Dr. Jeff Gray

Dr. Jeff Gray is a Professor (Full) in the Department of Computer Science (College of Engineering) at the University of Alabama and serves as the co-director of the Software Engineering Lab. As a first-generation college graduate, he received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Vanderbilt University and also a BS/MS from West Virginia University, where he was a member of the Honors program. His research interests are in the areas of software engineering, computer science education, programming languages, and human-computer interaction – with specific interest in opportunities to support interdisciplinary research. Over the past two decades, he has mentored students at the high school (35 projects, with 9 International Science Fair finalists), undergraduate (over 140 student projects with multiple publications and awards), and doctoral (chair of 16 completed Ph.D. dissertations) levels. With his students and other colleagues (315 different co-authors), his research publication activities include 80 journal articles and editorials, 18 book chapters, 173 refereed conference and workshop papers, over 130 posters (the majority as undergraduate and high school projects), 10 demonstrations, 21 tutorials, and over 25 panels. His Google Scholar h-index is 41 with over 6,200 citations (15 papers with } 100 citations). Funding to support his research has been granted by the National Science Foundation (multiple awards), DARPA – Defense Advanced Projects Agency (multiple awards), Google (multiple awards), IBM, Air Force, Boeing, College Board (multiple awards), and the Department of Education (multiple awards). There have been 43 funded awards for his research (as PI or co-PI), with a total combined dollar value of over $21M.

Dr. Gray is a National Science Foundation CAREER award recipient and was named the Professor of the Year (Alabama, 2008) by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Jeff is a Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery (the first to receive the classification in the state of Alabama) and a Senior Member of the IEEE (currently serving as the chair of the Alabama IEEE Computer Society). Dr. Gray is co-chair of Alabama Governor Kay Ivey's Computer Science Advisory Council, serves on the Education Advisory Council of Code.org, and is one of three higher-education faculty on the College Board’s Development Committee for the AP CS Principles course. His passion is advancing K-12 computer science opportunities throughout Alabama and the nation for both students (summer camps, various contests, research mentoring) and teachers (professional development for teaching computer science in all of K-12; he has trained over 2,600 Elementary teachers and through a grant from Google, initiated an online course that prepared over 2,100 high school teachers across that nation for the first year of AP CS Principles). All of these efforts are founded on the need to diversify and broaden participation in computing by offering opportunities for all students. More information about Dr. Gray, including links to an extended resume/CV, can be found at gray.cs.ua.edu.