The Department of Computer Science offers graduate study leading to the Master of Science degree. Both the thesis option and the non-thesis option are available. The department is a part of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences which provides unique opportunities for research by faculty and graduate students. There is especially strong interest within the department in the areas of artificial intelligence, compiler design, database, networks, operating systems, graphics, simulation, software engineering, and theoretical computer science.

Admission Requirements

• Bachelor's degree
• Overall undergraduate GPA of at least 2.85
• Graduate Record Examination General Test or an undergraduate degree from an ABET/CAC accredited degree program in Computer Science

Degree Requirements

• Core Courses: All students must complete the twelve-credit core of required courses, defined as follows:


• Two courses from the list below:
• Theoretical Foundations
• Programming Languages and Paradigms
• Analysis of Algorithms
• Advanced Software Engineering


• Two courses from the list below:
• Advanced Database Systems
• Advanced Artificial Intelligence
• Distributed Operating Systems
• Computer Networks


• Computer Science Track: (Thesis option, 30 credit hours)
• The core of required courses (12 credits)
• Four elective courses
• Thesis (6 credits)
• Successful completion of a written comprehensive examination on the areas covered in the core courses selected by the student
• A final oral examination, which includes a defense of the thesis


• Computer Science Track: (non-thesis option, 32 credit hours)
• The core of required courses (12 credits)
• Six elective courses (18 credits)
• CSci 997 Independent Study (2 credits) (in a format suitable for publication).
• Successful completion of a written comprehensive examination on the areas covered in the core courses selected by the student.
• Preparation of an oral presentation of the study to the advisor, Graduate Director, and interested faculty and students

Faculty and Areas of Expertise

• Emanuel S. Grant, Ph.D., Director, software engineering and formal specification techniques
• Wen-Chen Hu, Ph.D., web-based information retrieval systems, database systems, web technologies, e-commerce systems
• Eunjin Kim, Ph.D., fuzzy logic & relation & system, soft computing, AI/computational intelligence
• Jun Liu, Ph.D., computer networks
• Ronald A. Marsh, Ph.D., Chairman , pattern recognition, graphics, scientific computing
• Thomas E. O’Neil, Ph.D., algorithms and data structures, theoretical computer science, programming languages
• Hassan Reza, Ph.D., software architecture and formal methods
• Thomas P. Wiggen, Ph.D., intelligent systems, modeling & simulation

Contact Information

Dr. Emanuel S. Grant, Graduate Program Director
Department of Computer Science
University of North Dakota
Streibel Hall Room 201
3950 Campus Road, Stop 9015
Grand Forks, ND 58202-9015

Phone: (701) 777-4133
Fax: (701) 777-3330
Website: www.cs.und.edu
Email: csdept@cs.und.edu
grante@aero.und.edu