Eric S. Roberts is an American

computer scientist A computer scientist is a person who is trained in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation, as opposed to the hardware side on which computer engineers mainly focus (al ...

noted for his contributions to computer science education through textbook authorship and his leadership in computing curriculum development. He is a co-chair of the ACM Education Council, former co-chair of the ACM Education Board, and a former member of the

SIGCSE SIGCSE is the Association for Computing Machinery's (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) on Computer Science Education (CSE), which provides a forum for educators to discuss issues related to the development, implementation, and/or evaluation of c ...

Board. He led the Java task force in 1994. He was a Professor emeritus at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. He currently teaches at Willamette University in

Salem, Oregon Salem ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Oregon, and the county seat of Marion County, Oregon, Marion County. It is located in the center of the Willamette Valley alongside the Willamette River, which runs north through the city. The river ...

Education

Roberts received an

A. B. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1973. He received an S. M. in applied mathematics from Harvard University in June 1974 and a Ph.D in applied mathematics from Harvard University in 1980.

Career and research

He joined the Department of Computer Science at

Wellesley College Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...

as an assistant professor in 1980. In 1984–1985 he was a visiting lecturer in Computer Science at Harvard University. In 1990 he was an associate professor at

and promoted to professor (teaching) of Computer Science in 1990. In 2018, he joined Reed College as a visiting professor of computer science. In 2020, he joined Willamette University as the Mark and Melody Teppola Presidential Distinguished Visiting Professor. While at Stanford he has also held several other positions such as associate chair and director of undergraduate studies from 1997 to 2002, and senior associate dean for student affairs from 2001 to 2003. Roberts has written several introductory computer science textbooks, including * ''Thinking Recursively'' * ''The Art and Science of C'' * ''Programming Abstractions in C'' * ''Thinking Recursively with Java'' * ''The Art and Science of Java''

Awards

Roberts has several notable awards in computer science. *

SIGCSE Award for Lifetime Service to Computer Science Education The SIGCSE Lifetime Service to Computer Science Education is an awarded granted by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group (SIG) SIGCSE annually since 1997, for lifetime fcontributions to computer science education. L ...

ACM ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing * ...

Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award in 2012. * IEEE Computer Society’s 2012 Taylor L. Booth Education Award. * Elected ACM Fellow in 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roberts, Eric American computer scientists Computer science educators Stanford University Department of Computer Science faculty Fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences alumni Wellesley College faculty People from Durham, North Carolina