As chair of the USC Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science, I am delighted and honored to welcome you to our dynamic department, where we share a commitment to developing technology for good and advancing education with real-world impact. 

Established nearly 50 years ago, the department has experienced unprecedented growth. Today, we proudly serve a thriving community of more than 1,600 undergraduate students, 3,500 master’s students, and 400 Ph.D. students, taught by nearly 100 distinguished faculty members, including members of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences, and National Academy of Inventors.  

This remarkable expansion has been accompanied by the opening of our state-of-the-art new home: the Dr. Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Human-Centered Computation Hall. This 116,000-square-foot, LEED Platinum-certified facility unites computer science students, researchers, and experts from across the university, fostering collaboration on critical challenges such as cancer, mental health, cybersecurity, climate change and extreme weather.  

The building stands as a cornerstone of the university’s Frontiers of Computing initiative—a $1 billion investment dedicated to advancing ethical developments in computing and ensuring USC remains at the forefront of high-tech innovation.  

An excellent measure of any department is its ability to recruit outstanding junior faculty, and in recent years, we have welcomed numerous brilliant tenure-track professors, expanding our expertise in areas including machine learning for healthcare and data-intensive systems, cybersecurity, computer vision and graphics, human-robot interaction, computational social choice, and data mining. 

Our newest faculty members’ exceptional achievements have been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, Okawa Foundation Research Grant Award, Intel Rising Star Award, Amazon Research Award and Google Data Analytics and Insights (DANI) Award, among many others. 

Our department is committed to pioneering solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges. USC computer science faculty and students are harnessing AI to predict and combat malnutrition, designing socially assistive robots to enhance mental health treatments, and developing advanced models for optimizing wildfire management.   

As part of this commitment, we continue to innovate in both research and education, fostering a dynamic learning environment where cutting-edge technology meets real-world applications. For example, our USC Games program remains North America’s top-ranked undergraduate game design program, and our online master’s program in information technology consistently ranks among the nation’s best. 

We also place a high value on community, ensuring that every individual within our department has the resources and support to thrive. As a proud member of the LEAP Alliance, we are dedicated to broadening participation in computing and cultivating leadership in the field. 

To prospective scholars and students, I hope you consider joining us on this journey. To all our new students, faculty, and partners, we in the Thomas Lord Department of Computer Science look forward to working with you to make your experience here truly transformative. 

 I invite you to explore highlights of our cutting-edge research on our news page and learn more about our degree programs, courses, and faculty throughout this website.