Steve is a professor of Computer Science in the School of Computing at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln and serves as the Faculty Director of the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management. Steve came to the University of Nebraska – Lincoln from the Computer Science Department at Stanford University where he served as an associate professor (teaching). Before Stanford, Steve was a professor of Computer Graphics Technology at Purdue University, and before Purdue, Steve was an assistant and then associate professor of Computer Science at St. Joseph’s University.
Steve’s research areas lie in computer science education, with particular interest in program visualization and in trying to understand how students learn to program. He has worked with several hundred K-12 teachers (primarily in the USA, Costa Rica, and Brazil), helping them to prepare to teach computer programming to their students. He is most well-known for his work with the Alice programming environment and in developing Alice-related curricular materials. Along with coauthors, he has written many technical papers on Alice as well as two textbooks. Steve holds Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Computer Science from Syracuse University. His undergraduate degrees, in Chemistry and Mathematics, are from Cornell University.