Research in computer science at Harvard is outward looking. Particular emphasis is on harnessing the depth and breadth of the University research community to explore critical areas such as computer systems research; quantum science and technology; scientific computing and information technology; computational biology; and computation for society.

• Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Agent Systems, and Computational Linguistics
• Bio-Inspired Robotics and Computing
  
• Computation and Economics
  
• Graphics and Visualization
  
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Languages, Compilers, and Tools
  
• Networking and Systems
• Theory of Computation

Artificial Intelligence, Multi-Agent Systems, and Computational Linguistics

Areas of Focus

• Developing techniques for improving human–computer communication and collaboration in problem solving

• Modeling the behavior of intelligent communication systems

• Developing algorithms and representation languages for probabilistic and game-theoretic reasoning

• Mechanism design and automated negotiation for bounded-rational agents
• Analyzing social and organizational systems
• Game theory
• Peer-to-peer networks

Researchers

• Yiling Chen

• Krzysztof Gajos
• Barbara J. Grosz

• Radhika Nagpal

• David C. Parkes

• Stuart M. Shieber

Research Groups/Labs

• Artificial Intelligence Research Group
  
• EconCS
• Intelligent Interactive Systems Group

• Self-Organizing Systems Research Group
  
  

Bio-Inspired Robotics and Computing

Areas of Focus

• Engineering and understanding self-organizing systems
• Building biologically-inspired devices and computational systems
  
• Modeling biological multicellular systems in development and morphogenesis

Researchers

• Radhika Nagpal
• Robert Wood

Research Groups/Labs

• Microrobotics Lab
• Self-Organizing Systems Research Group

Computation and Economics

Areas of Focus

• Design of markets and mechanisms

• Applications to automated negotiation

• Applications to network resource allocation and negotiation in peer-to-peer systems in distributed systems

Researchers

• Michael Brenner
  
• Yiling Chen

• David C. Parkes

Research Groups/Labs

• EconCS

• Artificial Intelligence

Graphics and Visualization

Areas of Focus

• Techniques to render images efficiently (including shape and appearance capture, color image processing, human perception of colors and glossy shapes, reflectance and illumination modeling, physics-based approaches to scene understanding, face recognition, and socially-aware vision systems)

• Techniques to simulate light

• Developing data structures and algorithms to represent 3-D geometric objects and environments

• Visualization (including computational photography, point-based graphics, appearance modeling, 3D television, and haptics)

Researchers

• Steven J. Gortler
• Hanspeter Pfister
• Todd Zickler

Research Groups/Labs

• Graphics, Vision, & Interaction (GVI)

Human-Computer Interaction

Areas of Focus

• Designing and analyzing novel interactions for intelligent interactive systems
• Creating personalized approaches for universal access
• Developing innovative technologies for the understanding and analysis of large-scale scientific data
• Exploring interaction using novel modalities such as computer vision and brain-computer interfaces

Researchers

• Krzysztof Gajos
• Barbara J. Grosz
• Hanspeter Pfister
• Stuart M. Shieber

Research Groups/Labs

• Graphics, Vision, & Interaction (GVI)
• Intelligent Interactive Systems Group

Languages, Compilers, and Tools 

Areas of Focus

Primary areas of focus include:

• Creating new application-specific languages for solving targeted problems
• Analysis and modification of binary code to help code performance and security
• Compiler-construction techniques that make compiler infrastructure reusable
• Adapting compilers and other low-level tools to support work on new ideas in run-time systems and machine architectures

Researchers

• Stephen Chong
• Greg Morrisett
• Michael D. Smith

Research Groups/Labs

• Programming Languages

Networking and Systems

Areas of Focus

• Developing high performance software and hardware systems
• Extensible operating systems and storage systems
• Runtime virtual machines supporting dynamic optimizations
• Security for high-performance networks
• Wireless sensor networks
• Power-aware computer architectures and software

Researchers

• David M. Brooks
• Stephen Chong
• H.T. Kung
• Greg Morrisett
• Margo I. Seltzer
• Michael D. Smith
• James H. Waldo
• Matt D. Welsh

Research Groups/Labs

• Graphics, Vision, & Interaction (GVI)
• Internet
• Systems Research at Harvard (SYRAH)

Theory of Computation

Areas of Focus

• Understanding the mathematical laws governing efficient computation
• Design and analysis of algorithms; computational complexity
• Error-correcting codes
• Cryptography
• Learning theory and cognitive computation
• Logic in computer science
• Randomness in computation
• Quantum computation
• Computational algebra and number theory
• Parallel computation

Researchers

• Harry R. Lewis
  
• Michael D. Mitzenmacher
• David C. Parkes
• Michael O. Rabin
• Salil P. Vadhan
• Les G. Valiant

Research Groups/Labs

• Theory of Computation
• EconCS