Introducing the Cornell Ann S. Bowers
College of Computing and Information Science
A transformative gift launches a new era of computing,
information, and data sciences at Cornell
Leading the way in tech innovation
A transformative gift has launched Cornell’s Faculty of Computing and Information Science into its next phase of groundbreaking inquiry and impact.
The nine-figure commitment made by Ann S. Bowers ’59, an early Silicon Valley leader, philanthropist, and longtime Cornell supporter, establishes the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, cementing the college’s status as a leading academic center for tech innovation, radical collaboration, and world-class scholarship.
The gift allows Cornell to leverage pioneering work in computing, information, and statistics and data science—a legacy that was seeded in 1965 when Cornell founded one of the first computer science departments in the country, and then catapulted forward when the university undertook the bold experiment in 1999 to create a combined Faculty of Computing and Information Science (CIS).
Graduate students
Master’s
Ph.D.
Undergraduate majors
Computer Science
Information Science
Statistics and Data Science
Envisioned decades ahead of its time, the integration of the three departments evolved from the understanding that data, computation, and emerging technologies would transform virtually every area of academic inquiry and every aspect of human life.
This fusion, built upon Cornell’s unrivaled strengths spanning computer science, information science, statistics, data science, engineering, and economics, as well as social and behavioral sciences fueled unprecedented innovation and collaboration.
Over the last two decades, CIS at Cornell has created the blueprint for the field of computing and information science.
As other institutions have sought to replicate its work, CIS has continued to push boundaries by broadening and deepening the interactions among its contributing disciplines to develop new understandings, ethical approaches, and technologies for the information age.
Introducing
Ann S. Bowers ’59
Ann led human resources at Intel Corporation in the 1970s and was one of Apple’s first vice presidents in the 1980s.
She spent her career developing and fostering an environment where technologists could thrive.
In addition to her professional accomplishments, Ann has been an active philanthropist for many years—including chairing the board for The Noyce Foundation, which focuses on improving math and science education in public schools.
Ann has served as a trustee and a member of the President’s Council of Cornell Women and numerous Cornell advisory boards. She also chaired the Cornell Silicon Valley advisors, where she passionately sought to galvanize the university’s presence in her Bay Area community.
Cornell Bowers CIS is the first college at the university named for a woman—a fitting honor for a college that showcases and supports strong female leadership. Former Cornell President Martha E. Pollack and Dean Kavita Bala are both computer scientists, and 43% of CIS majors are women—far exceeding the national average.
A powerhouse college
Cornell Bowers CIS comprises three departments—Computer Science, Information Science, and Statistics and Data Science—and has a variety of top-ranked programs and acclaimed research.
This unique structure fuels collaboration across disciplines and the university’s campuses to position Cornell as a leader in developing and driving the visionary research and technological advances that connect people, information, and ideas.
The college’s academic footprint extends well beyond the university’s Ithaca campus. In New York City, its ties with Cornell Tech have created a powerful technology ecosystem that is unique in all of higher education.
Ranked among the best in the world, Cornell’s Department of Computer Science is distinguished both by its contributions to the core challenges of the field and by its interdisciplinary spirit. The department has long excelled in the areas that serve as intellectual foundations: theoretical computer science, programming languages, distributed systems, artificial intelligence, information retrieval, scientific computing, and computer graphics. Among other interdisciplinary areas, it leads in security, reliable computing systems, machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing. Faculty have also pioneered the emerging fields of computational sustainability and computational social science.
Among a myriad of contributions, Cornell researchers are establishing the computing and mathematical framework that supports practical applications from game theory and network modeling that inform large-scale social platforms, to logic and formal verification that help build reliable systems.
The Department of Information Science was born in the early 2000s to address the growing opportunities, interactions, and challenges at the intersection of computing and society. Bolstered by Cornell’s historic, cross-disciplinary strength in computer science and social science, the department has rapidly grown to a position of global leadership.
Information Science is fundamentally concerned with the human-centered aspects of computing and information—ranging from how individuals interact with computing devices, to studying people through their social and information network use, and understanding the way computing systems affect our society and culture. Areas of distinction include: human-computer interaction; computational social science; science and technology studies; ethics, law, and policy; interaction and critical design; network analysis; market and mechanism design; and machine learning and natural language processing. In recent years, the department has added new emphases in digital humanities, accessibility, human-robot interaction, algorithmic fairness, accountability and transparency, information and communication technologies for development (ICTD), and learning analytics.
The Department of Statistics and Data Science’s academic and research programs take advantage of Cornell’s extensive resources, drawing from many colleges and research groups. Its unique cross-college structure encourages collaboration and innovative, interdisciplinary pedagogy in a field that is increasingly central in identifying and addressing the most pressing problems of the modern world through the science of learning from data, and of measuring, controlling, and communicating uncertainty.
The department develops and combines modern statistics methodology with data science and machine learning to advance the biological, physical, and social sciences. Other departmental specializations include mathematical statistics, computational statistics, as well as the development of statistical methods for fields ranging from agriculture, astrophysics, ecology, economics, and epidemiology, to financial modeling, imaging, genomics, medicine, neurobiology, public health, risk management, and the law.
Awards
Cornell Bowers CIS faculty lead in their fields, with honors and awards including:
2
Turing Award Recipients
3
IEEE Von Neumann Medal Recipients
9
Members of the National Academy of Engineering
4
Members of the National Academy of Sciences
7
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
3
MacArthur Fellows
30
ACM Fellows
8
Guggenheim Fellows
30
Sloan Fellows
58
NSF Career Award Fellows
Student Enrollment
Enrollment in Cornell Bowers CIS has grown sixfold over the past decade, with a record 2,000 majors in spring 2022; more than 76% of all Cornell undergraduates take at least one Cornell Bowers CIS class.
%
of Cornell Bowers CIS majors are women
%
of Cornell Bowers CIS majors are underrepresented minorities
A History of Innovation @ Cornell Bowers CIS
1965
Department of Computer Science formed; Juris Hartmanis appointed chair.
Gerard Salton, “the father of information retrieval,” brings his SMART system to Cornell.
1966
First Ph.D. in Computer Science awarded.
1974
Program of Computer Graphics, started under Don Greenberg, receives NSF funding, first of its kind.
1978
Computer Science introduces bachelor’s degrees with partner colleges.
1979
John Hopcroft publishes “Introduction to Automata Theory, Languages, and Computation” with colleague Jeffrey Ullman.
1985
Cornell Theory Center founded, one of only four NSF supercomputer centers.
1991
arXiv founded, an open-access archive of scientific articles.
1999
Faculty of Computing and Information Science established.
2002
Information science Ph.D. program established.
2005
Department of Statistical Sciences joins CIS.
2010
Department of Information Science established.
2011
Cornell Tech wins NYC Competition.
2014
Gates Hall becomes new home for CIS.
2017
Cornell Tech dedicated in New York City.
2019
CIS celebrates 20 years.
Department of Statistics and Data Science established.
2020
Transformative gift from Ann S. Bowers ’59, CIS renamed the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.
2021
Over 1,000 degrees granted.
2022
2,000 undergraduate student majors.
Cornell Bowers CIS: A bold experiment
Cornell University undertook a bold experiment in 1999 when it created its combined Faculty of Computing and Information Science (“CIS”) as an interdisciplinary unit that would ultimately see its people, programs, and projects embedded throughout the university.
Now, 23 years after its founding, Cornell Bowers CIS continues to push boundaries in the information age through its commitment to both developing state-of-the-art computing and information technologies, and in studying and understanding the societal and human impact of these technologies.
Catalyst and Creator of Vital Technologies
With the goal to improve the world by creating an equitable, sustainable future for all, researchers at Cornell Bowers CIS work at the interface where computing and information technology transforms science and policy across engineering, medicine, science, society, and the arts.
An interdisciplinary research team led by Carla Gomes, the Ronald C. and Antonia V. Nielsen Professor of Computing and Information Science, has developed Deep Reasoning Networks (DRNets), which combine deep learning – even using a relatively small amount of data – with an understanding of the subject’s boundaries and rules, known as “constraint reasoning.”
SoNIC – a weeklong summer workshop hosted by Cornell Bowers CIS’ Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – aims to elevate and inspire underrepresented students to pursue graduate studies in tech fields like computing and information science. This year, nearly 30 students from universities across the U.S. met up at Cornell for a crash course in robotics, ultimately developing “smart canes,” assistive technology for the visually impaired.
An autonomous vehicle is able to navigate city streets and other less-busy environments by recognizing pedestrians, other vehicles and potential obstacles through artificial intelligence. Unfortunately, artificial neural networks have no memory of the past and are in a constant state of seeing the world for the first time – no matter how many times they’ve driven down a particular road before.
Researchers are developing new technology to help overcome this limitation by providing the car with the ability to create “memories” of previous experiences and use them in future navigation.
- AI, Machine Learning, and Statistics
- Security, Privacy, and Policy
- Visual Computing, Robotics, Human-Computer Interaction
- Computational Sustainability
- Computational Social Science
- The Initiative For Cryptocurrencies & Contracts (IC3)
- Digital Agriculture
AI, Machine Learning, and Statistics
As a leader in the growing field of artificial intelligence (AI), Cornell is leveraging its interdisciplinary research across the Ithaca campus, as well as with Cornell Tech and Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, to bring AI, machine learning, and data science to bear in areas and applications including: sustainable agriculture; improved urban design and infrastructure; and personalized, precision medicine and health.
To meet the growing needs of these and other practical domains, the work is informing tech development related to recommender systems; chat bots; Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency; augmented reality; and scientific discovery in physics, biology and materials—among many other direct applications.
In November 2021, led by Dean Kavita Bala, the university launched the Cornell AI Initiative to deepen opportunities in the development and application of AI within the field, and across AI-related, and AI-influenced fields.
Security, Privacy, and Policy
Cornell is home to one of the largest and most prolific groups of computer security researchers in the world.
Working with applied and academic partners around the globe, these scientists are helping define a foundation for the future of cybersecurity by designing the technologies, policies, and processes that address security and privacy vulnerabilities at all levels—from the individual and household, to the corporate and global—to establish safer and more efficient computing systems.
Visual Computing, Robotics, Human-Computer Interaction
An early pioneer in the field of computer graphics, Cornell is a leader in the fields of visual computing and in human computer interaction.
Cornell Bowers CIS researchers, designers, and builders are developing the core technologies of virtual and augmented reality and are reimagining the ways that computers and robots can enhance human health, functional ability, and well-being; create greater access and equity; and improve computer interactions.
Collaborations with Cornell Tech and Weill Cornell Medicine are creating opportunities for novel research at the intersection of technology, health applications, and human interactions.
Computational Sustainability
Computational sustainability brings together AI techniques and computational methods to address some of the world’s most pressing environmental and social challenges.
Created at Cornell more than a decade ago, the field has inspired the interest and investment of nearly every major science funder, and spawned a national and international consortium of researchers (CompSusNet) who design sustainable solutions related to climate, conservation, biodiversity loss, renewable energy, and global food security.
Computational Social Science
Cornell Bowers CIS researchers are designing new capabilities for the social platforms that connect everyone, focusing on enhancing the integrity and quality of the resulting interactions, and leveraging the voluminous data generated by these systems to understand the effects of social media on human behaviors and interactions at population scale.
Predominantly pioneered at Cornell, the field thrives on the interdisciplinary spirit and collaborative practices that serve as the hallmarks of the college. As the field expands to incorporate institutions and investigators around the world, Cornell Bowers CIS remains at the forefront in innovating approaches to examine the human experience in new ways.
The Initiative For Cryptocurrencies & Contracts (IC3)
An area of signature strength brings together experts from cryptography, distributed systems, programming languages, game theory, and system security to make cryptocurrencies a safe, secure, and productive part of everyday life.
Researchers are establishing the scientific foundation for efficient, scalable solutions to the issues of cost, reliability, performance, transparency, and confidentiality that must be addressed to realize these goals.
Digital Agriculture
Cornell Bowers CIS researchers are spearheading the Cornell Initiative for Digital Agriculture (CIDA)—a campus- wide effort to harness the power of data and digital-sensing technologies to re-envision how food is produced, processed, and distributed, and to improve food access, security, and communal health throughout the world.
The new Center for Research on Programmable Plant Systems—funded by a five-year, $25 million National Science Foundation grant—will develop technologies connected to the internet and the cloud to listen to and learn how plants sense and respond to their environments.
The information these systems gather will help researchers better understand how to manage nutrients and water, for example, and how microbes work with plants to help them grow.
A New Era
Empowered by Ann S. Bowers’ investment, Cornell Bowers CIS is pursuing a growth strategy that will expand the college’s impact on higher education, technology, and society.
New Building
The Bowers gift provides critical space in a new multi-use building that will house an exemplary environment for teaching, research, interdisciplinary exchange, and interactive learning. In bringing the college’s three departments closer, the building will also further nourish the vibrant computing and information science community thriving at the heart of the Ithaca campus.
The college has contracted with award-winning Boston-based firm, Leers Weinzapfel Associates, to lead the design of the building, which will stand adjacent to Bill & Melinda Gates Hall. Steve Conine ’95 and his wife Alexi Conine ’96, as well as Niraj Shah ’95 and his wife Jill Shah, added to the Bowers gift momentum with a combined $10 million gift in September 2021.
Faculty Expansion
Cornell Bowers CIS faculty are world leaders whose research is expanding fields of inquiry, developing core technologies, and examining the societal, sustainability, and ethical implications of technological innovation.
The college is investing heavily to increase its faculty—with a goal to increase by 50% over the next few years.
Growth at this scale will allow the college to foster research excellence, expand critical and emerging fields, increase opportunities for cross-disciplinary and universitywide collaboration, and respond to overwhelming student interest in the college’s classes and programs.
Niraj Shah ’95 & Steve Conine ’95
Gifts totaling $10 million—$5 million from Steve Conine ’95 and his wife Alexi Conine ’96, and $5 million from Niraj Shah ’95 and his wife Jill Shah—were announced in September 2021.
The combined gift, led by the co-founders of the online home-goods retailer Wayfair, will bolster college growth to support increasing student demand and interest in computing and information science.
Student Experiences and Educational Opportunities
David Kim ’22 works on a robot to assist people with mobility issues
The college provides a solid foundation of technical expertise, strong fundamentals, and theory, preparing students for how to think—both analytically and creatively—to solve problems across multiple domains.
The college attracts and enrolls the best young minds and provides them with first-class engaged learning opportunities, mentoring, and the tools they need to be successful in their chosen fields.
Student app developers enrich life on campus and beyond
Undergraduate enrollment in the college’s majors has grown sixfold over the past decade, with a record 2,000 majors in spring 2022. Notably, more than 76% of Cornell’s 15,500 undergraduates take at least one Cornell Bowers CIS class.
At the graduate level, Cornell Bowers CIS competes internationally for top talent, and alumni go on to shape the future of computing and information technology across academia and industry.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Cornell was an early and enthusiastic leader in dramatically broadening the scope of the technology field to include, support, and advance more women and students from traditionally underrepresented groups.
As a result, the Cornell Bowers CIS student body surpasses the national average for diversity: 43% of computing and information science majors are women, and 16% are underrepresented minorities.
Looking ahead, the college aims to further grow the diversity
of backgrounds, identities, intellectual persuasions, and passions of its students to make those ever more reflective of the world and communities from which they come, and the futures of which they will shape.
Diversity is a foundational priority and three summer offerings – CSMore, SoNIC, Designing Technology for Social Impact Workshop – demonstrate that commitment.