Research Areas

Faculty and students in the University of Idaho Computer Science Department are actively engaged in several significant research areas. A synopsis of the primary areas are provided below. In addition to conducting research, we consider it our responsibility to disseminate the results of our work through high quality scientific publications. As an integral part of our graduate student mentoring we strive to engage our students our research and in the publication process. The following links provide access to some of our work:

    Recent publications by our faculty and students.

    Theses and Dissertations produced by our graduate students.

Information Assurance & Computer Security

Computer Science faculty and students at the University of Idaho have been actively engage in researching theory, tools and techniques to enhance security of computer systems, information transmission, and information protection. To find out more about current activities visit the Center for Secure and Dependable System (CSDS) web site.

Our faculty and students have also designed and implemented a hands-on laboratory where students can investigate threats to and protection of computer system.  For more information visit the RADICL Lab web site.

Participating Faculty: Jim Alves-Foss and Paul Oman

 

 

Survivable Systems Initiative

The survivable systems initiative at the University of Idaho brings together researchers, faculty and students, from different research domains and institutions. The goal of the interdisciplinary collaboration is to advance research that will lead to more survivable systems, in a dynamic, productive and pleasant environment. We view survivable systems in the most general sense, incorporating the aspects traditionally associated with survivability, intrusion tolerance, dependability, safety criticality etc. The research philosophy is “Strength through Collaboration”.

For more information visit the Survivable Systems Initiative Web Site web site.

Participating Faculty: Roger Alexander, Greg Donohoe, Robert Hiromoto, Clinton Jeffery, Axel Krings, Milos Manic, Mark Manwaring, John Munson, and Bob Rinker

Evolutionary Computation

The evolutionary computation group studies the process of evolving better solutions from a population of potentially good solutions. This is a process similar to a farmer breeding a better cow from a herd of cows. These techniques are useful for complex problems for which no known efficient (polynomial) algorithms exist or where the search space is immense.

Specifically this group has looked at several techniques of breeding protein classifiers for biological problems and training teams of robots to cooperate. The group also works on theory to understand how subtle interactions in a problem representation called epistasis that makes the problems more difficult for these general optimizers.

For more information visit the Initiative for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies (IBEST)  web site.

Participating Faculty: Robert Heckendorn and Terry Soule

Bioinformatics

Faculty and students have studied novel algorithms for phylogenetics and protein classification. Student work has included cancer simulations to study the development of breast cancer at the genetic and cellular levels.

For more information on the University-wide interdisciplinary group of faculty, students, and friends from several disciplines who investigates evolutionary phenomena and the bioinformatics tools to explain them,, visit the Initiative for Bioinformatics and Evolutionary Studies (IBEST)  web site.

Participating Faculty: Robert Heckendorn and Terry Soule

Collaborative Virtual Education

University of Idaho's newest CS faculty member Clint Jeffery wants to make Computer Science a little easier and more fun by virtue of a serious game called CVE (Collaborative Virtual Education). The "game" features social interactions in 3D with instructors and fellow students, along with collaborative IDE tools which will make it easier to get live on-line help. So far, the project has built a simple model of Janssen Engineering Building, where the Computer Science Department is located. The current CVE program development is an NSF-funded open source software project.  To find out more, visit the CVE website.

Participating Faculty: Clinton Jeffery