UC Irvine’s nationally ranked Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences (Bren:ICS) began as an academic department in 1968, in recognition of the emerging importance of this new field. Established as a school in 2002, the school was named in June 2004 after its benefactor Donald Bren, whose generous support of the school’s intellectual capital will serve generations of students to come. The school dedicated its newest high-tech facility, Donald Bren Hall, in June 2007.
As the only computer science school in the University of California and one of only a handful in the nation, Bren:ICS is an academic leader and offers one of the broadest computing programs in the country. With three departments – Computer Science, Informatics and Statistics – offering seven undergraduate degrees: computer science, informatics, information and computer science, computer science and engineering, biomedical computing, business information management, and computer game science, our majors are a primary choice for many students at UCI. Our flexibility provides students with the tools needed to engage in and adapt to a rapidly changing discipline. The school’s nearly 1,200 undergraduates and 400 graduate students traditionally have one of the highest mean SAT and GRE scores on campus.
Noteworthy alumni include Patrick Hanratty (“Father of CAD”), Paul Mockapetris (author of Domain Name System (DNS) and Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP)), and Roy Fielding (architect of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1) and founder of the Apache HTTP Server Project).
Research Expertise
Bren:ICS faculty expertise spans a diverse spectrum, including:
- Algorithms and Complexity
- Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
- Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology
- Computer Architecture and Design
- Computer Graphics and Visualization
- Computer-Supported Cooperative Work
- Computer Vision
- Databases and Data Mining
- Embedded Systems
- Environmental Informatics
- Human Computer Interaction
- Medical Informatics
- Multimedia Computing
- Networks and Distributed Systems
- Programming Languages and Systems
- Scientific and Numerical Computing
- Security, Privacy and Cryptography
- Social Informatics
- Software Engineering
- Statistics and Statistical Theory
- Ubiquitous Computing
The school houses and is involved in numerous UCI research centers established to support the faculty’s substantial growth in interdisciplinary research, including:
- Center for Algorithms & Theory of Computation
- Center for Embedded Computer Systems
- Center for Machine Learning & Intelligent Systems
- Center for Emergency Response Technologies (CERT)
- Center for Organizational Research (COR)
- Center for Pervasive Communications & Computing (CPCC)
- Center for Research on Information Technology & Organizations (CRITO)
- Computational Vision Lab
- Computer Games & Virtual Worlds
- Institute for Genomics & BioInformatics (IGB)
- Institute for Software Research (ISR)
- Laboratory for Ubiquitous Computing & Interaction (LUCI)
- Secure Computing & Networking Center (SCoNCe)
- Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing & Information Technology (ABRC)
In addition, Bren:ICS faculty members are leading research efforts within the California Institute for Telecommunications & Information Technology (Calit2), one of four Institutes for Science & Innovation within the University of California.
Corporate Partnerships
Bren:ICS fosters partnerships with the corporate community to enhance the flow of research, technology, talent, and personal contact between the school and high-tech companies. Several partnering programs are offered to ensure that Bren:ICS builds lasting relationships that foster technological excellence and innovation while creating opportunities to share new knowledge.
Distinctions
- 2010 – U.S. News & World Report ranks ICS as the 28th computer science graduate program, and 14th among public institutions.
- 2007 – Ranked first in the nation in Computer & Information Sciences for faculty scholarly productivity by the Chronicle of Higher Education. In the same study, Information Sciences is ranked fourth.
- 2000 – The high-tech magazine eWeek named UCI one of the top 10 universities in the nation for information technology education.
- 23 of 69 ICS faculty members have received National Science Foundation CAREER awards.
- NSF’s Information & Intelligent Systems program ranks UC Irvine as the most funded – in dollars and number of awards – research university in the nation.
Recent Faculty Accolades
- National Academy of Engineering – Michael Carey
- American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellows – Pierre Baldi, Michael Goodrich, Jessica Utts
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Fellows – Michael Carey, Michael Goodrich, Ramesh Jain, Gary Olson, Judy Olson, Richard Taylor
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGCHI Lifetime Achievement Award – Gary Olson, Judy Olson
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGCHI Academy – Paul Dourish, Gary Olson, Judy Olson
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGKDD Innovation Award – Padhraic Smyth
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGMOD Innovation Award – Michael Carey
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGMM Outstanding Technical Contribution Award – Ramesh Jain
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGSOFT Distinguished Service Award – Richard Taylor
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Outstanding Research Award – Richard Taylor
- Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Fellows – Pierre Baldi, Rina Dechter, Ramesh Jain, Padhraic Smyth
- International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR) Fellow – Ramesh Jain
- Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineering (IEEE) Fellows – Nikil Dutt, Michael Goodrich, Ramesh Jain
- Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) Fellow – Jessica Utts
- American Psychological Society (APS) Fellow – Gary Olson
- American Psychological Association (APA) Fellow – Gary Olson
- Association for Psychological Science (APS) Fellow – Jessica Utts
- Automated Software Engineering (ASE) Fellow – David Redmiles, Debra Richardson
- American Statistical Association (ASA) Fellows – David van Dyk, Wesley Johnson, Hal Stern, Jessica Utts
- Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) Fellows – Jessica Utts, David van Dyk
- Royal Statistical Society Fellow – Wesley Johnson
- Fulbright Scholars – Gloria Mark, Gene Tsudik
- Radcliffe Fellow – Rina Dechter
- IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award – Michael Goodrich
- AMIA Diane Forsythe Award – Paul Dourish
- Humboldt Research Award – Alfred Kobsa
- Chancellor’s Professors – Pierre Baldi, Nikil Dutt, Michael Goodrich, Richard Taylor
- Bren Professors – Michael Carey, Ramesh Jain, Gary Olson, Judy Olson
Statistics
- Faculty: 69
- Undergraduate enrollment: 790
- Graduate enrollment: 310
