Four years ago, faculty and deans of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering set out to build a computer science program from the ground-up. The goal was clear: design its curriculum to be forward-looking and authentically Cooper.

The result—the school’s first new academic department in nearly 100 years—is a state-of-the-art Computer Science (CS) Program that embodies the strengths for which The Cooper Union is best known: project-based learning, experimentation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and critical engagement with ethical and social issues. Announced in July, the program will offer a Bachelor of Science degree, with the first students admitted for the 2025-2026 academic year, and is in the process of seeking approval from the New York State Education Department for a Master of Science degree. 

For Barry Shoop, dean of the school of engineering, computer science represents a far-reaching potential for innovation. “Computing and software are absolutely integral to all engineering disciplines,” he says. “No longer can engineers practice their discipline without computing skills.” Shoop, who has wanted to introduce a CS major since joining Cooper in 2019, says it’s about much more than teaching students to code; the program positions Cooper—and its graduates—to make a meaningful impact in an environment increasingly shaped by algorithms, data, and digital networks.

That outlook is shared by Fred Fontaine, chair of the electrical engineering department and a member of the planning committee for the new CS program. He sees the curriculum aligning with Cooper’s civic legacy of educating problem-solvers: “If we think of The Cooper Union as providing a service to society, and not just benefiting the students who come through here, but putting leaders out there into the world, then I think planting a flag in the discipline of computer science is important in terms of the mission of the school.”

“Our whole world is focused on computer science,” adds Mili Shah, chair of the Mathematics Department who was also part of the planning committee. “It's kind of a universal language.”

College applicants, too, see the broader significance. A 2022 report by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) listed CS as the second most-awarded engineering degree in the US after mechanical engineering. And with the growing influence of generative artificial intelligence (AI), cybersecurity, and emerging technologies such as quantum computing, earning a CS degree can open the doors to a wide variety of career paths.

Formed in the summer of 2020, the CS planning committee was tasked with developing a curriculum that would attract a diverse pool of applicants while living up to The Cooper Union’s reputation for academic excellence and innovation. In addition to Shoop, Fontaine, and Shah, its members included Carl Sable, professor of computer engineering, and Sam Keene, who was recently appointed the inaugural John and Mary Manuck Distinguished Professor of Design and will also serve as the first chair of the new CS Program. The group identified the best, most relevant components of programs at other colleges and universities and then tailored them to a bespoke Cooper experience. That approach meant leveraging the features that differentiate Cooper from many other institutions—namely its rigor, small class sizes, and opportunities for students to learn and collaborate across disciplines.

One aspect seen as key to making the degree uniquely Cooper is an emphasis on project-based learning. Accompanied by foundational engineering courses in mathematics, theory, and science, as well as the option to take graduate-level courses as early as their third year, all students must complete significant project work every year during their studies, often in multidisciplinary teams, a requirement the committee members say is uncommon among CS programs. The focus on experiential learning, project management, and group dynamics, culminating in a senior capstone project, exposes students to the kinds of collaborative challenges encountered by software engineers working in the field.

The CS Junior Projects course, for example, emphasizes code review practices that are commonplace in industry. Instead of writing code from scratch, students are challenged with understanding, debugging, reusing, and rewriting existing code. For the design of the course, the committee drew inspiration from Software Design Studio, a CS class taught at Stanford University, while taking further cues from the model of studio critique found in Cooper’s schools of art and architecture.

“It's this T structure,” Fontaine says. “You need the breadth, including this interaction with the engineering students and taking some engineering courses. There's also the depth where they can really focus on the computer science. One of the phrases we ended up at was ‘computer science as engineering.’ And what that means is combining the theory and the practice, thinking about the applications, thinking about going beyond just a discipline, into problem solving and analytical conceptual thinking.”

Computer science is the newest department to be established at the school since electrical and mechanical engineering split apart in 1925 and will be its newest degree specialization in nearly 50 years. Full-time faculty members joining the department include Keene and Sable, who will both move from electrical engineering, while two additional CS faculty will be on board in time for the first incoming class in September 2025 and a fifth will join in September 2026. Building on Cooper’s industry relationships, each of these new full-time faculty will be joint, three-year appointments with the Simons Foundation Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Mathematics or NEC Laboratories America, Inc. The joint appointments not only broaden faculty and student research opportunities but will, along with donor funding, help offset costs. Consequently, the new CS department, which intends to seek ABET accreditation once eligible, will be nearly budget-neutral, even as The Cooper Union rolls out full-tuition scholarships for all seniors and reports steady progress on its Plan to Return to Full-Tuition Scholarships. 

Faculty members recently hired into other engineering departments will also support the CS curriculum. Abigail Raz, who joined Cooper as assistant professor of mathematics in 2021, teaches a course on discrete mathematics that is required for all CS majors. “Discrete math, which includes binary systems, lays the foundation for how computers communicate, underlying basic logic, set theory, and counting methods,” she explains. Raz’s course also examines recurrence relations and graph theory, topics with direct applications in computing. “The way we think critically in mathematics and how we communicate that way of thinking is very important for computer science. Students learn the particular syntaxes of coding languages, but the ideas behind them are fundamentally mathematical.”

Brittany Corn-Agostini, assistant professor of physics, was hired in 2022 and specializes in using computational methods for modeling quantum entanglement dynamics. “Computational physics is a great space for those in computer science to explore advanced algorithms and data analysis, and quantum computing has become one of the most prominent emerging fields in recent years, offering many research opportunities and career paths for computer science majors,” she says. “Innovations such as advanced security protocols through quantum cryptography and enhanced quantum algorithms are just a few examples of how quantum computing promises to revolutionize classical computing. Taking a physics elective in quantum computation or other areas in computational physics will offer students an excellent opportunity to explore these areas.”

Shah, who specializes in computational mathematics, notes that another hallmark of the CS program is formalized student mentorship. Through a Computer Science Mentoring course, upper-level students can earn credits by serving as software team leaders for the first- and second-year project courses. With guidance from faculty, the student mentors lead stand-up sessions that introduce newer CS students to modern industry practices. “I always say that you don't really know material until you teach it,” Shah says. “So, for the mentors, the program helps to solidify some of their ideas and some of their problems. I think it's a really cool model.”

Interdisciplinary collaboration plays an important pedagogical role for CS as well, one that has the potential to enhance other academic programs. “Computation impacts all fields that The Cooper Union is active in, including classical engineering applications, generative art, design tools, and digital humanities,” observes Keene. “My hope is it will be a catalyst across the institution.” Keene has developed several popular courses that explore the intersections of computer science, creative work, and ethics, including Generative Algorithms for Art and Architecture and Data Science Projects for Social Good. 

“Cooper Union is really amazing in the sense that we also have art and architecture schools here, and there are a lot of people with an interest in interdisciplinary projects,” says Shah, who has similarly led data-visualization projects with engineering and art students. “I'm really interested in combining math, computer science, engineering, and art through creating large-scale installations.”

Fontaine, himself a 1986 graduate of the school of engineering, believes computer science is integral to advancing Cooper’s strategic goals. “Adding a computer science program is a very important readjustment of the school. We can't be stagnant. Going back to full-tuition scholarships for all students is also particularly important, and I think this will help us accomplish that because we are demonstrating that we can fulfill our mission by going toward the forefront of this field in ways that are relevant and current.”