Owen Astrachan

Owen Astrochan is an American computer scientist and professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Duke University where he is also the department's Director of Undergraduate Studies. He is known for his work in curriculum development and methods of teaching computer science. In 2007 he was named one of the first National Science Foundation CISE Distinguished Education Fellows.

Education and early career

Astrachan graduated from Dartmouth College in 1978 with an AB degree in mathematics. He received a Master of Arts in Teaching from Duke in 1979, doing his initial teaching at Camp Lejeune High School, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.[1]

From 1980 to 1985 he taught math and computer science at Durham Academy in Durham, North Carolina.[1] During the summer of 1983 he attended a summer program for high school teachers at Carnegie Mellon University preparing to teach the new College Board AP Computer Science course. He joined the development team for the new exam.[2]

In 1985 Astrachan began graduate studies in computer science at Duke. His thesis work was with Donald W. Loveland on automated theorem proving.[1][3] His teaching responsibilities included curricular development for the first computer science course for majors and the introductory computer science course for non-majors.[1] He spent the summer of 1991 as a research assistant at SRI International in Menlo Park, California working on automated theorem proving with Mark E. Stickel.[1][4] He received his MS from Duke in 1989 and his PhD in 1992.[1]

While a student in 1989 he became the Chief Reader for the AP Computer Science test with the Educational Testing Service, a position he held until 1994.[1] For four years, from 1990 to 1993, he and other graduate students ran the first distributed, internet-based programming contest. It was inspired by the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest but open to a wider range of students and required no travel, only access to email.[5]

Teaching

He is the author of Astrachan, Owen (2000), A Computer Science Tapestry: Exploring Programming and Computer Science with C++, McGraw Hill, ISBN 0-07-232203-9 . At Duke he won the Richard K. Lublin Distinguished Teaching Award[6] in 2002 for "the ability to engender genuine intellectual excitement, ability to engender curiosity, knowledge of field and ability to communicate that knowledge". He also won the Robert Cox teaching award at Duke in 1995 and an Outstanding Instructor award while teaching for a semester at the University of British Columbia.

Astrachan has won a number of National Science Foundation (NSF) awards.[7] In 2007 he and Peter Denning were named NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering Distinguished Education Fellows for "their outstanding efforts to revitalize undergraduate computing education in the United States."[8]

This NSF grant and award follows a CAREER award in 1997 to investigate "practical and pedagogical concerns of the computer science and software engineering communities with an integrated approach to the use, learning, and teaching of [design] patterns"[9] an award in 1996 to develop materials in support of "an application oriented, apprenticeship learning approach to the CS2 course"[10] and other NSF awards for developing curricular materials to support education, research, and visualization[11] in 1996 and for developing modules and courses for ubiquitous and mobile computing[12] in 2000.

AP Computer Science Principles

In 2008 Astrachan became the principle investigator for the joint NSF/College Board project to develop a new Advanced Placement (AP) course, AP Computer Science Principles[13] and the continuing grant to complete the development of the AP CSP exam.[14] The new course is designed to broaden participation in computing.[15]

Assignments

In creating assignments for programming courses, Astrachan's Law refers to a tenet in developing assignments:[16]

Do not give an assignment that computes something that is more easily figured out without a computer, such as the old Fahrenheit/Celsius conversion problem... Astrachan's Law reminds us to do a little showing off with our computation.

Several assignments developed by Astrachan have appeared in the Nifty Assignments Archive including:

Luis von Ahn was a student in two undergraduate courses at Duke under Astrachan. When visiting Duke in 2008, von Ahn discussed his PageRank assignment at Carnegie Mellon University. The assignment has been picked up at Cal Tech's Ideas Behind the Web course, but also at Duke University in the Rankophiliac assignment for Compsci 182s Technical and Social Foundations of the Internet.

Programming contests

Owen Astrachan was a member of Duke's ACM's Programming Team that placed fourth in the world in 1989[20] and seventh in the world in 1990. He has coached a Duke team to the world finals every year but one since 1994, which is the most appearances in the world finals of any US team.[21] In 2006 Business Week followed the Duke team during the world finals and reported on how badly they did.[22]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Owen L. Astrachan - Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Duke University. Retrieved 1 August 2017.
  2. ↑ William Aspray (2016). "4.3 CS Principles". Participation in Computing: The National Science Foundation’s Expansionary Programs. Springer. pp. 114–119. ISBN 978-3-319-24832-5.
  3. ↑ Astrachan, O. L.; Loveland, D. W. (1991). "METEORs: High Performance Theorem Provers using Model Elimination". In Robert S. Boye. Automated Reasoning: Essays in Honor of Woody Bledsoe. pp. 31–59. ISBN 978-94-010-5542-0. doi:10.1007/978-94-011-3488-0_2.
  4. ↑ Owen L. Astrachan; Mark E. Stickel (1992). "Caching and Lemmaizing in Model Elimination Theorem Provers". In Deepak Kapur. Automated Deduction, CADE-11: 11th International Conference on Automated Deduction. Springer-Verlag. pp. 224–238. ISBN 978-0-387-55602-4.
  5. ↑ Khera, Vivek; Astrachan, Owen; Kotz, David (1993). "The internet programming contest" (PDF). ACM SIGCSE Bulletin. 25 (1): 48–52. ISSN 0097-8418. doi:10.1145/169073.169105.
  6. ↑
  7. ↑ "Owen Astrachan Search". Nsf.gov. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  8. ↑ "NSF Announces First Annual Computer and Information Science and Engineering Distinguished Education Fellows" (Press release). National Science Foundation. 13 July 2007. Retrieved 2017-07-31.
  9. ↑ "NSF Award Search: Award#9702550 - CAREER: Using and Developing Design Patterns in Undergraduate Computer Science Courses". Nsf.gov. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  10. ↑ "NSF Award Search: Award#9554910 - The Applied Apprenticeship Approach (AAA): An Object-Oriented/Object-Based Framework for CS2". Nsf.gov. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  11. ↑ "NSF Award Search: Award#9634475 - CISE Educational Innovation Program: CURIOUS - (C)enter for (U)ndergraduate Education and (R)esearch: (I)ntergration Thr(OU)gh Performance and Vi(S)ualization". Nsf.gov. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  12. ↑ "NSF Award Search: Award#0088078 - CRCD: Modules and Courses for Ubiquitous and Mobile Computing". Nsf.gov. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  13. ↑ "Using Computational Thinking to Model a New Course: Advanced Placement Computer Science: Principles". National Science Foundation. 20 August 2011. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  14. ↑ "Collaborative Research: Broadening Participation in Computer Science: AP Computer Science Principles Phase II". National Science Foundation. 16 September 2015. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  15. ↑ "The National Science Foundation Provides $5.2 Million Grant to Create New Advanced Placement Computer Science Course and Exam" (Press release). College Board. 13 June 2013. Retrieved 31 July 2017.
  16. ↑ Parlante, Nick (2003), "Astrachan's Law", ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 35 (4): 26, doi:10.1145/960492.960518
  17. ↑ Parlante, Nick; Clancy, Mike; Pattis, Rich; Reges, Stuart; Zelenski, Julie; Astrachan, Owen (1999), "Nifty Assignments Panel", ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 31: 354–355, doi:10.1145/384266.299809
  18. ↑ Parlante, Nick; Clancy, Mike; Reges, Stuart; Zelenski, Julie; Astrachan, Owen (2001), "Nifty Assignments Panel", ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 33: 412–413, doi:10.1145/366413.364797
  19. ↑ Parlante, Nick; Murtagh, Thomas; Sahami, Mehran; Reed, David; Stone, Christopher; Heeringa, Brent; Reid, Karen; Astrachan, Owen (2009), "Nifty Assignments Panel", ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 41: 483, doi:10.1145/1539024.1509031
  20. ↑ "The ACM-ICPC International Collegiate Programming Contest". Cm.baylor.edu. 2017-05-25. Retrieved 2017-07-26.
  21. ↑
  22. ↑ Hamm, Steve (May 1, 2006). "A Red Flag In the Brain Game". Business Week.
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