Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering Division

Degree Programs

The Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering (MCSE) Division is responsible for educational activities, degree-granting programs, and research in two programs and one integrated discipline:

Applied Mathematics and Computational Science emphasizes the fundamentals of modeling, analysis, and computation to pose and solve problems across many other disciplines. Main areas of study include numerical analysis, differential equations, optimization, and stochastic methods, with diverse application fields such as:

  • Combustion
  • Seismology
  • Medicine
  • Geometric modeling

The program prepares students for success in analyzing quantitative problems arising in a variety of areas and leads to the frontiers of computational mathematics in four tracks: Geometric Modeling and Scientific Visualization; Information Science, Modeling and Numerical Simulation; Operations Research; and Partial Differential Equations.

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Computer Science is aligned with KAUST’s mission to advance science and engineering through bold and collaborative research. Particular emphasis is placed on key drivers in scientific discovery and engineering design, including large-scale simulation and large-scale data sets from sensors and the Internet. The division emphasizes such areas of study as:

  • Visualization
  • Algorithms
  • Databases
  • Networks

The program prepares students for success in creating and applying computational methods to a variety of areas in four tracks of study: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Systems, High Performance Computing, and Theoretical Computer Science. Course preparation emphasizes the fundamental and enabling aspects of information technology at multiple levels – hardware and software, compute-intensive and data-intensive. In addition, KAUST computer scientists contribute to the University’s cyber-infrastructure and collaborate in specific applied research campaigns with other divisions.

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Computational Science and Engineering, a special focus area, is a newly recognized discipline that exists at the intersection of applied math and computer science and goes beyond either of these disciplines in its integration with science and engineering applications. Whereas mathematics and computer science are represented as core disciplines at nearly all major research universities and link other areas of science and engineering through universal abstractions, KAUST places a unique and distinct priority on computational science and engineering.

This discipline is new to academia, relative to time of formation of today’s university curricula, and has grown along with the maturity of high-performance computing over the past two decades. Computational Science and Engineering has emerged in industrial and governmental laboratories as an essential third pillar, along with theory and experiment, of scientific discovery and engineering design.

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Degrees

The MCSE Division offers KAUST students the opportunity to earn master’s and doctoral degrees in its program areas.

Requirements for the Ph.D. degree:

  • Minimum of 36 credits
  • Must make a significant and original contribution to research
  • Must pass a qualifying exam, preliminary exam, and final dissertation defense
  • Typical duration is three years beyond the master’s degree

Requirements for the master’s degree

  • Minimum of 30 credits (generally comprised of 10 courses)
  • Four designated core courses, as well as a minimum of three immersion courses and one specialty course from the student’s major area.
  • Typical duration is three semesters

The Graduate Program Guide provides detailed information about degree requirements.