Meet the Alice Team

Stephen Cooper is Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at St. Joseph's University. He has recently taken a two year rotator position for the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation. Rather than writing and submitting his own grant proposals, he'll be evaluating the proposals of others.

Steve's research areas lie in program visualization and semantics. He has been developing Alice-related curricular materials since 1998, and has conducted numerous Alice professional development workshops and lectures throughout the United States. He has been working with Dr. Wanda Dann (Ithaca College) and Dr. Randy Pausch (Carnegie Mellon University). Along with Dann and Pausch, he has written many technical papers on Alice, as well as a textbook, Learning to Program With Alice (2006, Prentice-Hall). At Saint Joseph's University, he created a minority outreach program PAthways to Careers in MAthematics and Computer Science (PACMACS), using the Alice course as part of motivating Philadelphia public high school students to consider careers in computer science and mathematics.

Caitlin Kelleher is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Washington University in St. Louis. She completed her doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University working with Professor Randy Pausch and spent her undergraduate years at Virginia Tech.

Caitlin joined the Alice project in 1999 when she began as a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon. As part of her dissertation work, she created Storytelling Alice which introduces programming as a means to the end of storytelling. Storytelling Alice was extensively tested with middle school students, especially girls. One of the main findings was that presenting programming in a storytelling context made the process of learning to program measurably more motivating for middle school girls, an audience that is traditionally difficult to interest in computer programming. She continues to be deeply interested in creating novice programming environments that inspire and support users in completing self-directed projects.

Caitlin has published papers in several conferences and journals. As a graduate student, she was recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship.

Don Slater was already a secondary school teacher in Western Pennsylvania when the first personal computers were introduced into his building. Don became a computer science teacher, when he realized he wanted to help others discover the cool things that they might be able to build with computers, as he had. Don taught and served as the technology director at Sewickley Academy, a private school in the Pittsburgh area. In 1998, he began teaching introductory programming part time at Carnegie Mellon. In 2000, he was invited to become a full time member of the Computer Science Department as a Lecturer.

Don joined the Alice Team in the fall of 2005 as he introduced Alice into his Introductory Programming course. Wanda Dann happened to be on sabbatical at Carnegie Mellon that fall. and she became a valuable advisor as they explored the using Alice in his course. With Wanda and Steve Cooper, Don has since presented at teacher training workshops around the country, as well as at various conferences, including NECC, SIGCSE, IMICT, and ISECON.

Don is a consultant for the College Board in Advanced Placement Computer Science. He has served as a reader and leader at the yearly Advanced Placement Computer Science Exam grading since 1991. He has written articles for the College Board and led teacher workshops throughout the east, and now directs the Advanced Placement Teacher Workshop held each summer at Carnegie Mellon.

Don is a native of Western Pennsylvania, growing up in Oil City, PA. Unlike many who grew up in the 70's with the obligatory guitar accessory, Don did not give it up at the beginning of the disco craze, but continues to enjoy playing his guitar whenever he has the opportunity.

Steve Audia is the Technical Coordinator for the Entertainment Technology Center and the Alice Team.

If Steve hadn't discovered computers at the age of seven, he'd probably still be building transformers out of Lego. Pursuing his love of both technology and creative process, he decided to study architecture, and received a Bachelors of Science degree in Architectural Design from the University of Virginia in 1999. Upon graduation, Steve spent a one-year residency with Randy Pausch's Stage3 research group as a digital artist. This landed him a job as an artist and python programmer for Walt Disney Imagineering's DisneyQuest, where he helped design and prototype virtual and augmented reality attractions. Now back at Carnegie Mellon, Steve is also working towards being an animation teacher and developing animation tools to augment software used in the ETC curriculum. Steve still hasn't given up his dream of one day being a Y2K engineer.

Barb served as Benefits and Compensation Administrator at Saint Joseph's University from 1998, until joining the Center for Visualization in September, 2005. Among her duties as the Project Manager for the Center for Visualization, Barb oversees the budget minutia of the Alice grants, plans training workshops, tries to stay on top of the ever-growing Alice mailing list, performs surveys and gets out the highly anticipated Alice Newsletter.

She received her BA from Rutgers University, and did graduate study there. She holds a certificate in HR Administration from Villanova University, maintains her PHR, and is a certified K-12 teacher. A mom of four teens, Barb manages to occasionally find time to volunteer in the community, and perform as a children's entertainer.

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Madeleine Pitsch is a third year undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University pursuing a B.S. in Computer Science with a minor in Art. While mentally aware (read: not in lecture), she enjoys watching movies and blowing all her money on espresso and shoes she'll never wear.

She joined the Alice Team as a freshman and has since done work both involving programming in addition to other areas. She has thoroughly enjoyed her undergraduate research experience thus far.

Although she has no plans for the future as of yet, she hopes to figure out it before May 17, 2009.

Cleah Schlueter is an Administrative Associate and Project Manager at Carnegie Mellon University. She has worked in the School of Computer Science since August of 1989.

She joined the Alice Project this past year and helps with coordinating events and special projects.

Gabe Yu is the Lab Manager for the Alice Team. He has a BA in English and a minor in Media Studies from Carnegie Mellon University. He loves music, movies, plays and cooking. Appropriately, he decided on a career in computer science.

When people ask him what he does, his typical reply is, "A little of everything!" Gabe provides support for Alice users, manages and creates content for the website, keeps things organized, and, most importantly, controls the Alice Team credit card.

His dream is to be a 7-foot basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Randy was a Professor of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction and Design at Carnegie Mellon, and co-founder of the Entertainment Technology Center. He also served as the Director of Carnegie Mellon's Alice research group, where he oversaw the development of Alice.

He was a National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator and a Lilly Foundation Teaching Fellow. In 1995, he spent a Sabbatical with the Walt Disney Imagineering Virtual Reality Studio and consulted with Imagineering on interactive theme park attractions, particularly for the "DisneyQuest" virtual-reality based theme park. Dr. Pausch authored or co-authored five books and over 60 reviewed journal and conference proceedings articles, and his primary interests were human-computer interaction, entertainment technology and undergraduate education.

Memorial links:
Carnegie Mellon memorial
SIGCSE memorial
ABC News memorial
The Last Lecture