To that end, the college now encompasses multiple existing labs and centers, including the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), and multiple academic units, including the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. At the same time, the college has embarked on a plan to hire 50 new faculty members, half of whom will have shared appointments in other departments across all five schools to create a true Institute-wide entity. Those faculty members--two-thirds of whom have already been hired--will conduct research at the boundaries of advanced computing and AI. "We want to do two things: ensure that MIT stays at the forefront of computer science, AI research, and education and infuse the forefront of computing into disciplines across MIT." The new faculty members have already begun helping the college respond to an undeniable reality facing many students: They've been overwhelmingly drawn to advanced computing tools, yet computer science classes are often too technical for nonmajors who want to apply those tools in other disciplines.

"The new appointments reflect growth in core areas of Data Science such as Machine Learning, Mobile Health, Privacy, and Statistics but also …

CSE Assistant Professor Rose Yu, who recently arrived from Northeastern University in Boston, is developing physics-guided machine learning techniques to model spatiotemporal data. She investigates traffic flows, human mobility and fluid dynamics, but her passion for computer science began more humbly. "I think it was because of my love for computer video games," said Yu. "I played a lot of World of Warcraft in high school." That pastime sparked an early interest in computers and later in machine learning. Yu earned her PhD at USC, where she was honored for best dissertation.