About me: I have been at JMU since Fall 2011. I enjoy teaching programming, advising first-year CS majors, and designing K-12 outreach. I am actively involved with the POGIL community and was a co-PI of the IntroCS-POGIL project. I am a coauthor of Think Java, a textbook published by O’Reilly Media and used at many universities and high schools around the world. I received a Ph.D. in computer science from Purdue University and bachelor's degrees in CS and German from the University of Utah.

Why I’m at JMU CS: I love to teach, and JMU is a teaching-focused research university. This department has an amazing work environment. The faculty support each other, have lunch together, make decisions by consensus, and work hard. We care about our students a lot! All of our courses are taught by full-time faculty, not TAs or GA’s. We run our own labs, do our own grading, and everything in between. We learn our students’ names and try to make a difference in their lives.

Courses I teach: CS 149 Intro to Programming, CS 159 Advanced Programming, CS 343 Application Development, CS 374 Database Systems.

Ask me about: Competitive programming, E-Hall, first-year advising, POGIL, undergraduate research.