The department of Mathematics and Computer Science provides a curriculum in computer science that prepares students for graduate study, and a career in the computing industry. In addition, it offers a technological background for all liberal arts students, and as a basic tool for students entering a wide variety of vocations.

The department offers Bachelor of Science degrees in Computer Science, and in Information Systems. A minor in Computer Science is available.

 LSU Computer Science Professor Publishes Textbook

Hot off the press is the new textbook “Digital Logic and Microprocessor Design with VHDL” by Enoch O. Hwang, Ph.D., associate professor of computer science at La Sierra University. The textbook is published by Thomson and is intended to provide both a definition of the essential principles of digital logic design, and how these basic principles are applied in the building of intricate microprocessor circuits using current technologies. It is ready to be implemented in classrooms throughout the United States.

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 Dr. Barbara Kreaseck attends LEGO Mindstorms workshop

Dr. Barbara Kreaseck attended a LEGO Mindstorms workshop in Philadelphia this Summer. The workshop was held on the campus of Villanova University at the end of June, 2004, and was entitled "Learning Outside the (Desktop) Box: LEGO MindStorms in CC2001". As a participant of the workshop, Dr. Kreaseck not only brainstormed about how to use robotics-inspired problems as a pedagogical tool for grounding abstract topics within certain computer science courses, she got to play with LEGOs, too! Three language environments were covered: Java, C/C++, and Common Lisp. She returned with a LEGO kit, and plans to incorporate robotics-inspired problems during her Programming Languages course in the Fall quarter, 2004.

 Dr. Barbara Kreaseck spends summer, 2004, at Argonne National Labs

Dr. Barbara Kreaseck spent ten weeks this summer at Argonne National Labs in Argonne, IL, a suburb of Chicago. She contributed to the Open Analysis project in collaboration with Michelle Strout and Paul Hovland. Her focus was on data-flow analysis for MPI programs that considers the semantics of communication. With the functionality that they have put in place, they hope to be able to perform more accurate activity analysis in MPI programs. One of their overall goals is to improve the effect of code generated by automatic differentiation tools.