CS 397 students:

Here are some hot topics of current research in CS.
They come from more than a dozen CS faculty.
Look up the URLs or Google the phrases to learn more.
By the time you are writing a PhD thesis the list will be different.


robust computational geometry

matrix completion problems using the nuclear norm

using polynomial chaos for uncertainty quantification

terabyte graph analysis and time evolving networks

testing concurrent programs

computing on many-core processors

data-intensive computing

how to build scalable data center networks

increasing the capacity of wireless networks 


Here are a few from the networking world:

  Cloud computing (all aspects)
  Software Defined Radio (MIMO antennas and spectrum use)
  Software Defined Networking (OpenFlow)
  Internet architecture (clean-slate designs)


smartphones

multicore software

peta-scale computing

pervasive computing


{concurrency, scalability}
  in
{programming languages, operating systems, runtime systems}


Web Information Retrieval and Mining.


*      The theory community maintains a website with "vision nuggets" -
http://theorymatters.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Visioning.HomePage. A nugget
comes with a nice image and a summary. Each nugget could be a research
topic for a student interested in more theoretical/foundational hot topics.

*       The CCC organizes and runs visioning activities in the form of
workshops and white papers - http://www.cra.org/ccc/activities.php and
http://www.cra.org/ccc/initiatives.php.  Some material seems accessible
to students and could make a good basis for "hot topics".


For computer graphics (and some computer vision and visualization),
look at:
http://kesen.realtimerendering.com/
which provides a very comprehensive (free) resource to access papers from
top graphics/vision/visualization conferences. Just by browsing papers from
the top-conferences during 2011 (all nicely setup with links, PDFs, and
project pages) you can get a view of hot topics.  Also, papers at main
conferences are organized into named groups.

In graphics/vision/visualization, the top work often appears at conferences
in the form of full refereed papers before appearing in journals.


computational social science
computational economics
(social) network science
(Note that these are interdisciplinary areas that involve CS along
with social sciences and engineering fields.)


Attribution of computer attacks
Stopping SPAM
Preventing & detecting phishing