There are two computer science departments on the University of
Chicago campus. The one I belong to, a department in the physical
sciences division of the University and the other, the Toyota Technological Institute at
Chicago (TTI-C). What is TTI-C?
The Toyota
Technological Institute, a university covering various engineering
disciplines located in Nagoya City, Japan,
was founded in 1981 from funds from the Toyota Motor Corporation as
directed by the Toyoda family. They decided to start a computer science department and
locate it in the states to have a broader access to computer science
faculty and students. For various reasons they settled on Chicago and
set up an agreement with the University of Chicago, using space in the
University of Chicago Press building. TTI-C has just officially
started up and have already signed up a few strong faculty members
including theorist
Adam Kalai
and Fields medalist Stephen Smale. TTI-C
plans to increase its faculty size and start up a graduate program in
the near future.
Although there will be some sharing of courses and a few of
our faculty (including myself) sit on a Local Academic Advisory
Council for TTI-C, TTI-C will formally maintain itself as a separate
institution from the University. Nevertheless close collaborations
between our department and TTI-C has already established an
exciting research environment for our combined faculty and students.