Thank you for visiting us online. It is my pleasure to introduce the School of Computer Science (SoCS) on behalf of Dr. Minglun Gong, who has served as the Director since May 2019. Before coming to Guelph, he was Head of the Computer Science Department at Memorial University, in Newfoundland. His previous teaching experiences were at Memorial University, Laurentian University, University of Alberta, and University of Saskatchewan.

The School of Computer Science was founded in 1971. The School will be celebrating our 50th anniversary in Spring of 2021.
Throughout its history, the School of Computer Science has maintained its focus on undergraduate education and providing opportunities for students.
Our mandate is to develop strong technical and analytical skills in our students using hands-on experience in leading-edge technology.

There are several policies in place for ensuring the best undergrad learning experiences. For example, we require all candidates for our faculty positions to deliver sample lectures during their interviews, so that we can evaluate their teaching skills. We also interview all teaching assistants before they are hired.
Our two Academic Counselors Dr. Greg Klotz and April Nejedly, provide excellent support and experience to our undergraduate students.

We are proud of our dedicated and caring faculty. Two of the School’s faculty members, Dr. Dan Gillis and Dr. Gary Grewal, were recently recognized for their passion and dedication to teaching our students.
Dr. Dan Gillis received the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) teaching award in October 2019. Only four professors from Ontario universities received this prestigious award in 2019.
Dr. Gary Grewal received the University of Guelph Faculty Association (UGFA) Distinguished Professor Award for Excellence in Teaching. Only two professors from across the University received this honour in 2018.

The School of Computer Science has two Bachelor of Computing cooperative education programs which are supported by the Office of Cooperative Education and Career Services.
We are very fortunate to have two co-op coordinators, Ms. Laura Gatto & Ms. Kate McRoberts.
Ms. Gatto received the University of Guelph’s Innovative Leadership Recognition Award in 2019 in recognition of the guidance & coaching she provides to the School of Computer Science co-op students.

If you like clubs and want to get engaged with other students, the School of Computer Science has it all.
Society of Computing & Information Science (SOCIS) is a student-run club and represents the students at large. This club has executive positions that are elected each year by you the students.
One of our popular clubs for female students is the Guelph Women in Computer Science Club otherwise known as GWiCS.
There also clubs that are dedicated to helping students expand their technical expertise outside of classes, including the Guelph Coding Community (GCC) and the Google Developers Student Club.
These clubs run community-building events, host tech talks, study & mentoring sessions, and organize one of the largest College Royal events, Roboticon in March.

Featured in these photos are some of our great students. Below are a few examples of students who were recognized for their engagement & leadership.
Marshall Asch, Lindsay Elliott, Devon Miller, & Lucas Giancola won the Transforming Tomorrow Challenge, a hackathon hosted by McMaster University in January 2019.
Madeline Gabriel & Keefer Rourke won Co-op Student Awards in 2019 for their outstanding performance during co-op internships and for supporting other students in their pursuit of co-op placements.
Marshall Asch won the 2019 Student Experience Award for his role in managing the Guelph Coding Community, facilitating activities with our undergraduate and graduate students, and co-leading the development of an environmental and health monitoring tool used in the Innuit community of Rigolet, Nunavut.

In August 2018, the School of Computer Science moved back into our historical home, the Reynolds Building, after major renovations had been done to modernize and transform our work and teaching spaces.
During these renovations, we improved our long tradition of our focus on undergraduate education by providing resources and allocated state of the art equipment and facilities.
In the photos show are the main entrance to Reynolds, our multimedia classroom used for seminars and group meetings, a graduate student lab, and an undergrad student lab.

Over the past four years, we have welcomed 12 new faculty members to the School of Computer Science.
These experts bring to our School diversity and state-of-the-art research expertise in areas such as machine learning, Human-Computer interaction, cybersecurity, mobile computing, computer vision, and computer graphics.

Even though the School of Computer Science has not historically been well-known for our research we have and are working towards top innovative research. You can see by this recent CSRankings our research reputation has dramatically improved.
Based on CSrankings.org, a well-recognized, metrics-based ranking of universities based on the amount of state-of-the-art research outcomes, Guelph is currently ranked at 12 among 24 Canadian Universities.
We are tied with the University of Queens, University of Manitoba, and University of Ottawa, while ranked higher than Ryerson University, McMaster University, and Western University.

Based on our strengths the School of Computer Science at the University of Guelph is ranked fifth on the CSRanking for Computer Science. These areas of strong expertise include computer vision, mobile computing, algorithms & complexity, computer graphics, and human-computer interaction.

In the Fall 2019 semester, a new professional Master’s program called Master of Cybersecurity and Threat Intelligence was launched. This one-year program offers students the potential for a demanding and exciting career in cybersecurity, cyber threat intelligence, and digital forensics. This program connects the students with leaders in the field through industry advisory board meetings and internship opportunities.
Now that society is spending more time doing activities online and social distancing this program is expected to grow even further, as it meets a strong industry demand for professionals in cybersecurity and threat intelligence.

With increased computer usage there is a higher student demand for computing education. The red curve in the figure shows the increasing number of high school students who applied to the School of Computer Science program over the last four years.
With this increase in enrolment, this has made our Computer Science programs competitive amongst other Universities as shown in our 5th placed ranking on the CSRankings for Computer Science.
Thus, you will be surrounded by equally bright and talented students in your classes.

Thank you for visiting us, we hope to see you soon in the School of Computer Science program on our beautiful University of Guelph campus.
If you have any questions, please feel free to engage with our academic counselors, student, and faculty volunteers.