Visiting Assistant Professor
Computer Science Department
Swarthmore College
[he/him/his]
Spring 2024 office hours:
Thurs 2:30-4:30pm, Sci 252D
or by appointment:
cmurphy4@swarthmore.edu
I am a visiting faculty member in Computer Science at Swarthmore College, where I teach courses on programming and software engineering.
My current academic interests include student mental health; diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in Computer Science; software engineering education; and software testing.
I previously served as a member of the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania and at Bryn Mawr College, where I earned teaching awards in 2019 and 2023, respectively.
Prior to embarking on my career in academia, I completed a PhD in Computer Science at Columbia University, where my research focused on software testing. Before that, I worked as a professional software developer in Boston, San Francisco, and London after earning a BS in Computer Engineering from Boston University.
Somewhere along the way, I also spent two years teaching English in Seoul, but that's not really part of the narrative hahaha...
You can find out more in my CV and on my LinkedIn page!
Some highlights from the past year:
3/21/24: Congratulations to my former students Jie Jie from Bryn Mawr and Joseph Kim from Haverford on the presentation of our papers on students living with mental health conditions and perspectives on assignment deadline policies, respectively, at this year's SIGCSE conference on Computer Science education! We got great feedback from audience members and I'm excited to see where these projects go next!
9/14/23: I am honored to have received a DO-IT Trailblazer Award for my efforts to make CS more inclusive of students living with mental health conditions. I have been so fortunate to be part of the AccessComputing community for a few years now, and am grateful to my collaborators Brianna Blaser for her encouragement and support and Jennifer Akullian for her insights and inspiration. Thank you so much, and congratulations to the other recipients as well!
9/12/23: Congratulations to my collaborator Lígia Maria Soares Passos and her colleagues in Brazil on the publication of our article "Mental Health of Computer Science Students during the COVID-19 Pandemic Social Isolation", which is an extended version of our EduComp2022 paper. I'm so fortunate to have been invited to participate in this work!
8/1/23: I am thrilled to join the faculty in Computer Science at Swarthmore College! I look forward to getting to know the students and faculty here and to making contributions to this outstanding academic community.
5/13/23: I was honored (and legitimately surprised) to have been awarded the Rosalyn R. Schwartz Teaching Award at today's Bryn Mawr College commencement ceremony. Thanks so much to my colleagues and students for your love and support!
4/16/23: It took a while for this to be released, but I'm thrilled that my article on making CS education inclusive for students with mental health conditions has been published in the latest issue of the NCWIT re:think magazine!
Although I spend most of my time teaching and advising students, I also contribute to the field of computer science education through publications and participating in panels and other events at conferences. Here are my publications and other activities in those areas:
Computer Science Student Mental Health
Diversity & Inclusion in Computer Science
Software Engineering Education
Software Testing
As a graduate student at Columbia University, I investigated software testing techniques for programs that do not have a "test oracle," i.e. for which it is difficult to know in advance what the correct output should be. I am no longer actively conducting research in this area, but a full list of publications is available in my CV.
In Spring 2024 I am teaching a section of CPSC 021 Intro to Computer Science.
In Summer 2024 I will be teaching CIS 5730 Software Engineering and CIS 5590 Programming & Problem Solving at the Univ. of Pennsylvania; more information will be available toward the end of the Spring.
In Fall 2024 I will be teaching a Special Topics course on Open Source Software Development.
I also created an online course on Computational Thinking for Problem Solving with Susan Davidson that was launched on Coursera in October 2018.
A full list of the courses I've taught is available in my CV.
Email: cmurphy@cs.swarthmore.edu
LinkedIn: chrismurphyonline