Syracuse University
College of Engineering and Computer Science
Syracuse, New York
Overview
Syracuse University is a major private institution founded in 1870. A member of both the Association of American Universities and the Council of Graduate Schools, Syracuse University is considered one of the nation's major institutions of higher learning. The academic breadth of the University is particularly notable, with a total of eleven academic schools and colleges enrolling 11,455 full-time undergraduate and 4,096 full-time graduate students. The University has a growing stature in the sciences and engineering and maintains outstanding traditions in music, art, drama, communications, and public affairs.
The graduate community within the College of Engineering and Computer Science is broad and diverse, with students drawn from across the country and around the world. Currently, there are 972 full-time students and 159 part-time students, about 24 percent of whom are pursuing Ph.D. degrees.
The Location and Community
Syracuse is the hub of a metropolitan area of more than 500,000 people. Located in the center of New York State, it lies near the lake and mountain areas of the Finger Lakes, the Thousand Islands, the Adirondacks, and Canada and offers a wide range of cultural and recreational activities. Downtown Syracuse is only a 20-minute walk from the University, yet the campus is spacious and attractive. Winters are snowy; summers are pleasant. An international airport and interstate highways provide easy access to many major cities.
Programs of Study and Degree Requirements
The College of Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) offers programs leading to the following degrees: aerospace engineering, M.S.; bioengineering, M.Eng., M.S. and Ph.D.; chemical engineering, M.S. and Ph.D.; civil engineering, M.S. and Ph.D.; computer engineering, M.S., Ph.D., and Computer Engineer; computer and information science, Ph.D.; computer science, M.S.; electrical engineering, M.S., Ph.D., and Electrical Engineer; engineering management, M.S.; environmental engineering, M.S.; environmental engineering science, M.S.; manufacturing engineering, M.S.; mechanical engineering, M.S.; mechanical and aerospace engineering, Ph.D.; mechanical systems, M.Eng.; and neuroscience, M.S. In general, the Master of Science degree requires a minimum of 30 credit hours except for the Master of Science degrees in engineering management and bioengineering, which require 36 credit hours, and the Master of Science degree in computer science, which requires 33 credit hours. The thesis option requires 24 credits of course work plus 6 hours accounted for by a research-related thesis. Most departments offer a nonthesis option that substitutes 6 hours of course work for the thesis and requires a comprehensive examination. Requirements for the Ph.D. vary among the academic units. In general, a minimum of 78 credit hours beyond the baccalaureate is required, including graduate course work, independent study, and a dissertation.
Facilities & Resources
The College of Engineering and Computer Science occupies a modern building on the main campus quadrangle and shares space in the Center for Science and Technology. The Institute for Sensory Research is located just 2 miles away on the South Campus in a facility uniquely suited to sensory research. Each of the buildings has modern, fully equipped laboratories for research, as well as study laboratories, classrooms, and seminar rooms. Major research laboratory facilities include a high-performance distributed computing laboratory; distributed information systems laboratory; scalable concurrent processing laboratory; a composite materials manufacturing and testing laboratory; a structural testing lab; a polymer processing lab; geotechnical labs; a microwave laboratory; a printed-circuits facility; a VLSI design laboratory; a signal processing laboratory; a robotics laboratory; two anechoic chambers; low-speed, supersonic, and hypersonic wind tunnels; indoor air quality laboratory; structure/material testing laboratories; a biomechanics laboratory; and eleven fully equipped, computerized neuroscience laboratories for physiological, psychophysical, biophysical, and neuroanatomical studies of the auditory, tactile, and visual systems. In addition, the College maintains biochemical engineering labs; and environmental engineering core labs that include microbiology, soil, analytical, acid wash, and trace metals laboratories; supercritical extraction and absorption and filtration labs.
The College of Engineering and Computer Science maintains excellent computer facilities available for use by graduate students. The College's Computer Information Technologies Group provides each student with both a Windows LAN account and a UNIX account. Within ECS, there a number of Windows and UNIX clusters. These facilities complement dedicated computer labs maintained by individual faculty members for their research teams. ECS computer resources include high-performance Sun Microsystems machines that support file and application services, Web page development and hosting, and a general purpose time-sharing compute server. A rich suite of software that is unique to ECS studies is provided on the respective systems. In addition, students in the College can readily access facilities operated by the University's central Computing and Media Services (CMS) organization.
Expenses and Aid
Tuition for graduate students at Syracuse University is charged per credit hour. Graduate tuition is $866 per credit hour.
Financial Aid:
Financial assistance is available only to the most highly qualified graduate students, particularly at the doctoral level. Merit-based awards are given in the form of University fellowships, research assistantships, and teaching assistantships, all of which include a stipend and a full-tuition scholarships. Each year, a limited number of additional full or partial tuition scholarships are also made available. Applicants who wish to be considered for these awards should submit all materials by December 1 for fall admission.
Housing/Living Expenses:
Academic-year living expenses range from about $7,000 to $8,000 for single students. University-owned furnished apartments with utilities included for single students are available for $3,035 per semester; married students may rent one- or two-bedroom apartments at a monthly cost ranging from $655 to $780. Plentiful off-campus housing is available nearby.
How to Apply
Most students start their studies in August; however, students may also start in January or May. The verbal, quantitative, and analytical writing tests of the Graduate Record Examinations are required for admission. International applicants are required to take the TOEFL. Applications can be completed or application forms may be obtained online at the College's Web site. If that is not practical for the applicant, forms may be requested by writing to the College. The College Web site and mailing address are listed in the Correspondence and Information section.
Who to Contact
College of Engineering and Computer Science
223 Link Hall
Syracuse University
Syracuse, New York 13244
E-mail: rmdwyer@ecs.syr.edu
Graduate Programs
• Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering
Matthew A. Allen, David Ayers, Jacques Beaumont, Stanley J. Bolanowski, Margaret M. Braungart, Laurel Carney, Steven C. Chamberlain, Andria Costello, Timothy Damron, Barry Davidson, Frederick A. Dodge, Gustav A. Engbretson, Bart Farell, George A. Gescheider, Jeremy L. Gilbert, Julie M. Hasenwinkel, John C. Heydweiller, Hiroshi Higuchi, Karen M. Hiiemae, John A. Hoepner, Jose Jalife, Barry E. Knox, Curtis A. Lajoie, Kenneth Mann, George C. Martin, Nathan Ordway, Beth Prieve, Philip A. Rice, Ashok Sangani, Klaus Schröder, James A. Schwarz, Nikolaus M. Severenyi, Walter Short, Robert L. Smith, Joseph A. Spadaro, Lawrence L. Tavlarides, Chi Tien, Ronald T. Verrillo, Hayes Wanamaker, Frederick W. Werner, Jozef J. Zwislocki.
The bioengineering faculty pursues advanced multidisciplinary research, much of it at the Institute for Sensory Research. The program combines engineering and life sciences in the study of the sensory systems of hearing, touch, and vision as well as the mechanics and materials of biological systems. Current research interests include intensity coding in the auditory and tactile systems; visual information processing in the retina; cochlear biophysics; regeneration and repair in the inner ear; mechanics of transduction in peripheral sense organs; parallel processing of information from sensory receptors to the brain; sensory-motor aspects of chewing; biomechanics of extremities and the spine; modeling of bone, joint force, and motion; development and behavior of biomaterials and self-reinforced composites; degradation and corrosion in biological environments; micromechanisms of viable biological tissues; tissue engineering; nerve regeneration; localized drug delivery; and development of novel medical devices.
The chemical engineering faculty offers a broad spectrum of research opportunities in chemical engineering. Current research interests are in the areas of biochemical engineering, chemical equilibria and kinetics, supercritical extraction and chemical reaction of hazardous wastes, process optimization, chemical reaction and transport in biological systems, bioremediation, fluid mechanics in multiphase systems, magnetic phenomena in thin films, catalysis and surface chemistry, and chemistry-property relations in polymers and polymer-based composites.
• Civil and Environmental Engineering
Riyad Aboutaha, Shobha K. Bhatia, Samuel P. Clemence, Andria M. Costello, Charles T. Driscoll Jr., Chris E. Johnson, Swiatoslav W. Kaczmar, Donald W. Lake, Raymond D. Letterman, Eric M. Lui, James A. Mandel, Belal Mousa, James Napoleon, Dawit Negussey, Emmet M. Owens Jr., Suresh Santanam, David S. Wazenkewitz.
Major areas of study are environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, and structural engineering. Current research activities are in the areas of aquatic chemistry, acidic precipitation, acid waters and their chemistry, problems related to water-treatment and waste-treatment systems, soil dynamics, geotextiles, geofoams, uplift of helical anchors, fracture mechanics of composite materials, structural dynamics, probability applications to structural engineering, and computer-aided analysis and design of structural systems.
• Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Ercument Arvas, Howard A. Blair, Stephen J. Chapin, Biao Chen, C. Y. Roger Chen, Shiu-Kai Chin, Wenliang (Kevin) Du, Ehat Ercanli, James W. Fawcett, Wojtek Furmanski, Prasanta K. Ghosh, Amrit L. Goel, Per Brinch Hansen, Carlos R. P. Hartmann, Can Isik, Kamal Jabbour, Douglas V. Keller Jr., Philipp Kornreich, Jay Kyoon Lee, Nazanin Mansouri, Duane L. Marcy, Harold F. Mattson Jr., Kishan Mehrotra, Chilukuri K. Mohan, Adrian Nunez-Aldana, Jae C. Oh, Susan Older, Lisa Osadciw, Daniel J. Pease, William A. Penn, Frederick Phelps, Leonard J. Popyack Jr., James S. Royer, Robert G. Sargent, Tapan K. Sarkar, Ernest Sibert, Q. Wang Song, Pramod K. Varshney, Hong Wang, David Warner, Donald D. Weiner.
Current faculty member research interests include artificial life, channel estimation and equalization, communications and signal processing, complexity theory, computer-aided design and architecture, computer networking, computer security, concurrent programming, databases, distributed systems, electromagnetic fields and antennas, evolutionary algorithms, high-confidence design, information assurance, intelligent systems, logic programming, microelectronics, multiagent systems, multiuser information theory, neural networks, operating systems, optics and wave phenomena, parallel and high-performance computing, photonics and optical engineering, programming languages, RF and wireless engineering, rapid prototyping, reasoning with uncertainty, reconfigurable computing, and software engineering.
• Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Frederick J. Carranti, Thong Q. Dang, Barry D. Davidson, Mark N. Glauser, Hiroshi Higuchi, Ezzat Khalifa, John E. LaGraff, Alan J. Levy, Jacques Lewalle, Young B. Moon, Vadrevu R. Murthy, Utpal Roy, Eric F. Spina, Thomas D. Vedder, Volker Weiss, Jianshun S. Zhang.
Major areas of study are fluid dynamics, solid mechanics, and manufacturing systems. A major research focus is indoor environmental quality and building energy efficiency. Current research projects include experimental aerodynamics, turbulence modeling, computational fluid dynamics, gas turbine flows, hypersonic aerothermodynamics, composite materials, applied mechanics, fracture mechanics, biomechanics, manufacturing processes, geometric tolerancing, intelligent manufacturing systems, and helicopter rotor dynamics.