About Us

It's an exciting time to be in the discipline of computing. Yes, job opportunities for programmers are vast, and it's true that pay is attractive, but the greatest attraction of computing is the impact it can have on society. Using modern technologies including artificial intelligence, the internet of things, networking, and mobile devices computer scientists can help solve problems large and small. As a computer science or computer engineering student at the Fred DeMatteis School of Engineering and Applied Science, you'll learn the technologies that shape the future.

So, what is computer science and how is it different from computer engineering? Broadly speaking, computer science is concerned with the design of algorithms (software) for processing data. Once you have a computer science degree you typically start working as a software engineer, web/mobile application developer, or a QA tester. A computer engineering program teaches you how to design computing devices and systems. It involves the design of the components (hardware) that make up the system, and the software to make it function. With a computer engineering degree, you might design embedded systems, sensing devices, control systems, etc.

Hofstra's Computer Science Department currently offers four undergraduate degree programs - a BA in Computer Science, a BS in Computer Science, a BS in Computer Engineering, and a BS in Computer Science and Math. We don't publicly highlight programs until they get state approval, so we can add a line here once that happens. Our department currently has 10 full-time faculty members, and we hope to increase that number to 13 within the next five years. All of our full-time faculty have PhDs and undergraduate education is our primary mission. We also encourage our students to participate with us in a wide array of research areas from artificial intelligent and cognitive neuroscience to data mining and data science, system and network security, programming language design, hybrid hardware design and more.

The department has six dedicated labs. The most impressive of these is our $1 million Big Data lab. This single lab has more computational power than the rest of the academic departments combined. It is a state-of-the-art lab with the ability to run 840 threads in parallel, with more than 3 TB of combined RAM, and more than 1 PB of storage space. And, it's open to use by undergraduate students! The other labs serve a wide range of other purposes.

You can find details about our programs, people, labs and more on our website. Or, feel free to reach out to me directly about anything related to the CS Department.

Krishnan Pillaipakkamnatt