Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering Division


Message from the Dean


KAUST’s Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering (MCSE) Division plays a central role in the research, teaching, and outreach of the University both because its intellectual domains are evolving rapidly and powerfully at their frontiers and because they are critical “enabling technologies” for all other sciences and engineering. MCSE is host to the mathematical sciences, computer science, and computational science and engineering (CS&E), the latter being a newly recognized discipline partly in the intersection of the first two that goes beyond either in its integration with applications.

Mathematics and computer science are core disciplines providing precise expression and reproducible codification of knowledge in all other areas of science and engineering through their universal abstractions.

CS&E is new relative to the time of formation of the world’s great universities, having ridden the rising tide of high performance computing into maturity over just the past two decades. KAUST has placed it at its scientific core, and has been endowed with two world-class facilities – a computer that ranks No. 5 in global academia and an immersive insonified CAVE that ranks No. 1. CS&E has emerged as an essential “third pillar” of scientific discovery and engineering design – along with theory and experiment – and the MCSE Division strives to understand and communicate its potential, and to fully exploit its advances.

Simulation is critical in areas where models are well established, such as many areas of fluid, structural, and molecular dynamics, and wherever the primary limit to progress is in the computational resolution of the system.  Exploration of massive data sets is important in areas where models are yet to be established, such as many areas of bio- and nano-science.  Both are computer-intensive and require research on new mathematical algorithms and new software implementations for increasingly heterogeneous computer architectures.

KAUST will contribute to the merging of models and data, to quantify uncertainty, identify parameters, control, optimize, and assimilate data (e.g., from a network of sensors).  Managing an oil reservoir is just one example of an application in which these methods combine in a vertically integrated manner.

“Sustainability through supercomputing” characterizes the mission of MCSE. Our researchers are modeling and analyzing the systems, creating the algorithms, building the cloud computing technology, mining the data, and visualizing the results for systems spanning energy and environment, on scales from nanoparticles to the terrestrial atmosphere.

Our history is all before us, and we invite you to come make it with us, as a degree candidate, a postdoc or research scientist, a faculty member; or as a collaborator or visitor. Though we are intellectually well connected to our parent departments at Stanford University, from whom we have our core curriculum, and other Global Collaborative Research partners, we are reinventing the structure of the research university through matrix project management and stable long-term funding that provides headroom for bold, high-risk, high-return research. Where glowing golden sands meet dazzling azure sea, discoverers flourish and new ideas are nourished.  Join our diverse, international team to expand our understanding of the universe around and the bigger universe within.

Dr. David Keyes
Dean

 

Mailing Address

Mathematical and Computer Sciences and Engineering Division
Al-Khawarizmi (Building 1), Level 4, Room 4116
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
4700 King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

 

Division Contact

Ms. Aida Hoteit, Graduate Program Coordinator
E-mail:
Telephone: +966 (02) 808-0327