Welcome to the Informatics Department at the University at Albany! We
are the University’s home for education and research that combine
technology and the needs of people. As you might imagine from such a
combination, we have a lot going on.
Our B.S. degree in Informatics is a degree that combines technology and
how it impacts people’s lives in various ways - through the individual, the
organization, the government, and society as a whole. Students specialize
in a particular area with a concentration and gain valuable real-life
experiences through research, internships, and peer mentoring. The B.S. in
Informatics is also the University’s first completely online undergraduate
program.
Informatics is home to the University’s Ph.D. program in Information
Science. This multidisciplinary program has been expanding, and working
to maintain its cutting edge focus. The INF Ph.D. program engages faculty
from the entire campus and our graduate students come from around the
world.
Informatics also houses the (in)3 Makerspace. The name stands for
Innovation In Informatics, and that is not only the name of the makerspace
itself, but symbolizes our commitment to quality in our education, service,
and research programs. A makerspace is in part a physical place where
people can use modern tools - computers, 3D printers, electronics, etc., to
design and create new physical and software artifacts. It is also a spirit - a
commitment to our creating an environment where people can come
together to think, to create, to do good things, and to have fun.
All of these things are the effort of many people. In addition to our core
faculty and staff in the Department, we have a large number of colleagues
who are affiliated via our Ph.D. program, as well as our hard working parttime faculty who teach in our programs. These are women and men from
the community to make time and energy to teach courses in their particular
area of excellence. We’ll be hearing about and from all of these folks on
these pages in the future.
As to the future, we are committed to growing and improving. We are
constantly looking to improve our Ph.D. major, minor, and course offerings.
As part of this, we would like to hear from you. If you have ideas on how
we can provide better service to our community in any way, or are
interested in helping us in our mission, please contact us in the department
at infinfo@albany.edu and let us know.
for the Informatics department,
George Berg
Associate Professor and Chair