About Me

Hello!

I am an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Computer Science department at UC Santa Barbara. I primarily teach undergraduate courses in Computer Science, mentor students, and engage in research in CS education, computational social science, and in data & information science.

I am currently the CS Department’s director/coordinator of the Early Research Scholars Program (ERSP) and the co-director of the Undergraduate Learning Assistants (ULA) program. I am also the faculty advisor for the Class of 2026 undergraduate CS students.

I earned my Ph.D. in Information Science at Rutgers University from the School of Communication and Information (SC&I) in 2018. I also have an MS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from USC Viterbi. I previously had a career of many years in the tech industry as an engineer and manager.

I am passionate about teaching computer and information technology to everyone (i.e. those with and without an affinity for computers, math, or engineering) and see a continued huge demand by people of different work and educational backgrounds wanting to learn computational and data science technologies at all levels. At my core, I am an educator, an engineer, and a social technologist.

My Erdős number is no more than 5; my Berners-Lee number is no more than 3; my Matni number is exactly zero! :)

My decidedly non-academic hobbies include music performance, international cooking, open-world gaming, and reading (well, does listening to a lot of audiobooks count?)