The Department of Computer Science at IME-USP is a center for teaching, research, and outreach, internationally recognized for its excellence. It offers the Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science (BCC), master’s and doctoral programs in Computer Science, and participates in the Interunit Graduate Program in Bioinformatics, in addition to offering professional development and specialization courses. The department is also responsible for the Introduction to Computing course, which is taught to students from various USP programs and serves more than 2,000 students each year.
The Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science is one of the oldest programs of its kind in Brazil, having been established in 1972. To date, it has graduated more than 1,100 professionals. Many of its alumni now hold prominent positions in research institutions and technology companies. With a duration of four years, the program combines a strong foundational education with an innovative and flexible curriculum, preparing versatile professionals capable of working across a wide range of computing fields.
The department’s master’s and doctoral programs are distinguished by their strong scientific output and the high quality of their dissertations and theses. Many of these works have received awards from the Brazilian Computer Society (SBC) Thesis and Dissertation Competition, the Latin American Master’s Thesis Competition organized by CLEI, and CAPES’s Best Doctoral Thesis Award in Computer Science.
The Department has active researchers in a broad range of Computer Science areas, most of whom are recognized by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) for their research productivity. Its faculty members have received numerous international awards, and the results of their research are regularly published in leading international conferences and scientific journals. Faculty members are also authors and editors of several scientific, technical, and educational books.
With funding provided by FINEP and the Office of the President of the University of São Paulo, the Department built and hosts the Free Software Competence Center, a reference center dedicated to research, development, and dissemination of free and open-source software.
History
The Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science of the University of São Paulo (IME-USP) is composed of four departments: Mathematics (MAT), Statistics (MAE), Applied Mathematics (MAP), and Computer Science (DCC). IME-USP is recognized as a center of excellence by the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Organization of American States (OAS).
The Department of Computer Science (DCC) was formally established in 1987. However, Computer Science activities at IME-USP predate its creation. The core of the Department’s faculty originated in 1961 around the IBM 1620 computer that had just been installed at USP’s Numerical Computing Center (today CeTI-SP – São Paulo Information Technology Center). In 1970, with the creation of IME, several members of that group, together with faculty from the Department of Mathematics of the Polytechnic School, joined the Department of Applied Mathematics (MAP), where they remained until the establishment of the DCC.
The DCC is responsible for the Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science (BCC), which offers 50 places per year through the Fuvest entrance examination and had graduated 905 students by 2002. The first class completed the program in 1974. In 1994, the BCC celebrated its 20th anniversary, and in 1999 its 25th anniversary. The program has consistently been one of the most competitive undergraduate programs at USP, attracting between 30 and 60 applicants per available place.
The Department is also responsible for a foundational Introduction to Computing course that is part of the curriculum of nearly all programs in the sciences and technology fields, serving approximately 1,700 students annually. More recently, a variation of this course has been offered to students in the humanities. Demand for this version continues to exceed the Department’s instructional capacity. To help address this demand, the Center for Computing Education (CEC) was established in 1992 under the coordination of the DCC.
At the graduate level, the DCC has been responsible for the Master’s and Doctoral programs in Computer Science since 1972. Between 1972 and 2002, the master’s program graduated 174 students. Many of these graduates continued their studies abroad and earned doctoral degrees at international institutions. The doctoral program in Computer Science at IME-USP has steadily expanded and had graduated 19 PhD holders by 2003. At that time, the program enrolled between 25 and 30 students. The dissertations and theses produced by its students have received significant recognition within the academic community and have earned several awards.
In 1979, IME-USP hosted the first School of Computing, organized by faculty members who are now part of the DCC. Today, the School of Computing is a well-established national event and had reached its twelfth edition at the time this text was written, once again organized by the Department.
In 1992, the DCC organized and hosted LATIN’92 (Latin American Theoretical Informatics), an international symposium supported by several major international organizations, including ACM/SIGACT, EATCS, IFIP, and IEEE. The event brought together approximately one hundred researchers, including about 54 participants from outside Brazil. The symposium proceedings were published in advance as part of Springer-Verlag’s prestigious Lecture Notes in Computer Science series.
The qualifications of the DCC graduate faculty have increased significantly over the years. Its faculty members have diverse academic backgrounds, with degrees obtained from leading institutions in Brazil and abroad. The Department currently has 36 faculty members, 35 of whom hold doctoral degrees.