Henry Walker

Position: Visiting Professor
Office: TCL 102
Phone: 413.597.5045
E-mail: [email protected]
Website: http://cs.williams.edu/~hmw3

Education

  • Ph.D. (Mathematics) Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1973
  • M.S. (Computer Science) University of Iowa, 1979
  • A.B. (Mathematics) Williams College, 1969

Interests

  • Computer Science Education
  • Curricula, Pedagogy, Lab Environments, Programs
  • Diversity in Computing; Social and Ethical Issues of Computing
  • Computer Science and Mathematics
  • Web-based applications

Biography

Throughout his career, Henry has intertwined themes of computing and mathematics. At Williams, he majored in [pure] mathematics and also served as the first undergraduate laboratory assistant in the computer center. His first graduate degree and academic position focused upon mathematics, but he subsequently earned a graduate degree in computer science. Currently, most of his teaching and all of his 9 books involve computer science, and about 140 of his publications are indexed in the Digital Library of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). With a long and varied career, he is a past Chair of ACM’s Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE), he received the 2013 SIGCSE Award for Distinguished Service to the Computer Science Education Community, he is identified as an ACM Distinguished Educator, and he currently serves on the ACM Retention Committee. In the past, he has served on several groups of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA), and he currently serves on the MAA Committee on Departmental Review. In addition to being a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Williams, he is a Professor of Computer Science and Samuel R. and Marie-Louise Rosenthal Professor of Natural Science and Mathematics at Grinnell College.

Research

Henry pursues wide-ranging interests in computing, particularly computing (and mathematics) education. He regularly is asked to serve on external review teams for departments of mathematics, computing science, and combined math/CS, and he will participate in his 40 external review in Fall 2017. He also regularly reviews computing-curricular proposals being formulated in New Zealand. Within the College Board’s Advanced Placement Program, he has served on two Ad-Hoc Computer Science Committees, the AP CS A Development Committee and an AP CS Review Committee, and he has graded AP exams for 36 years (6 in mathematics, 30 in calculus). Presently, he serves as an Associate Editor and regular columnist for ACM Inroads (a computing-education magazine). His tenth book, under contract, focuses upon the teaching of computer science.