Computing Research Policy Blog

CRA Names Computing Leader to Head New Education Effort

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the appointment of Andries van Dam, Brown University Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science, to lead its new effort to improve the quality of computing education, particularly at the undergraduate level. Professor van Dam will chair CRA's new Education Committee, called CRA-E, charged to think broadly about the future of computing education

“I am delighted that Professor van Dam has agreed to service as the initial chair of CRA-E,” said Daniel Reed, Microsoft’s Scalable and Multicore Computing Strategist and Chair of CRA. “Not only is Andy a distinguished and respected researcher, he is passionate about computing education, both its theory and its practice. Moreover, he has long worked to apply novel technologies to computing education.”

CRA established the CRA-E after declining enrollments in computer science led to a reexamination of the image of computing and the nature of the 21st Century computing curriculum. The new committee seeks to understand how the broad computing community needs to move forward in order to develop principles and philosophy underlying the computing education of the future. “I don’t believe we can continue the indefinite addition of layers to the computing curriculum onion that was defined in the 1970s,” said Reed. “We need to rethink some of our fundamental assumptions about computing education approaches and content, and Professor van Dam is the right person to lead that effort.”

Professor van Dam has been on Brown’s faculty since 1965 and was one of the founders and first Chair of its Computer Science Department. Along with J.D. Foley, van Dam authored seminal texts on computer graphics, and has authored or co-authored over 100 papers. He is a fellow of the IEEE, Association for Computing Machinery, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, recipient of awards for outstanding contributions to computing education from ACM, IEEE and SIGCSE, and a winner of the 2002 CRA Distinguished Service Award. van Dam also served as the Chair of CRA from 1985 to 1987.

About CRA. CRA was established 30 years ago and has members at more than 250 research entities in academia, industry and government. Its mission is to strengthen research and advance education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policymaker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in society.

For more about CRA.