Saint Michael's College

Title: Professor of Computer Science

Education: B.S. University of Vermont; M.S. Purdue University

Personal Web site

Areas of Expertise/Research Interests: Simulation and predictive modeling; minimal perfect hashing functions; computer science education, concurrent programming using semaphores; Sidon set discovery; the MIPS architecture, analysis of algorithms' and cryptography.

Testimonial: Because my classes have less than 15 students in them, I really get to know the students fairly well each semester, and therefore, I can give them more individual help (if they need it) than if I were teaching much larger classes. The atmosphere in the classroom is also less formal, which hopefully encourages the students to feel more relaxed and comfortable asking questions or putting forth their ideas during class.

What do you like about Saint Michael's students? Their willingness to work hard in classes that challenge their abilities, the esprit de corps with their fellow classmates, their overall appreciation for taking advantage of the significant opportunity of being enrolled in an institution of higher learning for four years, their respect for the faculty, and their investment in becoming intellectaully enriched individuals.

What is your favorite class to teach, and why? I especially enjoy teaching the two course sequence that our Computer Science majors typically take during their junior year (Operating Systems in the fall, and Computer Architecture in the spring). This is mainly due to the fact that after establishing a firm foundation concerning the ideas behind developing software in their first four computer science courses, these two courses really allow for a very detailed study of how Operating Systems work, and what the hardware must do to execute software efficiently. I have recently begun teaching a course in cryptography and computer security, and have found this to be very interesting as well.

What kinds of unique opportunities are available to students in your classes or department? In the computer science department, we really get to know our students, and vice versa. If a student gets excited about a specific topic in a class, that student has the opportunity to do some research with that professor under the "CS411 umbrella" in a later semester. Our Linux lab also provides our majors/minors with experience using another platform (besides the MS Windows operating system.)