Courses 2026-27: Computer Science

CS 2 is a demanding course in programming languages and computer science. Topics covered include data structures, including lists, trees, and graphs; implementation and performance analysis of fundamental algorithms; algorithm design principles, in particular recursion and dynamic programming; Heavy emphasis is placed on the use of compiled languages and development tools, including source control and debugging. The course includes weekly laboratory exercises and projects covering the lecture material and program design. The course is intended to establish a foundation for further work in many topics in the computer science option.

This course gives students the conceptual background necessary to construct and analyze programs, which includes specifying computations, understanding evaluation models, and using major programming language constructs (functions and procedures, conditionals, recursion and looping, scoping and environments, compound data, side effects, higher-order functions and functional programming, and object-oriented programming). It emphasizes key issues that arise in programming and in computation in general, including time and space complexity, choice of data representation, and abstraction management. This course is intended for students with some programming background who want a deeper understanding of the conceptual issues involved in computer programming.

First term: a survey emphasizing graph theory, algorithms, and applications of algebraic structures. Graphs: paths, trees, circuits, breadth-first and depth-first searches, colorings, matchings. Enumeration techniques; formal power series; combinatorial interpretations. Topics from coding and cryptography, including Hamming codes and RSA. Second term: directed graphs; networks; combinatorial optimization; linear programming. Permutation groups; counting nonisomorphic structures. Topics from extremal graph and set theory, and partially ordered sets. Third term: syntax and semantics of propositional and first-order logic. Introduction to the Godel completeness and incompleteness theorems. Elements of computability theory and computational complexity. Discussion of the P=NP problem.

This course is intended to give the student a basic understanding of the major hardware and software principles involved in the specification and design of embedded systems. The course will cover basic digital logic, programmable logic devices, CPU and embedded system architecture, and embedded systems programming principles (interfacing to hardware, events, user interfaces, and multi-tasking).

A self-paced lab that provides students with extra practice and supervision in transferring their programming skills to a particular programming language. The course can be used for any language of the student's choosing, subject to approval by the instructor. A series of exercises guide students through the pragmatic use of the chosen language, building their familiarity, experience, and style. More advanced students may propose their own programming project as the target demonstration of their new language skills. This course is available for undergraduate students only. Graduate students should register for CS 111. CS 11 may be repeated for credit of up to a total of nine units.

This course introduces key mathematical concepts used in computer science, and in particular it prepares students for proof-based CS courses such as CS 21 and CS 38. Mathematical topics are illustrated via applications in Computer Science. CS 1 is a co-requisite as there will be a small number of programming assignments. The course covers basic set theory, induction and inductive structures (e.g., lists and trees), asymptotic analysis, and elementary combinatorics, number theory, and graph theory. Applications include number representation, basic cryptography, basic algorithms on trees, numbers, and polynomials, social network graphs, compression, and simple error-correcting codes.

This course introduces the formal foundations of computer science, the fundamental limits of computation, and the limits of efficient computation. Topics will include automata and Turing machines, decidability and undecidability, reductions between computational problems, and the theory of NP-completeness.

This course introduces techniques for the design and analysis of efficient algorithms. Major design techniques (the greedy approach, divide and conquer, dynamic programming, linear programming) will be introduced through a variety of algebraic, graph, and optimization problems. Methods for identifying intractability (via NP-completeness) will be discussed.

Individual research project, carried out under the supervision of a member of the computer science faculty (or other faculty as approved by the computer science undergraduate option representative). Projects must include significant design effort. Written report required. Open only to upperclass students. Not offered on a pass/fail basis.

Supervised research or development in computer science by undergraduates. The topic must be approved by the project supervisor, and a formal final report must be presented on completion of research. This course can (with approval) be used to satisfy the project requirement for the CS major. Graded pass/fail.

Supervised reading in computer science by undergraduates. The topic must be approved by the reading supervisor, and a formal final report must be presented on completion of the term. Graded pass/fail.

The topics covered vary from year to year, depending on the students and staff. Primarily for undergraduates.

Instructor's permission required.

Instructor's permission required.

A self-paced lab that provides students with extra practice and supervision in transferring their programming skills to a particular programming language. The course can be used for any language of the student's choosing, subject to approval by the instructor. A series of exercises guide the student through the pragmatic use of the chosen language, building their familiarity, experience, and style. More advanced students may propose their own programming project as the target demonstration of their new language skills. This course is available for graduate students only. CS 111 may be repeated for credit of up to a total of nine units. Undergraduates should register for CS 11.

This course provides an introduction to Bayesian Statistics and its applications to data analysis in various fields. Topics include: discrete models, regression models, hierarchical models, model comparison, and MCMC methods. The course combines an introduction to basic theory with a hands-on emphasis on learning how to use these methods in practice so that students can apply them in their own work. Previous familiarity with frequentist statistics is useful but not required.

Field experiments are widely used in academia, government and industry to evaluate the effectiveness of changes in social policy, business models, and medical interventions, among others. The course provides an introduction to the design and analysis of field experiments, with applications in each of these domains. The course has an emphasis on hands-on learning in order to build practical skills in real research scenarios. A previous course covering linear regression is a prerequisite for the class.

Advanced digital design as it applies to the design of systems using PLDs and ASICs (in particular, gate arrays and standard cells). The course covers both design and implementation details of various systems and logic device technologies. The emphasis is on the practical aspects of ASIC design, such as timing, testing, and fault grading. Topics include synchronous design, state machine design, arithmetic circuit design, application-specific parallel computer design, design for testability, CPLDs, FPGAs, VHDL, standard cells, timing analysis, fault vectors, and fault grading. Students are expected to design and implement both systems discussed in the class as well as self-proposed systems using a variety of technologies and tools. Given in alternate years;offered 2026-27.

This course explores the major themes and components of modern operating systems, such as kernel architectures, the process abstraction and process scheduling, system calls, concurrency within the OS, virtual memory management, and file systems. Students must work in groups to complete a series of challenging programming projects, implementing major components of an instructional operating system. Most programming is in C, although some IA32 assembly language programming is also necessary. Familiarity with the material in CS 24 is strongly advised before attempting this course.

This class treats Shannon's mathematical theory of communication and the tools used to derive and understand it. The class is organized around fundamental questions and their solutions, leading to central results such as Shannon's source coding, channel coding, and rate-distortion theorems. Quantities that arise en route to these solutions include entropy, relative entropy, and mutual information for discrete and continuous random variables. The course explores the calculation of fundamental communication limits like entropy rate, capacity, and rate-distortion functions under a variety of source and communication channel models (e.g., memoryless, Markov, ergodic, and Gaussian). The course begins with a foundational discussion of the simplest communication scenarios and then expands to include topics like universal source coding, the role of side information in source coding and communications, and the generalization of earlier results to network systems. Network information theory topics include multiuser data compression and communication over multiple access channels, broadcast channels, and multiterminal networks. Philosophical and practical implications of the theory are also explored. This course, when combined with EE 112, EE/Ma/CS/IDS 127, EE/CS 161, and EE/CS/IDS 167, should prepare the student for research in information theory, coding theory, wireless communications, and/or data compression. Part b not offered 2026-27.

This course develops from first principles the theory and practical implementation of the most important techniques for combating errors in digital transmission and storage systems. Topics include highly symmetric linear codes, such as Hamming, Reed-Muller, and Polar codes; algebraic block codes, such as Reed-Solomon and BCH codes, including a self-contained introduction to the theory of finite fields; and low-density parity-check codes. Students will become acquainted with encoding and decoding algorithms, design principles and performance evaluation of codes. Not offered 2026-27.

We are at the beginning of a historic transformation to decarbonize our energy system. This course introduces the basics of power systems analysis: phasor representation, 3-phase transmission system, transmission line models, transformer models, per-unit analysis, network matrix, power flow equations, power flow algorithms, optimal powerflow (OPF) problems, unbalanced power flow analysis and optimization,swing dynamics and stability. Not offered 2026-27.

This course will equip students to engage with active research at the intersection of social and information sciences, including: algorithmic game theory and mechanism design; auctions; matching markets; and learning in games.

This course describes a diverse array of complexity classes that are used to classify problems according to the computational resources (such as time, space, randomness, or parallelism) required for their solution. The course examines problems whose fundamental nature is exposed by this framework, the known relationships between complexity classes, and the numerous open problems in the area.

Introduction to the theory, algorithms, and applications of automated learning. How much information is needed to learn a task, how much computation is involved, and how it can be accomplished. Special emphasis will be given to unifying the different approaches to the subject coming from statistics, function approximation, optimization, pattern recognition, and neural networks.

Statistical Inference is a branch of mathematical engineering that studies ways of extracting reliable information from limited data for learning, prediction, and decision making in the presence of uncertainty. This is an introductory course on statistical inference. The main goals are: develop statistical thinking and intuitive feel for the subject; introduce the most fundamental ideas, concepts, and methods of statistical inference; and explain how and why they work, and when they don't. Topics covered include summarizing data, fundamentals of survey sampling, statistical functionals, jackknife, bootstrap, methods of moments and maximum likelihood, hypothesis testing, p-values, the Wald, Student's t-, permutation, and likelihood ratio tests, multiple testing, scatterplots, simple linear regression, ordinary least squares, interval estimation, prediction, graphical residual analysis.

Basics of information theory: entropy, mutual information, source and channel coding theorems. Basics of coding theory: error-correcting codes for information transmission and storage, block codes, algebraic codes, sparse graph codes. Basics of digital communications: sampling, quantization, digital modulation, matched filters, equalization.

This course examines algorithms and data practices in fields such as machine learning, privacy, and communication networks through a social lens. We will draw upon theory and practices from art, media, computer science and technology studies to critically analyze algorithms and their implementations within society. The course includes projects, lectures, readings, and discussions. Students will learn mathematical formalisms, critical thinking and creative problem solving to connect algorithms to their practical implementations within social, cultural, economic, legal and political contexts. Enrollment by application. Taught concurrently with VC 72 and can only be taken once as CS/IDS 162 or VC 72.

The course assumes students are comfortable with analysis, probability, statistics, and basic programming. This course will cover core concepts in machine learning and statistical inference. The ML concepts covered are spectral methods (matrices and tensors), non-convex optimization, probabilistic models, neural networks, representation theory, and generalization. In statistical inference, the topics covered are detection and estimation, sufficient statistics, Cramer-Rao bounds, Rao-Blackwell theory, variational inference, and multiple testing. In addition to covering the core concepts, the course encourages students to ask critical questions such as: How relevant is theory in the age of deep learning? What are the outstanding open problems? Assignments will include exploring failure modes of popular algorithms, in addition to traditional problem-solving type questions.

Computational cameras overcome the limitations of traditional cameras, by moving part of the image formation process from hardware to software. In this course, we will study this emerging multi-disciplinary field at the intersection of signal processing, applied optics, computer graphics, and vision. At the start of the course, we will study modern image processing and image editing pipelines, including those encountered on DSLR cameras and mobile phones. Then we will study the physical and computational aspects of tasks such as coded photography, light-field imaging, astronomical imaging, medical imaging, and time-of-flight cameras. The course has a strong hands-on component, in the form of homework assignments and a final project. In the homework assignments, students will have the opportunity to implement many of the techniques covered in the class. Example homework assignments include building an end-to-end HDR (High Dynamic Range) imaging pipeline, implementing Poisson image editing, refocusing a light-field image, and making your own lensless "scotch-tape" camera.

Programming distributed systems. Mechanics for cooperation among concurrent agents. Programming sensor networks and cloud computing applications. Applications of machine learning and statistics by using parallel computers to aggregate and analyze data streams from sensors.

Biology is becoming an increasingly data-intensive science. Many of the data challenges in the biological sciences are distinct from other scientific disciplines because of the complexity involved. This course will introduce key computational, probabilistic, and statistical methods that are common in computational biology and bioinformatics. We will integrate these theoretical aspects to discuss solutions to common challenges that reoccur throughout bioinformatics including algorithms and heuristics for tackling DNA sequence alignments, phylogenetic reconstructions, evolutionary analysis, and population and human genetics. We will discuss these topics in conjunction with common applications including the analysis of high throughput DNA sequencing data sets and analysis of gene expression from RNA-Seq data sets.

From game-playing agents to Large Language Models, Reinforcement Learning (RL) has become the engine behind many of the most significant breakthroughs in modern AI. This course provides a rigorous introduction to the mathematical foundations of algorithmic decision-making, moving from multi-armed bandits to reinforcement learning and concluding with special topics on how these principles are applied at scale to AI models and complex high-dimensional problems like robotics.  Through a mixture of mathematical analysis and algorithmic implementation, students will gain the tools to both understand and develop the next generation of decision-making agents. The course expects students to be comfortable with probability, linear algebra, and basic optimization.

This course aims at a quantitative understanding of how the nervous system computes. The goal is to link phenomena across scales from membrane proteins to cells, circuits, brain systems, and behavior. We will learn how to formulate these connections in terms of mathematical models, how to test these models experimentally, and how to interpret experimental data quantitatively. The concepts will be developed with motivation from some of the fascinating phenomena of animal behavior, such as: aerobatic control of insect flight, precise localization of sounds, sensing of single photons, reliable navigation and homing, rapid decision-making during escape, one-shot learning, and large-capacity recognition memory.

This course investigates computation by molecular systems, emphasizing models of computation based on the underlying physics, chemistry, and organization of biological cells. We will explore programmability, complexity, simulation of, and reasoning about abstract models of chemical reaction networks, molecular folding, molecular self-assembly, and molecular motors, with an emphasis on universal architectures for computation, control, and construction within molecular systems. If time permits, we will also discuss biological example systems such as signal transduction, genetic regulatory networks, and the cytoskeleton; physical limits of computation, reversibility, reliability, and the role of noise, DNA-based computers and DNA nanotechnology. Part a develops fundamental results; part b is a reading and research course: classic and current papers will be discussed, and students will do projects on current research topics.

The theory of quantum information and quantum computation. Overview of classical information theory, compression of quantum information, transmission of quantum information through noisy channels, quantum error-correcting codes, quantum cryptography and teleportation. Overview of classical complexity theory, quantum complexity, efficient quantum algorithms, fault-tolerant quantum computation, physical implementations of quantum computation.

Approval of student's research adviser and option adviser must be obtained before registering.

Instructor's permission required.

Instructor's permission required.