IST students and faculty have access to a wide variety of labs, classrooms, and meeting spaces, in locations across two campuses.
- our students benefit from access to facilities that enhance their core studies and enable them to pursue their own projects.
- our facilities house dedicated spaces and software that support all levels of study.
Fairfax Campus offers academic programs in nine colleges and schools and contains residence halls that house more than 6,000 of our 37,000-plus students. This location lies within 25 minutes of downtown Washington, D.C.
The Science and Technology Campus provides access for citizens of Prince William, Fauquier, and western Fairfax counties; the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park, and adjoining areas to the west and south. We hold classes in Katherine G. Johnson Hall.
CEC Labs
Our computer labs house more than 300 workstations for different purposes to support student learning and research. We also support students with the particular hardware or software that students may need for projects.
Computer labs for teaching
CEC has four teaching computer labs in the Nguyen Engineering Building and Innovation Hall at Fairfax Campus, and two teaching computer labs in the Katherine Johnson Hall at Science and Technology Campus.
Open labs for all students
An open lab in the Nguyen Building for all students to use for their coursework or research.
Graduate research labs
IST offers dedicated lab spaces for Master's or PhD students to develop faculty-supported research projects with their own desks and reconditioned computers, which are tailored to needs depending on requirements.
Research centers and labs
IST research centers and labs focus on cyber security, data science, artificial intelligence, human-centered computing, and urban computing. These facilities give students excellent opportunities to conduct related research, including senior design projects, thesis projects, and PhD dissertation research.
University Facilities
Mason’s Information Technology Services (ITS) operates two computer labs for independent student use on the Fairfax Campus, one computer lab at Arlington Campus, and one at the Science and Technology Campus with over 300 networked computers with networked printers.
The university provides a variety of other lab options, including:
- STAR Lab: is a state-of-the-art multimedia computer and equipment checkout facility that provides the space and resources to complete creative projects. STAR Lab offers Mac and PC stations equipped with specialized video, multimedia, and game design software.
- Collaborative Learning Hub (CLUB): provides training and support for the technology to enhance student learning, supports the use of technology-based courseware in classrooms.
Computing Resources
Students can get free access to a wide range of software packages. The CEC has its own Computing Resources group to provide specialized services that go beyond the general university support at both the Fairfax and Science and Technology campuses.
These include tools for:
- software and app development
- data science
- mathematical manipulation.
You can work anywhere with our virtual private network (VPN).
ITS also provides the Citrix Virtual Lab (CVL) for students to remotely access academic software, such as ArcGIS, Eclipse, MATLAB, Microsoft Visual Studio Code, Microsoft Office, R, SAS, etc.
Featured Rooms
Lecture Rooms
We teach most classes in university-operated classrooms, the College of Engineering and Computing supports technology classrooms, and computer lab classrooms with course-specific software installed.
Conference Rooms
The main conference rooms are used by the IST faculty and staff for presentations and meetings. The rooms are equipped with machines and one or two projectors in the rooms. In addition, the room is set up for phone call conferencing, as well as web conferencing using a webcam.
The small conference rooms are used for small meetings of no more than a handful of individuals as well as web conferencing and phone call conferencing.
Other University Facilities
Mason supports students’ effective learning as well as the quality of life at the university.