Dear UTulsa community,
As The University of Tulsa’s Tandy School of Computer Science continues its transformation, I am pleased to report on our progress in 2024.
Our new data science undergraduate program has tripled in size while its students are embracing the corresponding experiential and service-learning components. At the graduate level, our master’s and doctoral programs continue to thrive and fuel the research efforts led by our faculty.
Professor Brett McKinney, Ph.D., was recently awarded a grant from NASA to apply artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to solar system biosignature detection and modeling ocean world geochemistry. Our faculty and students are also exploring the role of digital twins and extended reality in managing smart installations in the metaverse. These research projects engage our undergraduates, offering them the opportunity to present and publish their research at international workshops.
In 2023, a regional collaboration involving our College of Engineering & Computer Science faculty led to the designation of the Greater Tulsa Region as one of the first 31 Tech Hubs named by the US Economic Development Administration (EDA). The Tulsa Hub for Equitable and Trustworthy Autonomy (THETA) was one of 12 Tech Hub recipients of EDA funding. In the coming year, our faculty will play a key role in developing new educational pathways and pursuing lines of research to support the THETA mission.
This coming year promises to be even brighter than last as we launch UTulsa’s Institute for Robotics and Autonomy, funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. This new institute has an overarching mission to research, design, and develop technologies in the field of robotics and autonomous systems with a special focus on assistive robotics for the elderly.
Faculty and students in the Tandy School of Computer Science are making an impact, locally and globally. We thank you for your continued support.
John Hale, Ph.D.
Tandy Endowed Chair in Bioinformatics and Computational Biology