The Computational Science and Engineering Program

Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary field that encompasses applications (science/engineering), applied mathematics, numerical analysis, and computer science and engineering in which high performance computing, large-scale simulation, and scientific applications play a central role.

Through modeling, simulation, and scientific discovery from large-scale data, CSE aims to advance solutions for a wide-range of problems in the area of nanoscience and nanotechnology, energy, climate modeling, engineering design, plasma physics, transportation, bioinformatics, earthquake engineering, geophysical modeling, astrophysics, materials science, national defense, information technology for healthcare, and search engines, to name a few critical fields.

The CSE Program at the University of California, Berkeley, will educate students to better perform computationally intensive and interdisciplinary scientific research across many fields of science and engineering.  Traditional academic departments are well-structured to train students in one or perhaps two of these fields, but not all of them. The essential elements of this program include a Ph.D. thesis in a science or engineering discipline that is highly computational in nature and is advised by faculty members from multiple departments, an approved cluster of graduate courses that prepare the student for advanced work in CSE, and mechanisms for cross-disciplinary research and education.

CSE is a joint effort between CITRIS, LBNL, the College of Engineering, the College of Letters and Science, and the office of Vice Chancellor for Research at University of California, Berkeley. It will be housed at and administered by CITRIS and the Computing Sciences Directorate at LBNL.