Research Areas

Utah State University is a Carnegie I Research Institute and is No. 1 in the nation in the amount of research dollars generated per faculty member. This environment allows a researcher invaluable interaction across a wide variety of active professional fields as well as an administration understanding of researcher needs.

Below are our current research projects in the field of Computer Science. These projects are headed by members of the Computer Science faculty. The faculty member in charge of the particular research project is listed as well as a link to the project's homepage, if one exists.

Dr. Daniel Bryce	Research Homepage
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
The AI Lab at USU conducts research on the foundations of Artificial Intelligence, as it pertains to autonomous agents, knowledge representation, automated reasoning, and machine learning. A main research thrust of the lab is on human-centric AI systems that can operate with incomplete or faulty models and advice. Application areas addressed by the lab include defense (UAVs and ISR), systems biology, and assistive technology. Current projects include human-instructable/field-programmable agents (DARPA-sponsored Bootstrapped Learning), planning interventions in gene regulatory networks, heuristics for domain-independent planning, and route-finding for the visually impaired.

Dr. Renee Bryce	Research Homepage
Software Testing Lab
Software testing is an expensive, yet imperfect process. Software systems can be large and exhaustive testing is usually not feasible. Products released with inadequate testing can cause bodily harm, result in large economic losses, and affect the quality of day-to-day life. My primary research goal is to develop and examine new software testing techniques that may help testers to more effectively identify software defects. Software testers often intuitively test for defects that they anticipate while less foreseen defects are overlooked. My main research applies combinatorial testing strategies that may offset some degree of human bias. In addition, I also work with undergraduates on empirical studies of student programming bugs and curriculum improvements.

Dr. Scott Cannon	Research Homepage
Space Software Laboratory
The Space Software Laboratory is now a part of the Space Dynamics Laboratory (http://sdl.usu.edu) and continues in research towards the development of software to support space research and defense. Primary research areas are associated with Plug and Play technologies, software fault-tolerance, and self-organizing networks and systems. Work within the laboratory focuses on programming techniques and tools for small satellite applications. Software developed in this lab has flown on a number of space missions. The Satellite Data Model (SDM) software system associated with numerous small satellite programs was produced in this lab. We also develop software in support of the US Air Force Research Lab Plug-and-Play efforts for the CubeSat and PnPSat2 programs.

Dr. Minghui Jiang	Research Homepage
Computational Geometry and Bioinformatics Algorithms Laboratory (CGBAL)
This laboratory is directed towards basic research in theoretical computer science, in particular, the design of efficient exact or approximation algorithms for fundamental problems with important real-world applications. Work within the laboratory focuses on (1) discrete and computational geometry, and (2) bioinformatics and computational biology.

Dr. Dan Watson	Research Homepage
Space Software Laboratory
The Space Software Laboratory (SSL) is directed towards the development of software to support space research and defense. Work within the laboratory focuses on programming techniques and tools for space applications. Software developed in this lab is currently flying on a number of satellite missions. We develop software for specialized processors such as the Advanced Instrument Controller (AIC) and Sentient Instrument Controller (SIC), as well as on the study of self-organizing communities of processors.