Computer science is part of a dynamic hub that links to research throughout SEAS and to the rest of the University, drawing from fields such as Electrical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, and Biology, as well as Harvard's professional schools in medicine and business.
Computer scientists at Harvard are pursuing ground-breaking work in a wide range of areas including theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, developments at the interface of economics and computer science, adaptive and trustworthy systems, intelligent interfaces, computer graphics, computational linguistics, privacy and security, robotics, data-management systems, networks, energy-efficient architectures, program languages, and machine learning and visualization.
Students and researchers are involved in an increasing number of interdisciplinary initiatives across the University, such as the Center for Research on Computation and Society, the Institute for Applied Computational Science, and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society.
The University announced in November 2014 plans for a 50% increase in the size of the CS faculty, enabled by former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer AB ’77. In the coming years, CS will be among the areas of SEAS that will expand into new state-of-the-art facilities on Harvard’s campus in Allston.
Looking forward, the faculty have identified five long-terms goals to support advancement in teaching and research:
- Retain and attract first rate computer science faculty and graduate students;
- Offer an academic program at the undergraduate level that is accessible to students with varied backgrounds;
- Offer courses that are attractive to students outside the concentration;
- Work with other departments and schools to provide rigor and depth in interdisciplinary fields; and
- Bolster efforts to support computation for society.