This course covers the analytical, graphical, and numerical methods supporting the analysis and design of integrated biological systems. Topics include modularity and abstraction in biological systems, mathematical encoding of detailed physical problems, numerical methods for solving the dynamics of continuous and discrete chemical systems, statistics and probability in dynamic systems, applied local and global optimization, simple feedback and control analysis, statistics and probability in pattern recognition.
An official course Web site and Wiki is maintained on OpenWetWare: 20.181 Computation for Biological Engineers.

This course covers concepts of computation used in analysis of engineering systems. It includes the following topics: data structures, relational database representations of engineering data, algorithms for the solution and optimization of engineering system designs (greedy, dynamic programming, branch and bound, graph algorithms, nonlinear optimization), and introduction to complexity analysis. Object-oriented, efficient implementations of algorithms are emphasized.

This course immerses students in the process of building and testing their own digital and board games in order to better understand how we learn from games. We explore the design and use of games in the classroom in addition to research and development issues associated with computer–based (desktop and handheld) and non–computer–based media. In developing their own games, students examine what and how people learn from them (including field testing of products), as well as how games can be implemented in educational settings.

This course provides introduction to computer graphics algorithms, software and hardware. Topics include: ray tracing, the graphics pipeline, transformations, texture mapping, shadows, sampling, global illumination, splines, animation and color. This course offers 6 Engineering Design Points in MIT’s EECS program.

This course analyzes issues associated with the implementation of higher-level programming languages. Topics covered include: fundamental concepts, functions, and structures of compilers, the interaction of theory and practice, and using tools in building software. The course includes a multi-person project on compiler design and implementation.

6.035 is a course within the department’s “Computer Systems and Architecture” concentration. This course analyzes issues associated with the implementation of high-level programming languages. Topics covered include: fundamental concepts, functions, and structures of compilers, basic program optimization techniques, the interaction of theory and practice, and using tools in building software. The course features a multi-person project on design and implementation of a compiler that is written in Java® and generates MIPS executable machine code. This course is worth 8 Engineering Design Points.
This course was also taught as part of the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) programme as course number SMA 5502 (Computer Language Engineering).

How does the global network infrastructure work and what are the design principles on which it is based? In what ways are these design principles compromised in practice? How do we make it work better in today’s world? How do we ensure that it will work well in the future in the face of rapidly growing scale and heterogeneity? And how should Internet applications be written, so they can obtain the best possible performance both for themselves and for others using the infrastructure? These are some issues that are grappled with in this course. The course will focus on the design, implementation, analysis, and evaluation of large-scale networked systems.
Topics include internetworking philosophies, unicast and multicast routing, congestion control, network quality of service, mobile networking, router architectures, network-aware applications, content dissemination systems, network security, and performance issues. Material for the course will be drawn from research papers, industry white papers, and Internet RFCs.

6.823 is a course in the department’s “Computer Systems and Architecture” concentration. 6.823 is a study of the evolution of computer architecture and the factors influencing the design of hardware and software elements of computer systems. Topics may include: instruction set design; processor micro-architecture and pipelining; cache and virtual memory organizations; protection and sharing; I/O and interrupts; in-order and out-of-order superscalar architectures; VLIW machines; vector supercomputers; multithreaded architectures; symmetric multiprocessors; and parallel computers.

This class covers topics on the engineering of computer software and hardware systems. Topics include techniques for controlling complexity; strong modularity using client-server design, operating systems; performance, networks; naming; security and privacy; fault-tolerant systems, atomicity and coordination of concurrent activities, and recovery; impact of computer systems on society.

6.858 Computer Systems Security is a class about the design and implementation of secure computer systems. Lectures cover threat models, attacks that compromise security, and techniques for achieving security, based on recent research papers. Topics include operating system (OS) security, capabilities, information flow control, language security, network protocols, hardware security, and security in web applications.

This subject is a computer-oriented introduction to probability and data analysis. It is designed to give students the knowledge and practical experience they need to interpret lab and field data. Basic probability concepts are introduced at the outset because they provide a systematic way to describe uncertainty. They form the basis for the analysis of quantitative data in science and engineering. The MATLAB® programming language is used to perform virtual experiments and to analyze real-world data sets, many downloaded from the web. Programming applications include display and assessment of data sets, investigation of hypotheses, and identification of possible casual relationships between variables. This is the first semester that two courses, Computing and Data Analysis for Environmental Applications (1.017) and Uncertainty in Engineering (1.010), are being jointly offered and taught as a single course.

This course introduces abstraction as an important mechanism for problem decomposition and solution formulation in the biomedical domain, and examines computer representation, storage, retrieval, and manipulation of biomedical data. As part of the course, we will briefly examine the effect of programming paradigm choice on problem-solving approaches, and introduce data structures and algorithms. We will also examine knowledge representation schemes for capturing biomedical domain complexity and principles of data modeling for efficient storage and retrieval. The final project involves building a medical information system that encompasses the different concepts taught in the course.
Computer science basics covered in the first part of the course are integral to understanding topics covered in the latter part, and for completing the assigned homework.

This course explores languages that have been deliberately constructed, including Esperanto, Klingon, and Tolkien’s Elvish. Students construct their own languages while considering the basic linguistic characteristics of various languages of the world. Through regular assignments, students describe the phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and writing system of their constructed language. The final assignment is a grammatical description of the new language.

Do you like teaching, but find yourself frustrated by how little students seem to learn? Would you like to try teaching, but are nervous about whether you will be any good at it? Are you interested in new research on science education? Research in science education shows that the greatest obstacle to student learning is the failure to identify and confront the misconceptions with which the students enter the class or those that they acquire during their studies. This weekly seminar course focuses on developing the participants’ ability to uncover and confront student misconceptions and to foster student understanding and retention of key concepts. Participants read primary literature on science education, uncover basic concepts often overlooked when teaching biology, and lead a small weekly discussion session for students currently enrolled in introductory biology classes.
The instructor for this course, Dr. Julia Khodor, is a member of the HHMI Education Group.

Do you like teaching, but find yourself frustrated by how little students seem to learn? Would you like to try teaching, but are nervous about whether you will be any good at it? Are you interested in new research on science education? Research in science education shows that the greatest obstacle to student learning is the failure to identify and confront the misconceptions with which the students enter the class or those that they acquire during their studies. This weekly seminar course focuses on developing the participants’ ability to uncover and confront student misconceptions and to foster student understanding and retention of key concepts. Participants read primary literature on science education, uncover basic concepts often overlooked when teaching biology, and lead a small weekly discussion session for students currently enrolled in introductory biology classes.
The instructor for this course, Dr. Kosinski-Collins, is a member of the HHMI Education Group.

The United States Congress is the most open of the national branches of government, and therefore the most closely studied. This course aims to find ways to deal with the vast array of information we have about Congress by asking two basic questions: What does Congress do (and why), and what are the various ways of studying congressional behavior? This course focuses on both the internal processes of the House and Senate, and on the place of Congress in the American political system.

This course analyzes the development of the US Congress by focusing on the competing theoretical lenses through which legislatures have been studied. In particular, it compares sociological and economic models of legislative behavior, applying those models to floor decision-making, committee behavior, political parties, relations with other branches of the Federal government, and elections.

This course analyzes the development of the United States Congress by focusing on the competing theoretical lenses through which legislatures have been studied. In particular, it compares sociological and economic models of legislative behavior, applying those models to floor decision-making, committee behavior, political parties, relations with other branches of the Federal government, and elections. Graduate students are expected to pursue the subject in greater depth through reading and individual research.

In this course the conquest and colonization of the Americas is considered, with special attention to the struggles of native peoples in Guatemala, Canada, Brazil, Panama, and colonial New England. In two segments of the course-one devoted to the Jesuit missionization of the Huron in the 1630s, the other to struggles between the government of Panama and the Kuna between 1900 and 1925-students examine primary documents such as letters, reports, and court records, to draw their own conclusions. Attention focuses on how we know about and represent past eras and other peoples, as well as on the history of struggles between native Americans and Europeans.

This course provides a solid understanding of consumer decision-making and how new products and services are developed, especially given the rapid pace of innovation and regulatory change, to help students succeed in consumer finance today. Specific examples will be drawn from retirement saving products, credit cards, peer to peer lending, cryptocurrencies, and financial advising.