Academic Paths

What was the path to your current position?

Bill Kerney --/--

Tenured Instructor, Computer Science

Clovis Community College & Fresno State

My mom kept encouraging me to try teaching a class so after my business got well established I thought I'd try teaching a night class or something. I really enjoyed it and the school was actually going through the process of hiring a tenure track computer science instructor so they offered me the job. I accepted the position and have been teaching now full time since 2015. It's been great.

Christopher M Carruth H/h/h

Teaching Assistant Professor, Information Science

University of Colorado, Boulder

Might return to this at a later time...but in short, was asked to adjunct at CU after my MS. After one year, I was appointed to full-time instructor. I maintained that position for several years. Original dept. did not renew my contract (in truth, it was an interesting dept with high turn-over). I had made contacts across campus and developed a good reputation as an educator and pivoted to Info Science. I began the process of adjunctification again and was on path towards a full-time appointment when pandemic hit and that line was closed. I decided to move to Vancouver, BC to pursue an MFA in digital arts. Was lucky enough to continue adjuncting remotely while there and, upon complete of my MFA, was offered the full-time post once more.

It's been circuitous and, at times, frustrating, but I've found an amazing department that treats me as a valued member, a colleague, and a friend. Wish it happened sooner, but I landed in the right spot.

Harry Smith he/him/his

Senior Lecturer, Computer and Information Science

University of Pennsylvania

I TA'd for a Python mini-course as an undergraduate. The course was part of a larger system of courses taught by students of all levels (PhD through undergraduate) mentored by Swapneel Sheth and Joe Devietti. After a few semesters, Swap & Joe invited me to apply for the instructor role, and after two tries, they selected me to teach the course. I did this for three semesters, enjoying it more and more each time.

After undergrad, I got my Master's as a way to "buy time" deciding between teaching, research, or industry. I spent a full year without any meaningful teaching experiences and I noticed feeling unfulfilled. Over the following summer, I worked as a TA for the Lede Program in Data Journalism at Columbia and spent all day doing really exciting teaching with a great group of students, proving to myself that teaching is what I wanted to do.

The following Fall, I applied semi-widely for teaching jobs. Penn made me an early and compelling offer. Enticed by the exciting prospect (and wary of the oncoming pandemic's impact on the remainder of my job search), I accepted the offer and never looked back! I've had an excellent four years working as a Lecturer and I expect to be promoted to Senior Lecturer in Fall '24.

Kendra Walther (she/her/they)

Associate Professor of Practice, Information Technology Program

University of Southern California

My path has been completely circuitous. I'm happy to share my story and path with people who ask.

Kevin Lin he/him

Assistant Teaching Professor, Computer Science and Engineering

University of Washington

I grew up in San Ramon, California, a not-so-small-anymore suburb of the San Francisco Bay Area. Surrounded by a large community of other Asian Americans, I was rarely marginalized or challenged by social issues because I assimilated values that stereotypically characterize Asian Americans (e.g. model minority myth). My formal education as a student through university reinforced these views, reflecting the dominant computing culture that defined computing as mostly abstracted from the world.

But my interest in teaching quickly raised questions about the purposes and end goals of education as a project that could either center or marginalize equity. In my work as an undergraduate and graduate TA, I studied how the design of our CS learning environments could shape student outcomes and identities through how they emphasized student hierarchies, exacerbated inequities in prior knowledge, or decentered students in the learning process. Through hundreds of hours observing students' real experiences with CS education, I identified dozens of ways that courses, course infrastructures, and learning environments normalize and reflect instructor values about social order, social classification, and social relations.

Today, my mission is to research, design, and disseminate pedagogies, curricula, and ways of living that realize computing education's possibility as a force for human liberation rather than human domination.

Michael Ball he/him

Lecturer, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

University of California, Berkeley

I spent most of undergrad teaching, working on the BJC curriculum and Snap! projects. I spent a few years as a software engineer before coming to teach full time.

Miya Natsuhara she/her/hers

Assistant Teaching Professor, Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering

University of Washington

I began TAing for the CS 1 course in my undergrad, and I TAed every quarter afterwards (with the exception of a few summers when I had internships). After a few quarters, I took on more responsibilities and moved into leadership roles where I had more insight into course policy, management, and pedagogical choices. As a BS/MS student, I had the opportunity to teach the course on my own, which reassured my interest and enjoyment of teaching full courses. After graduation, I went to into industry for a while (Microsoft), but began teaching on the side after being asked to cover some courses that didn't have instructors, and was unsurprised when I fell back into the pattern of looking forward to doing work for the courses after finishing my day at Microsoft. I taught on the side of being a SWE for about a year before I made the decision to fully commit to teaching, and applied to become an Assistant Teaching Professor.

Omar Ibrahim he/they

Lecturer, Computer Science

University of Illinois Chicago

As an undergrad at UW, I got my start as an undergraduate TA for our intro CS courses. I immediately found that it was something I deeply enjoyed, and became more and more interested in the course design and pedagogy decisions that went into creating the classes I was teaching. My head TA at the time helped guide me through taking on more responsibility within the course and recommended I join a CS Ed reading group. That was what got me more involved in the CS Ed community at my university, and interacting with teaching faculty every week began to show me what being a teaching faculty member looked like. At the same time, I had been doing the CS student thing, doing software engineering internships every summer, and each experience felt very hollow and unsatisfying for me, which helped me realize that the thing I had loved most about CS was teaching it.
In my entire undergrad, I only ever taught for people without PhDs, so it wasn't a huge realization for me that I could do this job without getting a PhD; I just had to figure out what I did need to do, and how to do it. By my senior year, I was 100% sure that my goal was to become teaching faculty.That resulted in me doing a combined BS/MS program at UW to get my MS in Computer Science, which also gave me time and experience leading my own classes. In my last year, I went on the job market and ended up at the University of Illinois Chicago, which is where I'm at now, starting my career in full. I'm only just finishing my first year, so I don't have much else to say right now!

Sharon Solis she/her

Lecturer, Computer Science and Statistics & Applied Probability

University of California, Santa Barbara

After grading with a BS in Mathematical Sciences at UC Santa Barbara, I volunteered for a year in Chicago with AmeriCorps, working in a ninth-grade math classroom. I then came back to UC Santa Barbara and worked in IT for 8 years. While I worked, I got my MS in Applied Math at University of Washington online. After receiving my master's, I taught part-time at Santa Barbara City College and Westmont while still working in IT, before I transitioned to teaching full-time at UC Santa Barbara in the Computer Science department and the Statistics & Applied Probability department.

Suraj Rampure he/him

Lecturer III, Computer Science and Engineering

University of Michigan

By the start of my senior year of undergrad (Fall 2019), I had served as a teaching assistant (Graduate Student Instructor, or GSI, in Berkeley-speak) for five semesters, three of which were in an administrative+teaching role. At that point, I had also taught my own Discrete Mathematics course for two semesters through the DeCal program, which allows undergraduates to propose and teach their own courses under the supervision of a faculty sponsor.

Around then, I started to become aware of the possibility of pursuing a teaching faculty position without a PhD and started to reach out to others who were in that role. The most crucial immediate step, though, was applying and getting into the MS program at Berkeley (which, like at many other institutions, was a 1 year addition to my undergrad degree).

During my senior year I served as an administrative TA twice more, and served as a co-instructor for a regularly offered course the summer after (this seems to be a common theme amongst those who have followed this path). At the start of my MS I began to identify institutions and positions I wanted to apply to, and sent in all of my applications right around Thanksgiving.

I did most of my interviews in the first half of Spring 2021, and decided on DS@UCSD towards the end of March.

Travis Mcgaha he/him

Lecturer, Computer and Information Science

University of Pennsylvania

I always liked helping people and so I tutored some math and physics in high school. Once at University, I became a TA and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I got involved more with the teaching community through TA-ing a lot of times across many courses, taking CS education seminars, and getting to know the instructors. As I continued to TA, I was granted the opportunity to try giving one of the lectures for the course I was a TA for. It was very stressful but it went well. I eventually got the opportunity to teach over the summer (2020, so it was on Zoom due to COVID). The following fall, I applied for teaching positions and ended up at the University of Pennsylvania, where I have been since August 2021.