IST's Ph.D. Program - An Overview
Penn State's Ph.D. program in the information sciences and technology was developed for individuals seeking to become dynamic leaders in research and teaching who are focused on the problems and challenges of the digital-based, global economy.
Opened in 1999, our college is fresh and rapidly developing, driven by ongoing partnerships with business, education, and government. Our newness has afforded us a chance to break ground and create a dynamic interdisciplinary research and teaching structure that provides for different and complementary academic strengths within our college, the kind of environment rarely found elsewhere.
While new, we have taken great care to build a faculty and administrative team from among the best at our University and other leading educational institutions. Our faculty members are diverse in their interests, with rich new areas of intellectual pursuit being added regularly. It is truly an integrated community of scholars focused on research that pushes the field forward. The College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) community can also call upon the vast resources of Penn State, one of the world’s leading research universities. In January 2004, we occupied a state-of-the-art new building with significant space dedicated to research. Students here have the opportunity to truly make their mark in an environment that is alive, collegial, and growing.
IST faculty members are very interdisciplinary in their research interests. Most have an affiliation or joint appointment with other departments at the University, and are involved in collaborative projects bridging an array of fields, such as psychology, business, geography, economics, communications, and computer science.
For graduate students, this breadth of scholarship provides an exciting array of potential research subjects. Some research areas include developing theories of information science and retrieval, natural language engineering, Web mining and search technologies, the role of computing in reshaping work, organizations and social systems, and many more possibilities.
Opened in 1999, our college is fresh and rapidly developing, driven by ongoing partnerships with business, education, and government. Our newness has afforded us a chance to break ground and create a dynamic interdisciplinary research and teaching structure that provides for different and complementary academic strengths within our college, the kind of environment rarely found elsewhere.
While new, we have taken great care to build a faculty and administrative team from among the best at our University and other leading educational institutions. Our faculty members are diverse in their interests, with rich new areas of intellectual pursuit being added regularly. It is truly an integrated community of scholars focused on research that pushes the field forward. The College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) community can also call upon the vast resources of Penn State, one of the world’s leading research universities. In January 2004, we occupied a state-of-the-art new building with significant space dedicated to research. Students here have the opportunity to truly make their mark in an environment that is alive, collegial, and growing.
IST faculty members are very interdisciplinary in their research interests. Most have an affiliation or joint appointment with other departments at the University, and are involved in collaborative projects bridging an array of fields, such as psychology, business, geography, economics, communications, and computer science.
For graduate students, this breadth of scholarship provides an exciting array of potential research subjects. Some research areas include developing theories of information science and retrieval, natural language engineering, Web mining and search technologies, the role of computing in reshaping work, organizations and social systems, and many more possibilities.
