A message from the CS Department Head
This might seem like a strange time to send out our first newsletter to let you all know what we’ve been up to in the CS Department. This past year for us looked like it did for so many of you: a lot of time on Zoom.

And a lot of time worrying about our friends and family. 

And a lot of time thinking about what truly matters. 

This past year has been a stress test on how important our relationships and community are - and while I’m always eager to know what you all are up to and hear how you’ve been, the value of our CS network has never felt so important as it does now. And while JMU plans to be back in person in the fall, I think Zoom will continue to be a part of our department - which means we’re in a better position to invite you to events, meetings, and conversations! 

If you’re interested, I hope we can find new ways for you to engage with our CS community. I also hope we can throw an Alumni Party in the near future!

And while our courses have been almost exclusively online this past year, there have been some exciting changes: 

Changes in CS Faculty
The department has hired several new faculty members. This past year, Dr. Zhuojan Duan, Dr. Chris Johnson, Dr. Kirsten Richards and Mr. Phil Riley joined the department. This year we hired Dr. Sunny Haque and Dr. Siddharth Bhaskar, who will start next year. They all bring expertise in excellent teaching and scholarship in a variety of fields. Dr. Chris Fox, after 29 years of service, and Dr. Mike Norton, after 22 years of service, are retiring. 

We will miss them but glad to have had them as colleagues and value all the contributions they made to the department. We are now a faculty of 19 and will be adding more faculty lines next year.  

Department Renovations
The department has had significant renovations to our teaching, study and lab spaces, and we will have more renovations this summer. Some highlights: we will have a new undergraduate research area where numerous groups of students can work together, an Architecture/Mobile Lab, and a HCI/Web Lab, classrooms designed for active learning.

One thing I think many of you will find exciting, we have card swipes on all the labs for after-hours access. Also, we have shined up our spaces - JMU scenery and student photographs line our walls, as well as purple everywhere!

CS Student Body
Our department is growing not only in faculty and space, we are also growing in our number of students. We currently have around 600 majors and our graduating class is growing; this year we are set to have 94 students graduate this May. Despite all of our growth, we are proud to have kept all our class sizes to 30 students or less, and we have a strong, vibrant CS community.

Looking to the future, we are excited to find new ways to connect with you! Please fill out our survey on ways you would be interested in connecting with the CS department. In particular, we’re looking forward to building a mentorship program for our current students. We are also open to other ideas that will be valuable to you all as CS alumni!


Stay well,
Sharon Simmons, Department Head
Computer Science at James Madison University
 
Department Highlights
  • We're created a new partnership with Virginia Tech to offer an Accelerated Masters for our CS students.


  • Dr. Nicki Washington was our guest speaker for this year's DIGITAL event to foster high school girls' interest in tech.
Dr. Mayfield teaches on Discord
All of our faculty have worked hard to create great online courses during the pandemic. One of the greatest successes this year has been Dr. Mayfield's integration of Discord as the central point of communication for his CS 159 sections.
Renovations to the Department
The department is in the midst of renovating and expanding our labs, teaching spaces, study and meeting areas, and faculty offices!

We are one of 11 state universities to receive Tech Talent funding from the Commonwealth to help meet the growing need for CS graduates.

We're focusing on expanding in a way that ensures the same high standard of education and close relationship between our students and CS faculty.
Of course Dr. Lam has turned his guest room into a production studio to support his transition to online teaching. He and Dr. Bowers both experimented with using Twitch and OBS to stream their courses and support student interaction.
Alumnus Spotlight: Zaid Zara ('12)
I’m at Princeton working on a PhD in Psychology and doing my research in the Neuroscience Department on the intersection of machine learning and cognitive science. My recent work is about using language models from machine learning to understand how the brain processes language.

I always wanted to use CS as a tool to understand something else. As computer scientists, we have the expertise to build systems or solve technical problems, and you get to choose where to apply this tool.
Alumna Spotlight: Marissa Halpert ('14)
I’m a Solutions Architect for Arc XP, a division of The Washington Post. In my role, I work with clients pre- and post-sales to understand their pain points and needs in relation to their legacy systems. I then take that knowledge to design their Arc XP instance, solve those pain points, and meet their content management and digital experience needs.

It’s my dream job that I didn’t know existed! I think that’s fairly common: many undergraduate students don’t know of all the roles that actually exist in the tech industry.
Dr. Weikle holds tailgate office hours
In order to connect with our students and support both their learning and their safety, Dr. Weikle has been holding her office hours tailgate-style in our parking lot.

COVID-19 has impacted our work in unprecedented ways, but we're committed to maintaining the close student-faculty relationships that define our Computer Science department.
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James Madison University | Department of Computer Science