Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory: CSAIL
The MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory is an interdepartmental laboratory which includes faculty from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mathematics, Brain and Cognitive science, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Ocean Engineering, the Biological Engineering Division and the Harvard-MIT Division of health Sciences and technology. CSAIL is also the home of the World Wide Web Consortium.
CSAIL was formed by the merger of the Laboratory for Computer science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence laboratory (AI), each of which had sprung from Project Mac, itself founded on July 1st, 1963.
The primary mission of CSAIL is research in both computation and artificial intelligence, broadly construed. It is organized into three broad research areas:
- Artificial Intelligence
- Systems
- Theory
More specific research topics include, but are not limited to, algorithms, computational models for molecular biology, computer architecture, cryptography, data-bases, distributed systems, geometric algorithms, graphics, human motor control, machine learning, natural and spoken language, networks, operating systems, parallel systems, programming languages, prosthetics, robotics, scientific computing, security and privacy, semantic web, software, synthetic biology, theory of computation, verification, and vision.
Much of the research at CSAIL is done as projects by one faculty member plus their undergraduate, graduate, and post-doctoral students. Sometimes two or three faculty members work together on larger projects. And sometimes a very large number of faculty work together on a large collaborative thrust, such as the Oxygen Project for pervasive human centered computing. We are currently developing collaborative thrusts in healthcare and in computing and biology.
Research at CSAIL is sponsored by a large number of US government agencies and a wide spectrum of US and international companies. Sponsors include DARPA, NSF, NASA, CIA, NIH, ONR, AFOSR, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, NTT, Nokia, Philips, Acer, Delta Electronics, ITRI, Sun, IBM, Ford, Intel, and Honda.
Students interested in working on specific CSAIL projects should contact the faculty member in charge of the project to learn about available UROP opportunities.
UROP for Credit:
Arranged through the faculty supervisor's academic department.
