Computer Science

CS Faculty

Craig E Wills

Craig E Wills

Department Head & Professor

Department Head

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 234

Phone: 508-831-5357, 508-831-5622

My research has primarily focused on Internet application performance and measurement with more recent work examining issues related to Internet privacy. This work has led to a number of research publications and presentations as well as visibility in venues such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and NPR Science Friday. WPI is a great place for me to be a faculty member as I have the opportunity to teach and advise top-quality students as well as pursue interesting directions of research. ... View Profile
Emmanuel O. Agu

Emmanuel O. Agu

Associate Professor

Coordinator, Mobile Graphics Research Group

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 139

Phone: 508-831-5568

Emmanuel Agu is currently an associate professor in the computer science department at WPI having received his Masters and PhD in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His research interests are in the areas of computer graphics, mobile computing, and wireless networks. He is especially interested in research into how to use a smartphone as a platform to deliver better healthcare. ... View Profile

Joseph E. Beck

Associate Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 138

Phone: 508-831-6156

Joseph Beck, assistant professor of Computer Science, has been at WPI since 2007. His research focuses on educational data mining, a new discipline that develops techniques for analyzing large educational data sets to make discoveries that will improve teaching and learning. His work centers on estimating how computer tutors impact learning. He established the first workshop in the field and in 2008 was program co-chair of the first International Conference on Educational Data Mining. ... View Profile

David Brown

Computer Science

Phone: 508-831-5618, 508-831-5357

Michael J. Ciaraldi

Michael J. Ciaraldi

Senior Instructor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 129

Phone: 508-831-5117

Since 1999 I have been Professor of Practice at WPI in Computer Science and Robotics Engineering. The greatest thing about working at WPI is the chance to work with the students on so many different projects, so it is always interesting. Some of these have included Moonraker (winner of the NASA Lunar Excavation Challenge, 2009), Oryx (winner of the NASA Sample Return Challenge, 2010), and Prometheus (Rookie of the Year at the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition, 2010). My interests include curriculum creation, software development, user interface design, networking, and embedded systems. ... View Profile
Mark Claypool

Mark Claypool

Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs B24

Phone: 508-831-5409

Mark Claypool has been a professor of Computer Science and Interactive Media Game Development at WPI since 1997. Mark has a B.A. in Mathematics from Colorado College and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed conference and journal papers and written two books on computer games. He has chaired several ACM conferences on networks, games and multimedia and served on the technical program committee for over 35 of them. ... View Profile
Joshua M Cuneo

Joshua M Cuneo

Instructor/Lecturer

Computer Science

I'm a transplanted San Francisco hippie who's found his way to New England through Georgia. My interests are in digital media, programming, scientific computing, space exploration, green technology, and the interdisciplinary uses of computing. When not teaching, I enjoy computer programming, reading, creative writing, video production, astronomy, hiking, traveling, and science fiction, among other interests. I also volunteer with FIRST Lego League and with the videography staff at DragonCon in Atlanta. I'm an avid Star Trek fan, but I usually leave my Vulcan ears at home. ... View Profile
Daniel J. Dougherty

Daniel J. Dougherty

Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 231

Phone: 508-831-5621

The common thread running through my teaching and research is the use of mathematical methods---especially methods based on logic---in designing and building systems. Interesting systems are too complex to be understood by informal intuitions, and it can be very powerful to use formal tools to help understand whether the system we are actually building really fulfills our ideas about what it is supposed to do. Tools based on logic can help people build things in a way guided by specification, and indeed they can help people arrive at the right formal specification in the first place. ... View Profile

Mohamed Y. Eltabakh

Associate Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 235

Phone: 508-831-6421

Professor Eltabakh’s research is in the broad area of Database Management Systems and Information Management. In particular, his work is in the areas of query processing and optimization, indexing techniques, scientific data management, and large-scale data analytics. Prof. Eltabakh is currently exploring possible extensions to both database management systems and Hadoop framework to support scientific applications and health-care systems. He is a member of the Database Systems Research Group (DSRG) and a faculty member of the Bioinformatics and Computational Biology (BCB) program. ... View Profile
Loris Fichera

Loris Fichera

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: 85 Prescott 223A

My research interests are in the application of robotics and computer science to enhance medicine, and particularly surgery. What gets me out of bed in the morning is the prospect of helping doctors save lives and improve the quality of life of their patients. My students and I work side-to-side with clinical collaborators to create technology that presents a tangible clinical value – for instance, making an existing surgical procedure more accurate or enabling new procedures that are not feasible with current instrumentation. ... View Profile
Kathryn Fisler

Kathryn Fisler

Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 130

Phone: 508-831-5118

In both teaching and research, I'm fascinated by how people understand systems and concepts. I love teaching introductory courses, with their challenge to help students gain the perspective of a new field. My research touches on various topics at the intersection of people and how they understand computational systems. ... View Profile
Michael A. Gennert

Michael A. Gennert

Professor

Computer Science

Office: 85 Prescott 203

Phone: 508-831-5476

I teach and conduct research to solve problems that will make the world better: safer, healthier, and happier. Working with undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, and other faculty, we develop robots to inspect trees for invasive insect pests, autonomous boats for monitoring lakes, or medical imaging to improve cancer and heart disease diagnoses and treatment. In my spare time I like to hike, bike, ski, canoe, and play frisbee. View Profile
Tian Guo

Tian Guo

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 138

I am an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I completed my Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts Amherst advised by Prof. Prashant Shenoy in 2016. I am a system builder. My research is about modeling system behaviors, especially these of large scale systems, and to build prototypes that help to empirically evaluate system's behaviors. Broadly, I am interested in designing systems to handle new trade-offs in cost, performance and efficiency. ... View Profile
Glynis M. Hamel

Glynis M. Hamel

Senior Instructor

Teaching Assistant Coordinator, Computer Science

Computer Science

Office: Fuller labs 132

Phone: 508-831-5252

Courses in the Computer Science department at WPI are always evolving; as an instructor, I'm never satisfied that I've found the "right" way to teach a course. The basic skills that are covered in our introductory curriculum - design, problem solving, testing, and documentation - are skills that serve all students, not just Computer Science majors. We try to offer courses that students find relevant and useful, and to provide examples that allow students to apply what they've learned to problems in their own disciplines. ... View Profile
Lane T Harrison

Lane T Harrison

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller 136

Phone: 980-200-8363

Information visualization is a powerful means for understanding data and informing human minds. As people begin to rely on visualizations to make high-impact and even life-critical decisions, there is a growing need to ensure that information can be perceived accurately and precisely. My research addresses these challenges by leveraging cognitive and perceptual principles to quantify and model user performance with visualizations. ... View Profile
Neil Heffernan

Neil Heffernan

Professor

Director, Learning Sciences & Technologies

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 237

Phone: 508-831-5569

Neil T. Heffernan enjoys doing educational data mining and running the ASSISTments system. ASSISTments helps schools teach better. It’s a web service hosted at WPI that allows teachers to assign nightly homework or daily class work. Students get instant feedback while teachers get live reports. Professor Heffernan enjoys supervising WPI students in creating ASSISTments content and features. He has  6 dozens paper in educational data mining, and 20+ papers in comparing different ways to optimize student learning. ... View Profile
George T. Heineman

George T. Heineman

Associate Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs B20

Phone: 508-831-5502

Computer programming makes it possible to solve problems that otherwise could never be attempted. You can create worlds that could never be possible and help make this world a better place. Most of my professional and personal accomplishments were possible directly because of my understanding and practice of computer programming. For me, programming led me to appreciate fundamental concepts in computer science and directed me to major in CS. I've always been passionate about the possibilities of computer programming; this forms the basis for all of my teaching. ... View Profile
Micha Hofri

Micha Hofri

Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 133

Phone: 508-831-5357, 508-831-6911

Although my title is professor of computer science, and I have been doing this for a long time now, my education started with physics, and for the doctorate was in industrial engineering. To this day I view computer science as a wonderful blend of math and engineering; mathematical engineering should be my job description. I came to WPI more than 10 years ago and have found a home here. I have been teaching a variety of courses that mix software and mathematics, from discrete math to several flavors of courses on algorithms and their analysis. ... View Profile

Robert Kinicki

Computer Science

Phone: 508-831-5357, 508-831-6116

Xiangnan Kong

Xiangnan Kong

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: Atwater Kent Laboratories, 125

Professor Kong’s research interests focus on data mining and big data analysis, with emphasis on addressing the data variety issues in biomedical research and social computing. Data today involves an increasing number of data types that need to be handled differently from conventional data records, and an increasing number of data sources that need to be fused together. Dr. Kong is particularly interested in designing algorithms to tame data variety issues in various research fields, such as biomedical research, social computing, neuroscience, and business intelligence. ... View Profile
Dmitry Korkin

Dmitry Korkin

Associate Professor

Director, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Program

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Laboratories, BL22

My research is interdisciplinary and spans the fields of bioinformatics of complex disease, computational genomics, systems biology, and biomedical data analytics. We bring expertise in machine learning, data mining and massive data analytics to study molecular mechanisms underlying genetic disorders, such as cancer, diabetes, and autism, and deadly infections, such as pandemic flu. Our approaches benefit from integrating Next Generation Sequencing, high-throughput interactomics, and structural biology data. ... View Profile
Hugh C Lauer

Hugh C Lauer

Teaching Professor

Computer Science

Office: 144 Fuller Labs

Phone: 508-831-5493

I came to WPI after more than 30 years in industry. Prior to my industrial career, I earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie-Mellon University and spent five years as a member of the faculty at University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in Great Britain. I joined the WPI Computer Science Department in 2006, initially on a course-by-course basis and later as a regular part-time member of the teaching faculty. This is a realization of my lifelong goal to "retire" into teaching. Of course, teaching at WPI is, in no sense, "retirement. "Why WPI? ... View Profile
Kyumin Lee

Kyumin Lee

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 130

Phone: 508-831-6826

Dr. Lee’s research interests are in social computing, data science and mining, and cybersecurity over large-scale networked information systems like the Web, social media and crowd-based systems. His research focus has both a positive and a negative dimension. On the one hand, Dr. Lee focuses on threats to these systems and designs methods to mitigate negative behaviors; on the other hand, he looks for positive opportunities to mine and analyze the systems for developing next generation algorithms and architectures that can empower decision makers. View Profile
Yanhua Li

Yanhua Li

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: Atwater Kent Laboratories, 130

My broad research interests are in analyzing, understanding, and making sense of big data generated from various complex networks in many contexts, including urban network analysis, large-scale network data sampling, measurement, online social behavior modeling. My recent research focuses on exploring the challenges in managing and analyzing big data from urban networks, with an ultimate goal of improving human life quality and designing smarter cities. ... View Profile
Suzanne I Mello-Stark

Suzanne I Mello-Stark

Associate Teaching Professor

CyberCorps: Scholarship for Service Program Manager

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Laboratories, 21B

My current research focuses on digital forensics, cryptography, security and networking implementations in current election technologies.  Each election, voters rely on machines from proprietary vendors to carry out democracy.  We cast our vote and walk away with no evidence that our vote has become part of the official tally. One important characteristic of teaching computer science successfully is exposing students to real world problems.  In my opinion, this is an exciting real world problem that has not been solved. Join me! ... View Profile
Rodica Neamtu

Rodica Neamtu

Associate Teaching Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs FL-235

Rodica Neamtu is a data mining researcher who investigates how to develop and leverage ground-breaking techniques to explore time series data-sets at the confluence of theoretical computer science and application domains like medicine, economics and education. She has more than fifteen years of teaching experience in various academic institutions. She is committed to use her love and talent for teaching and research to empower others through education to make a difference in the world. View Profile
Carlo Pinciroli

Carlo Pinciroli

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: 85 Prescott 223B

In 2005 I obtained a Master's degree in Computer Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, Italy and a Master's degree in Computer Science at University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA. I then worked for one year for Iriscube Reply S.p.A. as an IT consultant in several projects for Banca Woolwich, Barclays Bank PLC group. In 2006 I joined IRIDIA, Université Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium under the supervision of Prof. Marco Dorigo. While at IRIDIA, I obtained a Diplôme d'études approfondies in 2007 and a PhD in applied sciences in 2014; I also completed a 8-month post-doctoral period. ... View Profile

Gary F. Pollice

Adjunct Istructor/Lecturer

Computer Science

Carolina Ruiz

Carolina Ruiz

Associate Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 232

Phone: 508-831-5640

Carolina Ruiz's research interests are in data mining, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Together with her graduate and undergraduate students, colleagues in computer science and biology, and medical doctors, Ruiz investigates and develops data mining algorithms for genomics and for clinical medicine. In addition to being a faculty member in computer science, she is a founder and active member of the bioinformatics and computational biology program at WPI. She enjoys teaching courses, and advising undergraduate and graduate research projects in data mining and machine learning. View Profile
Elke A. Rundensteiner

Elke A. Rundensteiner

Professor

Director of Data Science

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 135

Phone: 508-831-5815

My research focuses on how to make use of data and information in an effective manner, towards achieving goals in business, scientific discovery, health services, or in personal endeavors. With the inter-connectivity of the internet, the availability of computing power, and big data everywhere, access to the right piece of information at the right moment, possibly fused together from numerous information sources, remains one of the most critical capabilities that can set you apart from others. ... View Profile
Gabor N Sarkozy

Gabor N Sarkozy

Professor

Director of the Budapest Project Center

Computer Science

Office: 100 Institute Road

Phone: 508-831-5408, 508-831-5358

My research interests are in graph theory, discrete mathematics, and theoretical computer science. I am especially interested in studying the structure of very large graphs,; an area that is getting more and more important these days. I enjoy teaching at WPI; in particular, I enjoy the project experience. I am the founder and director of the Budapest Project Center, the first and only WPI Project Center in Eastern Europe. I love sports, especially tennis and soccer. View Profile
Douglas Selent

Douglas Selent

Assistant Teaching Professor

Computer Science

Doug Selent has worked with Neil Heffernan and the ASSISTments online tutoring system. His research has primarily been focused on several aspects related to large scale experimentation in online tutoring systems. He has developed a machine-learning algorithm to learn the incorrect processes students make from the students answer and the inputs of the problem and conducted several randomized controlled experiments in the ASSISTments system using this information to help students learn from their mistakes. ... View Profile
Craig A. Shue

Craig A. Shue

Associate Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 236

Phone: 508-831-4933

I am interested in computer networking and security. Given the significance of the Internet in our economy and society, I am interested in improvements and studies that can have a real-world impact. My work has included building network architecture and Internet-scale measurements to identify security weaknesses and under-provisioned systems that could cause widespread website outages if attacked, or if they simply failed. In my research work, I am exploring ways to change the traditional computer network communication model. ... View Profile
Candace L. Sidner

Candace L. Sidner

Research Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Laboratories, 140

I'm a research professor at WPI, which means I participate in research activities with students and faculty. I am a computer scientist, and my specialties include natural language processing, AI, intelligent user interfaces, and human-robot interaction. I find students at WPI are excellent to work with! My job is to introduce them to new ideas, and then I find they run with those ideas in new directions. I have led with Prof. Charles Rich a large NSF project about creating virtual agents and robotic agents that "live" in people's homes for long periods of time as companions. ... View Profile
Gillian Smith

Gillian Smith

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs B23

Dr. Smith's research interests are in computational creativity, game design, computer science education, and the intersection of traditional crafts and computation. Her interdisciplinary work merges technical research in AI and HCI with creative practice in textiles and games, with a view towards addressing social issues and broadening participation and perspectives on computing. ... View Profile
Krishna Kumar Venkatasubramanian

Krishna Kumar Venkatasubramanian

Assistant Professor

Collaborative Appointment with ECE Department

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Laboratories, 137

Phone: 508-831-6571

My research interests are in Security for Medical Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and Internet of Things (IoT). I am particularly interested in preserving user safety in the presence of malicious actors, for a variety of CPS and IoT applications. My current work is focused on mitigating sensory-channel attacks on wearable systems; transparent authentication for AR head-mounted displays; environment-coupled information security solutions for body area networks; developing an alarm system for interoperable medical device systems; and building secure residential IoT systems. ... View Profile
Robert J. Walls

Robert J. Walls

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Labs 147

Dr. Walls' research interests lie at the intersection of security and digital forensics. In part, he seeks to analyze and secure the large-scale, complex, inter-connected systems underpinning critical internet services. His past efforts have focused on multiple aspects of this problem, including the development of novel data collection methodologies, the analysis of partially structured data, and the transition of research results into practical tools and techniques. Before joining WPI, Dr. Walls worked as a postdoctoral scholar at Penn State University. ... View Profile
Jacob Richard Whitehill

Jacob Richard Whitehill

Assistant Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Laboratories, 238

My research interests are in machine learning and data science, as well as their applications to effective computing and education. My work is highly interdisciplinary and frequently intersects cognitive science, psychology, and education. Before joining WPI, I was a research scientist at the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning at Harvard University. In 2012, I co-founded Emotient, a San Diego-based startup company for automatic emotion and facial expression recognition. ... View Profile
Wilson Wong

Wilson Wong

Assistant Teaching Professor

Computer Science

Office: Fuller Laboratories, B19

Phone: 508-831-5706

Prior to entering academia, I worked as Chief Technologist, Director of Information Systems, and Director of Technical Operations at various corporations in the information systems and software field. For the past 16 years teaching in university courses, I have aimed to impart this industry experience in my software engineering and databases courses by incorporating real life projects, examples, and whenever possible, collaborations with business organizations such as Brigham & Women's Hospital, the US Treasury, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital. ... View Profile
Jing Xiao

Jing Xiao

Director, Robotics Engineering Program

Deans' Excellence Professor and William B. Smith Distinguished Fellow in Robotics Engineering

Computer Science

Office: 85 Prescott Street, Suite 201

My research spans robotics, haptics, multi-modal perception, and artificial intelligence, at the intersection of computer science and engineering. There are two highly related themes in my robotics research: one is the focus on “contact sport”, i.e., the contact and interaction between a robot or a part/tool it holds and the environment, and the other is real-time adaptiveness of robots to uncertainty and uncertain changes in an environment based on perception. ... View Profile

CS Office Staff and Lab Managers

Nicole Caligiuri

Nicole Caligiuri

Administrative Assistant V

Computer Science

Refie Cane

Refie Cane

Graduate Admin Coordinator

Computer Science

Phone: 508-831-5357

Christine Caron

Administrative Assistant VI

Computer Science

Phone: 508-831-5678

Tricia Desmarais

Grant Specialist

Computer Science

Phone: 508-831-6470

John Leveillee

John Leveillee

Lab Manager I

Computer Science

Phone: 508-831-5822

David Magid

ASSISTments Systems Staff

Computer Science

Phone: 508-831-6189

Michael Voorhis

Lab Manager II

Computer Science

Phone: 508-831-5668, 508-831-5674

Associated Faculty

Please note: All phone extensions start with +1-508-831-.

First Name Last Name Title Email Phone Extension Office Location
Ivon Arroyo Affiliated Faculty iarroyo@wpi.edu 6715 Salisbury Labs 317A
Jerry Breecher Adjunct Professor breecher@wpi.edu 5357 Fuller Laboratories 243
Thomas F. Gannon Adjunct Associate Professor tgannon@wpi.edu 5357 Fuller Laboratories 243
Karen A. Lemone Associate Professor Emeritus kal@wpi.edu 5529 Fuller Laboratories
Keith Pray Adjunct Instructor kap@wpi.edu 0926  
Stanley M. Selkow Professor Emeritus sms@wpi.edu 5357 Fuller Laboratories
Jitendra Singh Adjunct Professor jsingh@wpi.edu 5357 Fuller Laboratories