Labs and Facilities

Explore the Computer Science labs in Hofstra's Science and Innovation Center, from a GPU supercomputing cluster to hands-on electronics, robotics and Linux labs.

The Science and Innovation Center on Hofstra's campus — The Science and Innovation Center (SIC)

Computer Science at Hofstra is at home in the Science and Innovation Center (SIC), a four-story academic building of about 75,000 square feet that the Fred DeMatteis School of Engineering and Applied Science shares with the School of Nursing and Physician Assistant Studies. Our labs there were planned around the courses in our undergraduate and graduate programs, so students learn by doing: writing code on Linux workstations, training models on GPU-powered machines, wiring circuits at electronics benches, building robots and running research on a high-performance computing cluster.

Featured labs

Students at their desks in the Big Data Lab as an instructor teaches from the front

Big Data Lab SIC 126

A teaching lab of 33 GPU-equipped Linux workstations for courses in machine learning, artificial intelligence, text mining and networking.

Students at work in the Intelligent Systems Lab, with its wall displays and workstations

Intelligent Systems Lab SIC 127

A shared research lab for artificial intelligence, cognitive modeling and robotics, with high-end GPU workstations and the humanoid robot Gus.

Students at benches with oscilloscopes and test instruments in the Architecture Lab

Architecture Lab SIC 100

A hands-on teaching lab for computer architecture, embedded systems, systems programming and iOS app development.

Students working at rows of desks in the Linux Lab

Linux Lab SIC 206

The department's home base, with 40 Linux workstations where students take their programming courses and work together outside class.

Computing infrastructure

Rows of servers and GPU nodes in the Data Center racks

Data Center SIC 122

Home of the department's academic computing cloud infrastructure, which gives courses, research and student projects their own virtual machines, and of the Star high-performance computing cluster, with 38 NVIDIA data-center GPUs.

More labs in the SIC

Computer Systems Lab (SIC 121)
A shared research lab for computer systems research, including cloud, parallel and distributed computing.
Systems and Graphics Lab (SIC 205)
Used for advanced classes such as computer graphics, game development, computer vision and operating systems.
Advanced Computing Research (SIC 234)
A research lab for cybersecurity and theoretical computer science that doubles as a conference room.
Virtual Reality Lab (SIC 236)
A facility for research and projects in virtual reality, augmented reality, modeling, simulation and computer graphics.

The department’s research labs also include SIC 311, the Embedded and Autonomous Systems Lab (Zonghua Gu and Oren Segal), and SIC 312, the Computer Systems Lab (Jianchen Shan), both used by student researchers.

Other department facilities

Computer Science Amphitheater (Adams 208)
The Amphitheater is used for a range of introductory to advanced courses. With 44 workstations, it is the department's largest computer lab.
Cybersecurity Innovation and Research Center (C.V. Starr 108)
The Cybersecurity Lab provides a ‘war room’ environment with a cyber range and virtual environment where students can engage in cyber attack scenarios. It is the centerpiece of the Cybersecurity program, a joint program between the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Information Systems & Business Analytics (ISBAN).

Learn more

The Star HPC cluster, housed in the Data Center, has its own site with research highlights, documentation and account applications: starhpc.hofstra.io.
The University’s Computer Science facilities page gives an overview of the department’s spaces.
Undergraduates can spend a summer doing research in DeMatteis School laboratories through the ten-week ASPiRe program.

For current students

Tutoring for Computer Science courses is in SIC 226, the department’s tutoring room. For lab accounts and remote access, see Remote Access to Labs; for anything else, contact the department.