Dr. Dan Garcia : Full Frontal Nerdity

His)
`ddgarcia@cs.berkeley.edu`

There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart...pursue those.
-- Anonymous

Who am I? (short biography, curriculum vitæ)

I'm a Teaching Professor (aka Senior Lecturer SOE) in the Computer Science division of the EECS department at the University of California, Berkeley. I graduated with a Ph.D. from the same department in May 2000, where I worked with the OPTICAL project doing Computer Graphics and Scientific Visualization. On the personal side, I'm married to the beautiful and brilliant Tao Ye and have two wonderful children.

Teaching

I'll be on sabbatical during the fall of 2021 and spring of 2022. I'll be teaching CS10: The Beauty and Joy of Computing, a wonderful Art+CS course Advanced Digital Animation (CNM190-2), co-teaching (with my EE colleague Bora Nikolic) our sophomore-level computer architecture course: CS61C: Great Ideas in Computer Architecture (formerly Machine Structures). We (co-PIs Emeritus Teaching Prof Brian Harvey and Prof Tiffany Barnes of NC State) have trained over 650 high school teachers in our AP CS Principles Beauty and Joy of Computing course using the awesome Snap! (Build Your Own Blocks) graphical programming environment and the Blown to Bits book.

Service

I'm deeply interested and active in computer science education, having presented at the SIGCSE annual conference every year since 2001, and was honored to be chosen as an ACM Distinguished Educator in 2012, ACM Distinguished Speaker in 2019, and SIGCSE Vice-Chair in 2019. I was humbled to be chosen (with my friend Prof Tiffany Barnes) as the program co-chair for SIGCSE 2017 and symposium co-chair for SIGCSE 2018 in Baltimore, MD. I was co-guest-editor (with Moti Ben-Ari and Tom Murphy) of the TOCE journal Special Issue on Concurrent, Parallel and Distributed Computation, served on the GRE Computer Science Committee, and the Ensemble NSF project to create a website for computing educators. I recently served on the CRA Task Force on Teaching-Track Faculty, the ACM Education Council, the College Board's AP Computer Science: Principles development committee, TEALS Advisory Board, SRI's PACT Advisory Board, SMASH's Advisory Board, and CS PCK's Advisory Board. Locally, I am the Faculty Supervisor for our 11 summer classes, charged with hiring and nurturing the best instructors to cover our summer courses. Finally, I'm the higher education co-chair for CSforCA (CA advocacy for computer science), and I do everything I can to help our local CSTA chapter (CA-Golden Gate) thrive through monthly meetings I help facilitate on campus (and running CS4HS workshops every summer).

Active RAD (Research, Art & Development) Student Groups and Projects

I'm quite enthusiastic about the RAD (research, art & development) groups I advise. If you're interested in joining one of these groups (shown below), check their schedules for times and locations.

Game Theory
(GamesCrafters) 3D Animation
(UCBUGG) iOS Development
(iOS DeCal) BJC/Snap!
Development

(often wacky!)
(who are often wacky!)
(who are often wacky!)
(who are often wacky!)

Not-so-active recent RAD Projects

Weiner Lecture Archives (WLA)	Time-lapse HD	CS Illustrated	Ensemble Computing Portal

Upcoming Travel (when I'll be relatively out of touch)

...none, for perhaps the first time in my professional life...

Fall 2021 - Spring 2022 sabbatical plan

Be a great mentor to my Master's students and Undergrads in my groups

Develop an amazing BJC Middle School Curriculum

Awards

	2019 *In the 50 year history of SIGCSE, announced as the most frequent author, with 61 (2^nd place was 42)* (20 years after first attending SIGCSE)
	2018 My Spring 2018 CS10 Course has 65% women (out of 155 students), shattering its own record for diversity (2 years after my URM award)
	2017 *SAP Visionary Member* Award** (2 years after being chosen Tech Diversity Champion)
	2017 Chosen as a Google CS4HS Ambassador (2 years after being chosen Tech Diversity Champion)
	2017 My Spring 2017 CS10 Course has 60% women (out of 150 students), shattering its own record for diversity (2 years after being chosen Tech Diversity Champion)
	2016 NCWIT's Undergraduate Research Mentoring (URM) Award (12+2 years after I formed my UCBUGG, GamesCrafters and iOS groups)
	2016 NCWIT's Extension Services Transformation Award (Honorable Mention) (12+2 years after I formed my UCBUGG, GamesCrafters and iOS groups)
	2015 Chosen to receive LPFI's Lux Award as "Tech Diversity Champion" (2 years after we envisioned bringing BJC to SMASH Scholars)
	2015 Ten Most Popular MOOCs Starting in September 2015 and January 2016, Class Central (2 years after we started building it)
	2013 My CS10 Course has 106 women and 104 men, the first time that more women than men took an introductory computer science course at UC Berkeley (since they started digitizing records in 1993, and most believe ever, since the numbers were very bad in the earlier years). (2 years after our NSF CE21 award)
	2013 Chosen as Top 5 Professors to take classes with at UC Berkeley (2 years after our NSF CE21 award)
	2012 Chosen as an ACM Distinguished Educator (22 years after joining ACM)
	2012 CS10 Listed as one of the famous courses at Cal (2 years after starting CS10)
	2012 Listed as 10 Really Awesome Computer Science Professors (2 years after starting CS10)
	2011 CS10 : The Beauty and Joy of Computing chosen as a NSF CE21 grant winner (2 years after we started offering it)
	2011 CS10 : The Beauty and Joy of Computing chosen as a UC Online Pilot (2 years after we started offering it)
	2010 *CS10 : The Beauty and Joy of Computing chosen as one of five National Pilots for new non-majors computing course AP CS : Principles* by College Board** (2 years after we decided to create it)
	2006 Highest HKN Teaching Effectiveness rating (6.7) of any EECS LowerDiv instructor, ever (2 years after the previous high mark)
	2005 UC Berkeley Everyday / Unsung Hero (2 years after my promotion to PSOE)
	2005 CS Division IT Faculty Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2 years after my promotion to PSOE)
	2004 Highest HKN Teaching Effectiveness rating (6.6) of any CS LowerDiv instructor, ever (tied w/1 other) (2 years after the McEntyre Award)
	2002 CS Division Diane S. McEntyre Award for Excellence in Teaching (2 years after my UCB CS Ph.D.)
	1997 UC Berkeley Most classes GSId in UC Berkeley history (16 classes in 6 years is believed to be the record -- since the rule was nobody can GSI more than 5 years -- but staff didn't realize that until I had GSId 6!) (2 years after my UCB CS M.S.)
	1997 EECS Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (2 years after my UCB CS M.S.)
	1992 UCB Outstanding CS Graduate Student Instructor (2 years after my MIT CS B.S.)

Dan (or the BJC course he co-developed) in the News

	2020-10-12 UC Berkeley computer science professor strives to engage students through creative prerecorded lectures, Daily Cal
	2020-09-05 Cal Professor's Creative Video Lessons Keep Students Engaged, NBC Bay Area (video)
	2020-06-22 Professor Dan Garcia on Holding Students’ Attention to Stay on Track in Asynchronous Instruction, Medium post
	2020-04-15 The Discipline That Is Transforming Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education
	2019-12-23 Episode 2: Dan Garcia discusses Exam Creation, CS Ed Podcast (audio)
	2018-10-24 美国“全民计算机教育运动”领导人丹·葛西亚：通过快乐编程来普及计算机教育, Central Radio and TV Station International Online (here's a translation)
	2018-08-27 Female, minority students took AP computer science in record numbers, USA Today
	2017-10-10 Engineers, Recruiters and Professors Weigh In: Future Programmers Need Writing Skills, Too, EdSurge
	2017-10-01 The state of women in computer science: An investigative report, TechRepublic
	2017-08-17 AP Computer Science Draws In More Girls, Minorities, EdTech
	2017-07-31 AP Computer Science Principles Attract Diverse Students With Real-World Problems, KQED News
	2017-07-25 The Beauty and Joy of Computing in San Francisco, Infosys Foundation USA Blog
	2017-06-02 EECS department releases new grading guidelines, Daily Cal
	2017-05-31 Campus announces David Culler interim dean of new Division of Data Sciences, Daily Cal
	2017-04-04 Learning to Think Like a Computer, NY Times
	2017-04-03 How Tech Companies Stake Out Hackathons for Future Stars, Bloomberg's Decrypted podcast (audio)
	2017-03-24 And Then, Suddenly, Women Stopped Coding. What Happened In 1984?, ITSP Magazine, At the Intersection of Technology, Cybersecurity, and Society.
	2017-03-14 This Pi Day, use math to beat your friends at classic toy games, PBS NewsHour
	2017-02-16 Berkeley PhD's 4-Step Plan to a STEM Pipeline That Works for Everyone, Observer
	2017-01-25 Transforming High School Computer Science: The Beauty and Joy of Computing (BJC), CITRIS Research Exchange (video)
	2016-11-19 Microsoft program brings computer science to Windham High, Norwich, CT Bulletin
	2016-11-17 The impact of course titles on student enrollment, phys.org
	2016-11-14 What does a Hacker look like?, Daily Californian
	2016-11-10 千人狂歡　最受歡迎的程式課, CommonWealth Taiwanese Magazine (here's a copy with translation)
	2016-11-04 Melinda Gates And Regina Dugan On How To Get More Women Into Tech (And Keep Them), Fast Company
	2016-10-19 Plan Your Free Online Education at Lifehacker U: Fall Semester 2016, LifeHacker
	2016-08-25 New computer science course's challenge is finding qualified teachers to teach it, EdSource
	2016-08-03 New AP Course in Computer Science Principles Aims to Make Tech Accessible, EdTech
	2016-04-30 The industry that needs more women: Information and Communication Technology will have 100,000 new jobs by 2020, news.com.au
	2016-03-13 Lack of diversity still the 'elephant in the Valley', festival told, Irish Times
	2016-01-29 *Kicking off Computer Science for All* city will add AP classes, software programs**, NY Chalkbeat
	2016-01-14 Adding 'Beauty And Joy' To Obama's Push For Computer Science Teaching, NPR's All Things Considered (audio)
	2015-10-02 Snap! and BJC in the Scratch constellation, Scratch Amsterdam documentary (video)
	2015-09-16 CS for All: Fundamentals for Our Future, NYC Mayor's office (video with BJC teachers and Curriculum featured)
	2015-09-10 Code.org trains 15,000 teachers in computer science, USA Today
	2015-09-01 LPFI and UC Berkeley's "Beauty and Joy of Computing" Collaborate to Bring CS Principles to SMASH Scholars, LPFI Blog
	2015-07-21 Will Teaching New Computer Science Principles Level the Playing Field?, EdSurge
	2015-06-08 10 Wacky Educational Courses That Made Us Go 'Whaaa...?', ScoopWhoop
	2015-05-15 OUSD Celebrates Collaboration with Intel on Computer Science Education & Career Pipeline, Oakland Unified School District
	2015-05-07 Nice Ivy League Degree. Now if You Want a Job, Go to Code School, Bloomberg
	2015-04-03 This Awesome New Documentary Is Tackling Sexism in the Tech Industry Head-On, Marie Claire
	2015-03-30 Why women won't code is topic of new documentary, USA Today
	2015-03-11 The Beauty and Joy of Computing in the Big Apple, NSF Discoveries
	2015-02-26 Dan Garcia at TEDxBerkeley: The Beauty and Joy of Computing, TEDxBerkeley
	2015-02-26 City receives $5.5M grant for AP classes in computer science that focus on STEM, New York Daily News
	2014-12-05 Class Action: Gearing Up for the Hour of Code, NBC Bay Area (video)
	2014-10-01 EdX To Offer High School Level Courses, Harvard Crimson
	2014-10-01 Campaign launched to promote value of computer science education, the Lane Report
	2014-09-16 Why top universities teach drag and drop programming, code.org
	2014-08-27 California Shores up Support for Computer Science Education, Center for Digital Education
	2014-08-07 Harvey Mudd's Klawe Draws Blueprint for Closing Gender Gap: Tech, Washington Post (with Bloomberg)
	2014-07-23 CS4HS at Kean University provides high school teachers with tools for success, NJ Suburban News
	2014-07-10 As Silicon Valley Earns Image as a Boys' Club of "Tech Bros," Score One for Diversity, Cal Alumni Association
	2014-07-10 Colleges Work to Engage Women, Minorities in STEM Fields, US News and World Reports
	2014-05-29 Local professors work to make tech world more diverse, KTVU news (with video)
	2014-05-28 Computer science's diversity gap starts early, PBS NewsHour
	2014-05-19 What better way to get ready for your final?, FOX KTVU Right This Minute (video)
	2014-05-16 UC Berkeley Professor Drops Pre-Final Computer Science Rap, Huffington Post (with video)
	2014-05-07 State senate passes bill to allow high school computer science classes to meet college admissions requirements, The Daily Californian
	2014-04-22 Innovations in Teaching: The Beauty and Joy of Computing, Phi Beta Kappa News
	2014-03-20 The New Face of Tech...Is Wearing Mascara, Verizon Wireless newscenter (remix of SF Chronicle article)
	2014-03-07 Programming for all?, Linking and thinking on education
	2014-03-03 One Small Tweak Made a World of Difference in This Computer Science Class, NationSwell (remix of SF Chronicle article)
	2014-03-01 We need a moon shot to propel women into computer science careers, San Jose Mercury News (front page)
	2014-03-01 CS KickStart gives budding female computer scientists a window to the programming world, San Jose Mercury News (photo only)
	2014-02-26 Women in Tech: Ladies outnumber men in UC Berkeley computer class for the first time ever, Bustle (remix of SF Chronicle article)
	2014-02-25 Foodies using technology to get tough reservations, ABC 7 News (with video)
	2014-02-24 There Was a Major Step Forward for Women and Tech at Berkeley, Identities.Mic (remix of SF Chronicle article)
	2014-02-24 For the First Time Ever, More Women Than Men Enroll in UC Berkeley Intro to CS, women2.0 (remix of TechCrunch article)
	2014-02-22 Women Outnumber Men in Berkeley's Intro to Computer Science, bigthing (remix of TechCrunch article)
	2014-02-22 Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley's Intro To Computer Science, Y combinator Hacker News (remix of TechCrunch article)
	2014-02-21 Women Outnumber Men For The First Time In Berkeley's Intro To Computer Science Course, TechCrunch
	2014-02-21 For the First Time, Women Outnumber Men in a UC-Berkeley Computer Science Course, slate (remix of SF Chronicle article)
	2014-02-21 In a First, Women Outnumber Men in Berkeley Computer Science Course, Wired (remix of SF Chronicle article)
	2014-02-20 Emphasising the beauty and joy of computing for girls, Irish Times (remix of SF Chronicle article)
	2014-02-18 Tech shift: More women in computer science classes, San Francisco Chronicle (front page)
	2013-12-11 Hundreds of teens attend Computer Science Education Day at Cal, Contra Costa Times
	2013-11-20 Online Education, berkeley science review
	2013-11-17 UC unveils 20 new online courses for high-demand classes, The Daily Californian
	2013-08-20 How to win at Connect Four every time! A link to a game solver that you can use on your smartphone or computer, Mind Your Decisions (blog)
	2013-03-21 UC Berkeley aims to stay ahead of the curve in age of tech, The Daily Californian
	2013-02-27 Professors see varying success in online courses, The Daily Californian (with video)
	2013-01-08 One Professor's Approach to Online Learning: He's Learning Too, PBS NewsHour (with video)
	2012-11-14 Compulsory Computing, The Daily Californian
	2012-11-13 Female students still struggle to find foothold in engineering, computer science, The Daily Californian
	2012-10-29 A Reboot in Recruiting Women Into Computer Science, The Chronicle of Higher Education
	2012-09-09 UC Berkeley instructors develop new computer science course, The Daily Californian
	2012-08-15 Lecture Lust: A list of famous courses at Cal, Daily Californina
	2012-04-02 Giving Women the Access Code, NY Times
	2012-03-19 Campus increases use of social media, online platforms for discussion, The Daily Californian
	2012-02-20 UC inaugurates pilot program for online classes, The Daily Californian
	2011-03-29 It's a Snap to find the Scratch to BYOB in class, Tom Murphy (Intel blog)
	2010-08-19 Why Build Your Own Blocks?, Hélène Martin (blog)
	2009-12-15 Oh! The Beauty and Joy of Computing, Berkeley Engineering

RAD Activities (archived)

Computer Science Education (along with course development and diversity / community outreach)

Computational Game Theory (I developed Gamesman under Prof. Elwyn Berlekamp!)

Recreational Computer Graphics & Animation (Here is some CGI I've done with textures and icons)

Programming Mac OS X, iPhones, iPod Touches, and iPads

Fun Interests

Heart Candy (friends)

Tao Ye, mi amor y esposa

Dr. Michael Rehl, my best friend (since 1977!), who's now a Walnut Creek Chiropractor!

Family and friends, although keeping up with email is difficult

GTAT: Angie Schuett, Drew Roselli, Dan Rice and Fielding Mellish

Jaycito Cofresi, my second cousin from 'da Bronx

Ronnen Levinson, my fellow upstate NYer ex-housemate

Would you believe I'm not the only Dan Garcia!

Cooperstown Central School (NY) Alumni

Eye Candy (Television and Movies and Images)

Anything by Aardman Animations (like Wallace & Gromit)

Photography (I shoot with a Nikon D7000 and am loving the new 70-200 f/2.8 lens)

Body Candy (Sports and Recreation)

Golf! (low:93, avg:100) My swing w/iron

and wood 1

, 2

, 3

times has changed

!! I once hit

two

birdies!

Ultimate

Hoops My high school hoops team finished fourth in the state and has been inducted into the school's athletics Hall of Fame!

Rock Climbing at the RSF, Tilden Park and nearby parks

Softball. My ex-teams: Badness 10000 and NP Complete Idiots (who went 8-0 in league play!). I batted, uh, pretty well

Juggling I learned to do a 5-ball cascade!

Brain Candy (Puzzles and Games and Learning)

Puzzles (logic, math, programming, etc.) Books, videos and CDROMs I own

My Atari 2600, 7800 & emulators. Wanna trade carts?

Computer Games: TIM, Firestorm, Smart Games, MacMAME.

Ear Candy (Music and Humor)

Listening to Monty Python and memorizing sketches

Jazz, Salsa, Classic Rock, Folk, Rap, Classical, Opera

Woody Allen films, books, CDs Moose

Kidnapped

Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Cheech & Chong, Eddie Murphy, Smothers Brothers, and other classic comedians

Random comedy. (e.g. the real

and faked

"bambulance")

Random Candy

My Apple 3.0GHz 8-core 64GiB-RAM 1TB-HD Mac Pro and 2.6GHz 15-inch 16GiB-RAM MacBook Pro Retina

SPAM (the food)

Puerto Rico

¡Soy Borinqueño (de Nueva York)... Soy ¡Nuyorican!

Master's Students

2023 Victor Huang

2023 Zoe Plaxco

2022 Peyrin Kao (co-advised by Nick Weaver)

2022 Vron Vance (co-advised by Nick Weaver)

2022 Avery Liou

2022 Justin Yokota

2022 Connor "Cece" McMahon

2022 Deanna Gelosi

2021 Renaldo Williams

2021 Bojin "Max" Yao Computer-Based Testing using PrairieLearn in BJC

2021 Anthony Ling GamesmanPuzzles: A Leap Into the Puzzles Domain

2021 Qitian Liao Automatic Detection of Interesting Cellular Automata

2020 Mansi Shah Exploring the Use of Parsons Problems for Learning a New Programming Language

2019 Lara McConnaughey An Analysis of Introductory Courses Affect on Student Sentiment and Stereotype Toward Computer Science

2018 Steven Hewitt Teaching with Reinforcement Learning: A Smarter AutoQuiz

2018 Yifat Amir A Data Analysis of Student Success and Motivations in the BJCx MOOC

2018 Zhiping "Patricia" Xiao AutoQuiz: an online, adaptive, test practice system

2016 Michael Ball λ -- An Autograder for Snap!

2015 Jonathan McKinsey Remote Pair Programming in a Visual Programming Language

2015 Zachary MacHardy Applications of Bayesian Knowledge Tracing to the Curation of Educational Videos

2014 Stephanie Rogers ACES: Automatic Evaluation of Coding Style

2014 Daniel Armendariz OCTAL: The Online Course Tool for Adaptive Learning

2012 Albert "Luke" Segars REGIS: A Tool for Building and Distributing Personalized Practice Problems

2009 Jeremy R Huddleston Advanced Digital Animation Curriculum Development: An Interdisciplinary Approach

2009 Ketrina Yim Computer Science Illustrated

Education

Fatherhood! 2005, 2009

Ph.D. in Computer Science UCB 2000

M.S. in Computer Science UCB 1995

B.S. in Computer Science (VI-III) MIT 1990 (entered in Class of 1989) Baker House

B.S. in Electrical Engineering (VI-I) MIT 1990 (entered in Class of 1989)

N.Y.S. Regents Diploma from Cooperstown (NY) Central HS 1985

Public Grade School Education from Public School 94 in 'da Bronx, NY (just like comedian Robert Klein!)

Life plan

Be a super dad to my two kids, a super husband to my wife Tao, and a super son to my parents (writ large).

Be the best computer science instructor I can be.

Research my family genealogy

Reduce personal entropy.

Break 90 on the links (previous low: 93 on par 72 course)

Dan Garcia (ddgarcia@cs.berkeley.edu) This page last modified: 2021-06-17@15:39:19 PDT
Office: 777 Soda Hall, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720-1776 (c) 510-517-4041 (f) 510-642-5775
Computer Science Dept., UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, (Bay Area)

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Game Theory (GamesCrafters)	3D Animation (UCBUGG)	iOS Development (iOS DeCal)	BJC/Snap! Development
(often wacky!)	(who are often wacky!)	(who are often wacky!)	(who are often wacky!)

Dr. Dan Garcia (He/Him/His)ddgarcia@cs.berkeley.edu