software Testing and Analysis, 3 credits.  This course is offered every second year.

Summer Session 2018 Courses

First 4x4 Session (May 14 - June 7):

  • CSCI 107, Joy and Beauty of Computing, 3 credits
  • CSCI 112, Programming with C, 3 credits
  • CSCI 232, Data Structures and Algorithms, 4 credits
  • CSCI 246, Discrete Structures, 3 credits

Second 4x4 Session (June 11 - July 6):

  • CSCI 127, Joy and Beauty of Data, 4 credits
  • CSCI 477 (co-listed as EIND 422), Simulation, 3 credits

Third 4x4 Session (July 9 - August 2):

  • CSCI 132, Basic Data Structures and Algorithms, 4 credits
  • CSCI 215, Social & Ethical Issues in CS, 3 credits
  • CSCI 338, Computer Science Theory, 3 credits

Online (June 25 - August 3):

  • CS 145RA, Web Design, 3 credits

New Faculty Member: Dan DeFrance

Dan DeFrance will join us as an instructor in Fall 2018.  Dan earned has M.S. in Computer Science from Montana State University in 2001 and currently works for International Game Technology.  Welcome, Dan! [April 2018]

New Faculty Member: Dr. Veronika Strnadova-Neeley

Dr. Strnadova-Neeley will join us as an assistant professor in Fall Semester 2018.  Dr. Strnadova-Neeley will earn her Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara in the coming months.  Her research interests include scalable clustering algorithms, graph algorithms and scientific computing.  Welcome, Veronika! [March 2018]

Women's Center Student of Achievement Award

CS senior Courtney Linder will receive a Student of Achievement Award from the MSU Women's Center.  At MSU, Courtney has promoted diversity in computing by serving as co-president of the Association for Women in Computing, organizing high school outreach efforts, and more.  Congratulations!  [March 2018]

FIRST Lego League Grand Champions

Go With the Flow, a Helena team of six students, received the Grand Champion Trophy at the statewide FLL tournament hosted by MSU on February 3rd.  The team's robot made a perfect run, completing each of the nine tasks attempted.  The team is coached by MSU Computer Science Alumni Todd Byrne (2004 BS), Mike Frandsen (1998 MS) and Clint Frederickson (2004 BS, 2005 MS).  Four of the six competitors are Generation 2.0 of these alumni.  Congratulations to all! [February 2018]

First Lego League Grand Champions

The Past, Present and Future of Computing

In conjunction with Montana State University's quasquicentennial (125th anniversary), two panels will reflect upon the past, present and future of computing on Friday, February 16th in the Procrastinator Theater.  The panelists are industry practitioners and MSU computer science alumni.  The first panel is titled The Past, Present and Future of Computing [video].  The second panel is titled The Past, Present and Future of Computing at MSU [video].  MSU News Story.  [January 2018]

New Faculty Member: Dr. Sean Yaw

Dr. Sean Yaw will join us as an assistant professor in Fall Semester 2018.  Dr. Yaw earned his Ph.D. from Montana State University and currently works for Los Alamos National Laboratory.  His research interests include optimizing network design and performance.  Welcome, Sean! [January 2018]


2017 News