Our Philosophy

The core thesis of the DE-CDSE program is that students need training in numerical analysis, scientific computation, and an application area. The DE-CDSE approach is as follows:

  1.  It operates under the assumption that there is a large, diverse, set of students who are interested in CDSE, but that it may not be their primary core area of study.

  2.  It targets students who may be interested in large-scale data analysis, not just simulation.

The DE-CDSE is designed for all these students and is open only to students who are already enrolled in a Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley. Essentially, Berkeley’s DE-CDSE program is meant to build on the student’s graduate expertise in a particular field and augment it with a focused addition on computational science.

Student Checklist: 

Requirements for Ph.D. Students

1. Students must be approved to add the DE-CDSE before taking their qualifying exam. Submit your application at least 1 month in advance of your anticipated qualifying exam date in order to ensure enough time for processing and acquiring all relevant approvals.

2. Students must have training in the following three CDSE components from the approved course list (all 3 courses must be taken for a letter grade):

  • 1 graduate course in applied math/numerical analysis or statistics/data analysis (Category 1)
  • 1 graduate course in high-performance computing (Category 2)
  • 1 graduate course in an application area that utilizes the above tools in a significant way (Category 3)

3. Submit a complete online application, including:

  • Curriculum Vitae (CV)
  • Transcripts (most recent copy of all undergraduate and graduate transcripts)
  • Letter of Recommendation from your advisor
  • If your advisor is not a participating DE-CDSE faculty member, please include an additional letter of recommendation from a sponsoring DE-CDSE faculty member
  • One-page statement about why you are applying to the program

4. Students must have a DE-CDSE component in their qualifying exam, with a DE-CDSE faculty member on the exam committee.

5. At least one member of the DE-CDSE faculty must be on the dissertation committee.