Professor Jeannette M. Wing, head of computer science department (CSD), Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), visited DCST on September 14. Professor Wing had a meeting with DCST deputy chair Wenguang Chen, Professor Shiqiang Yang, and Assistant Professor Jun Zhu, exchanging ideas on implementing the dual degree Computer Science Master’s program, promoting academic exchanges, and enhancing collaborations between the two departments.

Carnegie Mellon, one of the most famous universities in US, has one of the top-ranked computer science programs in the world. DCST has enjoyed fruitful collaborations and exchanges with CMU in the past. More than 50 Tsinghua graduates have pursued Master’s or PhD degrees from CMU, among whom many have achieved academic excellence. DCST chair Jianping Wu and Professor Shiqiang Yang visited CMU last November to initiate the idea of establishing a new dual master’s degree program in computer science, and the memorandum of understanding was signed by officials of the two universities later.

According to the memorandum, each year 5 to 10 master students from DCST are selected to enroll in this 2 to 3 year long program. The students will need to register and spend a year in CMU taking courses and conducting research. After fulfilling the course requirements for each university and completing a thesis requirement at Tsinghua, the students will obtain a Master’s degree from both Tsinghua and CMU. This year 6 master students enrolled in Tsinghua in 2012 have been selected to enroll in this program. These students have submitted their applications, passed language examinations, and passed interviews by the two universities. Eventually this program will be open to all applicants through student recruitments. This dual degree program is the first one jointly offered by Tsinghua and universities in US at the graduate level.

During Professor Wing’s visit, details of program curriculum and student recruitment for this dual degree program were thoroughly discussed. Professor Wing also had a brief meeting with the students who enrolled in the program for the next year. Later on, Professor Wing delivered a talk to all faculty members and students in DCST on “Towards a Theory of Trust in Networks of Humans and Computers”. After that, DCST co-chair Maosong Sun and officers from the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange had a meeting with Professor Wing. Professor Wing also visited Professor Andrew Yao and Professor Frances Foong Yao.