Major: Software Engineering
Degree Awarded: Master of Science in Software Engineering (MSSE)
Calendar Type: Quarter
Total Credit Hours: 45.0
Co-op Option: Graduate Co-op
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code: 14.0903
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code: 15-1132; 15-1133
About the Program
The College of Computing & Informatics' Master of Science in Software Engineering (MSSE) program was created in response to the growing importance of software in modern society and the rapid rise in demand for professional software engineers.
The MS in Software Engineering program draws on the broad strengths of the College of Computing & Informatics to provide a curriculum that encompasses behavioral, managerial, and technical aspects of software engineering. The program is appropriate for students interested in technical and managerial software work across a wide range of application domains, with the objective of transforming from developers to designers, architects, and technical leaders.
All students in the program take a core curriculum that provides a foundation spanning key software engineering topics and providing an integrative software studio experience. Students also take electives allowing them to specialize and gain in-depth knowledge according to their individual interests and career goals. The degree program culminates in a hands-on capstone experience (Software Studio) in which graduate students work for two to three quarters on an intensive team-based software project, with the goal of applying what they have learned to a real-world, ongoing project.
The program provides room for those with an insufficient computing background through completion of the Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Computer Science.
Admission Requirements
The Master of Science in Software Engineering accepts applicants who hold a bachelor's degree from an accredited university. Please visit the College of Computing & Informatics website for more information on admission requirements.
Additional Information
For more information about this program, please visit the College of Computing & Informatics MS in Software Engineering webpage.
Dual Degree Opportunities
Graduate students already enrolled in a master's degree program at Drexel have the opportunity, through the dual master's program, to work simultaneously on two CCI master's degrees and to receive both upon graduation. To be eligible, graduate students must be currently working on their first CCI master's degree when requesting admission to the second CCI master's degree. They must obtain approval from the graduate advisors of both programs and work out a plan of study encompassing coursework and/or research (thesis) credits for both degrees.
Some courses may be used to satisfy requirements in both degrees, reducing the total number of courses taken, according to Drexel’s Dual MS Degree Policy. The dual degree for MSSE students is only available to on-campus students. Please contact your advisor for more information on program requirements as some CCI master's degree combinations may require additional pre-requisites.
The dual master's student must complete the Change of Curriculum and Status form and obtain approvals from both graduate advisors. Final approval is granted by the Graduate College. The student is then registered in both majors simultaneously. Upon graduation, the student must file two Application for Degree forms.
Facilities
3675 Market Street
In March 2019, the College of Computing & Informatics relocated to 3675 Market. For the first time in the College's history, all CCI faculty, students and professional staff are housed under one roof. Occupying two floors in the brand new uCity Square building, CCI's new home offers state-of-the-art technology in our classrooms, labs, meeting areas and collaboration spaces. 3675 Market offers Class A laboratory, office, coworking, and convening spaces. In fall 2019, the College opened a third floor which will include additional offices, classrooms, innovative research labs, and a maker space. Located at the intersection of Market Street and 37th Street, 3675 Market will act as a physical nexus, bridging academic campuses and medical centers to the east and south, the commercial corridors along Market Street and Chestnut Street, and the residential communities to the north and west.
The uCity Square building offers:
- Speculative lab/office space
- World-class facilities operated by CIC
- Café/restaurant on-site
- Quorum, a two-story, 15K SF convening space and conference center
- Adjacent to future public square
- Access to Science Center’s nationally renowned business acceleration and technology commercialization programs
Drexel University Libraries
Drexel University Libraries is a learning enterprise, advancing the University’s academic mission through serving as educators, supporting education and research, collaborating with researchers, and fostering intentional learning outside of the classroom. Drexel University Libraries engages with Drexel communities through three physical locations, including W. W. Hagerty Library, Queen Lane Library, and the Library Learning Terrace, as well as a vibrant online presence which sees, on average, over 8,000 visits per day. In the W.W. Hagerty Library location, College of Computing & Informatics students have access to private study rooms and nearly half a million books, periodicals, DVDs, videos and University Archives. All fields of inquiry are covered, including: library and information science, computer science, software engineering, health informatics, information systems, and computing technology. Resources are available online at library.drexel.edu or in-person at W. W. Hagerty Library.
The Libraries also make available laptop and desktop PC and Mac computers, printers and scanners, spaces for quiet work or group projects and designated 24/7 spaces. Librarians and library staff—including a liaison librarian for computing and informatics—are available for individual research consultations and to answer questions about materials or services.
CCI Commons
Located on the 10th floor of 3675 Market Street, the CCI Commons is an open lab and collaborative work environment for students. It features desktop computers, a wireless/laptop area, free black and white printing, and more collaborative space for its students. Students have access to 3675 Market's fully equipped conference room with 42” displays and videoconferencing capabilities. The CCI Commons provides technical support to students, faculty, and professional staff. In addition, the staff provides audio-visual support for all presentation classrooms within 3675 Market. Use of the CCI Commons is reserved for all students taking CCI courses.
The computers for general use are Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OSX machines with appropriate applications which include the Microsoft Office suite, various database management systems, modeling tools, and statistical analysis software. Library related resources may be accessed at the CCI Commons and through the W.W. Hagerty Library. The College is a member of the Rational SEED Program which provides cutting-edge software development and project management software for usage in the CCI Commons and CCI classrooms. The College is also a member of the Microsoft Academic Alliance known also as “DreamSpark” that allows students free access to a wide array of Microsoft software titles and operating systems.
The CCI Commons, student labs, and classrooms have access to networked databases, print and file resources within the College, and the Internet via the University’s network. Email accounts, Internet and BannerWeb access are available through the Office of Information Resources and Technology.
CCI Learning Center
The CCI Learning Center (CLC), located in 3675 Market Street's CCI Commons student computer lab, provides consulting and other learning resources for students taking computer science classes. The CLC is staffed by graduate and undergraduate computer science students from the College of Computing & Informatics.
The CLC and CCI Commons serve as a central hub for small group work, student meetings, and TA assistance.
Research Laboratories
The College houses multiple research labs, led by CCI faculty, in 3675 Market Street including: the Drexel Health and Risk Communication Lab, Interactive Systems for Healthcare, Socio-Technical Studies Group, Intelligent Information & Knowledge Computing Research Lab, Evidence-based Decision Making Lab, Applied Symbolic Computation Laboratory (ASYM), High Performance Computing Laboratory (SPIRAL), Drexel Research on Play (RePlay) Laboratory, Software Engineering Research Group (SERG), Social Computing Research Group, Vision and Cognition Laboratory (VisCog) and the Vision and Graphics Laboratory. For more information on these laboratories, please visit the College’s research web page.
Computing & Informatics Faculty
Denise E. Agosto, PhD (Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey). Professor. Youth information behaviors, public libraries, multicultural issues in youth library services, and qualitative research methods.
Yuan An, PhD (University of Toronto, Canada) Director of International Programs. Associate Professor. Conceptual modeling, schema and ontology mapping, information integration, knowledge representation, requirements engineering, healthcare information systems, semantic web.
David Augenblick, MS (University of Pennsylvania). Associate Teaching Professor. Introductory and object-oriented programming, data structures and database systems, computer application project management, application of computer programming principles and solutions to engineering problems.
Ellen Bass, PhD (Georgia Institute of Technology) Joint Appointment with the College of Nursing and Health Professions. Professor. Characterizing human judgement and decision making, modeling human judgement when supported by information automation, computational models of human-human and human-automation coordination.
Mark Boady, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Computer Algebra, complex symbolic calculations, automation of computation problems
David E. Breen, PhD (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) Associate Department Head for Graduate Affairs, Computer Science. Professor. Computer-aided design, biomedical image informatics, geometric modeling and self-organization algorithms.
Matthew Burlick, PhD (Stevens Institute of Technology). Associate Teaching Professor. Image processing, machine learning, real-time video tracking, object detection and classification, statistics/probability, and acoustics
Yuanfang Cai, PhD (University of Virginia). Professor. Formal software design modeling and analysis, software economics, software evolution and modularity.
Andrew Calhoun, MS (American Military University). Social engineering, ethical hacking, information assurance, business continuity & disaster recovery planning, Computer forensics, and Computer security
Christopher Carroll, MS (Drexel University) BSCST Program Director. Associate Teaching Professor. Information technology within healthcare companies, computer networking and design, IT infrastructure, server technology, information security, virtualization and cloud computing.
Preetha Chatterjee, PhD (University of Delaware). Assistant Professor. Software engineering, data mining, natural language processing, and machine learning
Chaomei Chen, PhD (University of Liverpool). Professor. Information visualization, visual analytics, knowledge domain visualization, network analysis and modeling, scientific discovery, science mapping, scientometrics, citation analysis, human-computer interaction.
Michael Chu, MSE (University of Pennsylvania). Associate Teaching Professor. System, server, computer networking and design; IT infrastructure; information technology management and security; Web system programming; database and mobile application development.
Andrea Forte, PhD (Georgia Institute of Technology) PhD Program Director, and MS in Information Program Director. Associate Professor. Social computing, human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, computer-supported collaborative learning, information literacy.
Susan Gasson, PhD (University of Warwick). Associate Professor. The co-design of business and IT-systems, distributed cognition & knowledge management in boundary-spanning groups, human-centered design, social informatics, online learning communities, grounded theory.
Vasilis Gkatzelis, PhD (New York University). Assistant Professor. Algorithmic mechanism design, multiagent resource allocation, approximation algorithms .
Colin Gordon, PhD (University of Washington). Associate Professor. Software reliability, program behavior, concurrent and systems-level code, formal assurance, programming models, distributed computing, even testing
Tim Gorichanaz, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Human information behavior, human-centered computing, neo-documentation studies, and information ethics.
Jane Greenberg, PhD (University of Pittsburgh) Alice B. Kroeger Professor. Metadata, ontological engineering, data science, knowledge organization, information retrieval
Peter Grillo, PhD (Temple University) Associate Department Head for Undergraduate Affairs, Information Science. Teaching Professor. Software economics, Project management, Strategic applications of technology within organizations.
Thomas Heverin, PhD (Drexel University). Associate Teaching Professor. Computer security, ethical hacking, computer forensics, network forensics, cloud security and cybersecurity.
Gregory W. Hislop, PhD (Drexel University). Professor. Information technology for teaching and learning, online education, structure and organization of the information disciplines, computing education research, software evaluation and characterization.
Xiaohua Tony Hu, PhD (University of Regina, Canada). Professor. Data mining, text mining, Web searching and mining, information retrieval, bioinformatics and healthcare informatics.
Jina Huh-Yoo, PhD (University of Michigan at Ann Arbor). Assistant Professor. Human-computer interaction, humancentered design, Health informatics, mobile and wireless health, social computing.
Shahin Jabbari Assistant Professor. Algorithmic fairness, game theory, and artificial intelligence for social good.
Jeremy R. Johnson, PhD (Ohio State University) Department Head, Computer Science. Professor. Computer algebra; parallel computations; algebraic algorithms; scientific computing.
Constantine Katsinis, PhD (University of Rhode Island). Teaching Professor. High-performance computer networks, parallel computer architectures with sustained teraflops performance, computer security, image processing.
Weimao Ke, PhD (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). Associate Professor. Information retrieval (IR), distributed systems, intelligent filtering/recommendation, information visualization, network science, complex systems, machine learning, text/data mining, multi-agent systems, the notion of information.
Mat Kelly, PhD (Old Dominion University). Assistant Professor. Information retrieval, Web archives, metadata, digital
humanities, archival privacy
Ehasn B. Khosroshahi, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Computational cognitive modeling, artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analysis.
Edward Kim, PhD (Lehigh University). Associate Professor. Computer Vision, Sparse Coding, Neuromorphic Computing, Medical Image Processing, Computer Graphics, Artificial Intelligence, Game Development
Xia Lin, PhD (University of Maryland at College Park) Department Head, Information Science. Professor. Digital libraries, information visualization, visual interface design, knowledge mapping, human-computer interaction, information retrieval, information architecture, informetrices, information-seeking behaviors in digital environments.
Chris MacLellan, PhD (Carnegie Mellon University). Assistant Professor. Artificial intelligence, data science, machine learning, human-computer interaction, cognitive modeling,
Geoffrey Mainland, PhD (Harvard University). Associate Professor. High-level programming languages and runtime support for non-general purpose computation.
Spiros Mancoridis, PhD (University of Toronto) The Auerbach Berger Chair in Cybersecurity Distinguished Professor of Computer Science. Professor. Software engineering; software security; code analysis; evolutionary computation.
Adelaida Alban Medlock, MS (Drexel University) Associate Department Head for Undergraduate Affairs, Computer Science. Teaching Professor. Introductory programming; computer science education.
Danuta A. Nitecki, PhD (University of Maryland at College Park) Dean of Libraries. Professor. Library metrics and use in management, library as place, and academic library service models.
Krzysztof Nowak, PhD (Washington University). Associate Teaching Professor. Fourier analysis, partial differential equations, image processing, wavelets, asymptotic distribution of eigenvalues, numerical methods and algorithms, computer science education.
Santiago Ontañón, PhD (University of Barcelona). Associate Professor. Game AI, computer games, artificial intelligence, machine learning, case-based reasoning
Yusuf Osmanlioglu, PhD (Drexel University ). Assistant Teaching Professor. Graph theory and algorithms, brain network analysis, optimization, computer vision, natural language processing.
Jung-ran Park, PhD (University of Hawaii at Manoa). Associate Professor. Knowledge organization and representation, metadata, computer-mediated communication, cross-cultural communication, multilingual information access.
Tammy Pirmann, Ed D (Gwynedd Mercy University). Teaching Professor. Introductory programming, object-oriented programming, game design, mobile computing, computer science education, computer science educator pipeline
Alex Poole, PhD (University of North Carolina). Assistant Professor. Digital curation, archives and records management, digital humanities, and diversity, inclusivity, and equity.
Jeffrey L. Popyack, PhD (University of Virginia). Professor. Operations research, stochastic optimization, computational methods of Markov decision processes; artificial intelligence, computer science education.
Emmanouil Pountourakis, PhD (Northwestern University). Assistant Professor. Algorithmic game theory, algorithmic mechanism design, algorithmic aspects of behavioral economics, game theory and learning, computational and game theoretic aspects of energy grids
Michelle L. Rogers, PhD (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Associate Professor. Human-computer interaction, healthcare informatics, human factors engineering, socio-technical systems, health services research, patient safety.
Jeffrey Salvage, MS (Drexel University). Teaching Professor. Object-oriented programming, multi-agent systems, software engineering, database theory, introductory programming, data structures.
Dario Salvucci, PhD (Carnegie Mellon University). Professor. Human computer interaction, cognitive science, machine learning, applications for driving.
Aleksandra Sarcevic, PhD (Rutgers University). Associate Professor. Computer-supported cooperative work, human-computer interaction, and healthcare informatics.
Kurt Schmidt, MS (Drexel University). Associate Teaching Professor. Data structures, math foundations for computer science, programming tools, programming languages.
Bhupesh Shetty, PhD (University of Iowa). Assistant Teaching Professor. Process pattern mining, data mining, operations management, sports analytics, information systems, and machine learning applications.
Ali Shokoufandeh, PhD (Rutgers University) Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Operations. Professor. Theory of algorithms, graph theory, combinational optimization, computer vision.
Il-Yeol Song, PhD (Louisiana State University). Professor. Conceptual modeling, ontology and patterns, data warehouse and OLAP, object-oriented analysis and design with UML, medical and bioinformatics data modeling & integration,.
Bo Song, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Database management, Data mining, bioinformatics, big data analytics, and knowledge discovery.
Brian Stuart, PhD (Purdue University). Associate Teaching Professor. Machine learning, networking, robotics, image processing, simulation, interpreters, data storage, operating systems, computer science, data communications, distributed/operating systems, accelerated computer programming, computer graphics.
Milad Toutounchian, PhD (Simon Fraser University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Data Science, Applied Machine Learning and Deep Learning.
Filippos Vokolos, PhD (Polytechnic University). Associate Teaching Professor. System architecture, principles of software design and construction, verification and validation methods for the development of large software systems, foundations of software engineering, software verification & validation, software design, programming languages, dependable software systems.
Lei Wang, PhD (Drexel University). Assistant Teaching Professor. Biomedical data science, machine learning, deep learning, neuroimaging processing & analytics, natural language processing, simulation modeling.
Rosina Weber, PhD (Federal University of Santa Catarina). Associate Professor. Case-based reasoning, explainable artificial intelligence, machine learning, textual analytics, natural language understanding, language models, recommender systems, technological aspects of knowledge management, project management, and requirements engineering.
Jake Williams, PhD (University of Vermont). Assistant Professor. Data science, scientific programming, computational social science, computational linguistics and natural language processing, mathematics, machine learning, algorithms, and scalability.
Kaidi Xu, PhD (Northeastern University). Assistant Professor. AI security, explainable artificial intelligence, optimization.
Erija Yan, PhD (Indiana University Bloomington). Associate Professor. Network Science, information analysis and retrieval, scholarly communication methods and applications.
Christopher C. Yang, PhD (University of Arizona, Tucson). Professor. Web search and mining, security informatics, knowledge management, social media analytics, cross-lingual information retrieval, text summarization, multimedia retrieval, information visualization, information sharing and privacy, artificial intelligence, digital library, and electronic commerce.
Emeritus Faculty
Michael E. Atwood, PhD (University of Colorado). Professor Emeritus. Human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, organizational memory.
Bruce W. Char, PhD (University of California-Berkeley). Professor Emeritus. Symbolic mathematical computation, algorithms and systems for computer algebra, problem-solving environments parallel and distributed computation.
Thomas A. Childers, PhD (Rutgers University). Professor Emeritus. Measurement, evaluation, and planning of information and library services, the effectiveness of information organizations.
David E. Fenske, PhD (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Dean Emeritus and Professor. Digital libraries, informatics, knowledge management and information technologies.
John B. Hall, PhD (Florida State University). Professor Emeritus. Academic library service, library administration, organization of materials.
Katherine W. McCain, PhD (Drexel University). Professor Emeritus. Scholarly communication, information production and use in the research process, development and structure of scientific specialties, diffusion of innovation, bibliometrics, evaluation of information retrieval systems.
Carol Hansen Montgomery, PhD (Drexel University) Dean of Libraries Emeritus. Research Professor. Selection and use of electronic collections, evaluation of library and information systems, digital libraries, economics of libraries and digital collections.
Delia Neuman, PhD (The Ohio State University). Professor Emerita. Learning in information-rich environments, instructional systems design, the use of media for learning, and school library media.
Gerry Stahl, PhD (University of Colorado). Professor Emeritus. Human-computer interaction, computer-supported cooperative work, computer-supported collaborative learning, theory of collaboration.
Howard D. White, PhD (University of California at Berkeley). Professor Emeritus. Literature information systems, bibliometrics, research methods, collection development, online searching.
Susan Wiedenbeck, PhD (University of Pittsburgh). Professor Emeritus. Human-computer interaction, end-user programming/end-user development, empirical studies of programmers, interface design and evaluation.
