I'm Judy Cushing. Like some of the other computer science faculty at Evergreen I came here after a number of years as a practitioner, working in industry. I had fifteen years working in small companies and large companies and for the federal government and state governments and universities before I decided I would like to focus on either research or undergraduate teaching - so, I came to Evergreen.

	My current interests are how to make computer systems easier for scientists to use, and I find Evergreen really a perfect place to do that work because we're able to collaborate with people from other disciplines, both students and faculty.
			Wind River Canopy Crane, where Judy and students develop software to help scientists collect and share data.

			There are other reasons why I love teaching at Evergreen. The first is that being able to work in year-long full time team-taught programs makes it really wonderful for teaching computer science because sometimes it takes longer than one quarter to get across different concepts ... hard, difficult concepts.

			The second thing I think is really great about teaching and learning at Evergreen is that we get to teach theory along with practice and read books together in seminar, books that explore the cultural, the historical, the philosophical context and implications of computing and I think that's really rare, to have that opportunity in computer science, where in so many other places it's taught as a narrow engineering or theoretical discipline.

	People typically start off in a program called Data to Information that teaches them about the basics of computer science - how to program, to learn the mathematics that underlies programming skill, about machines and architectures and operating systems that people will use as practitioners of computer science, and then also a seminar on books about the politics and psychology and history and ethics of computing. So that's basically a full-time very involved year-long study of computer science.
			Data to Information Digital Logic Lab Teams building a simple computer

			Then, if people are more interested in applied work, they would take a program called Student Originated Software; if they are interested in the computers and the brain and experimental psychology they would take Science of Mind; and if they're more interested in theory or mathematics or philosophy of computing they'd take a program called Computability and Cognition.

	So I'll tell you a little about Student Originated Software. This is the program I teach every other year and it involves students in defining projects that they do with a team of other students. Software is really a hard thing to teach people how to do because any project that isn't just a toy takes longer than a four unit course in a standard university. We've got students in the program for a whole year, and they can work very intensely on their own team project for a whole six months.
			Student team presenting project specifications to Student Originated Software meeting

	The project topics range from projects that people are doing in computer animation, projects that people are doing in forest canopy science or ecology, projects to support work that people are doing in the Washington State government, a project that involves students developing software for people who want to do electronic music, and so forth.

			In Computability and Cognition students spend a year, full-time, in very intensive coursework that teaches them about the philosophy and theory that underlies computation. This is also where students study different approaches to artificial intelligence, like logic programming and connectionism. Three other kinds of students also take this program - philosophy students, mathematics students, and cognitive science students.

			Science of Mind, on the other hand, deals with issues of human cognition and neurobiology that are more widely applicable than just in computer science. It's taught by a neurobiologist, a computer scientist, and an experimental psychologist. In this program, students study how computers might help us understand the brain, and how psychological and neurobiological research might help us develop new forms of computing like neural nets, as well as doing projects of their own in computing or psychological research.

			Once students finish, usually, two of these programs, they go on to do internship projects or some individual study or to work in other areas of the college, which we really encourage. There are lots of opportunities for students to do projects after they have finished their purely academic work. Students can do research with some of the faculty. Students do internships at places like Microsoft or some of the state offices. Some students go to some of the national laboratories and do internships, and some students stay right on campus and do internships in the computer support labs.

	I now have several students and several recent graduates working with me on some research funded by the National Science Foundation that I'm doing here at Evergreen. I'm working with a canopy scientist on our faculty, Nalini Nadkarni. And we're trying to figure out how we can design databases so that ecological researchers can bring back data from studying the forest and put this onto a computer and link it with maps or tomography or laser images of the forest.
			Vertical shot of rainforest canopy from Nadkarni's research group.

			If you've got other questions about studying computing here, please feel free to contact me. Dr. Judy Cushing LAB 1, Room 3006 The Evergreen State College Olympia, WA 98005 360-866-6000, X 6652/6493 judyc@evergreen.edu

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