Accepting the award for Top Ranked Symposium Paper of All Time from ACM SIGCSE
50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education March 2, 2019
Lisa Kaczmarczyk was awarded her PhD at the University of Texas at Austin where her research wove together computer science, science education and psychology. She also holds Masters degrees from the University of Oregon and Northeastern University and a Bachelors Degree from Tufts University. She has worked in technical positions at large technology corporations and small startups. Prior to becoming a full time consultant Lisa acted as Principal Investigator on a grant funded by the National Science Foundation. Lisa has taught computer science courses at colleges and universities across the United States and currently holds an Adjunct Faculty position in the Computer Science department at Harvey Mudd College.

Lisa is on the advisory board of Global Tech Women, an organization supporting the personal and professional needs of technical women, and is a Researcher member of the CSforALL Consortium. She supports her local tech community as Co-Organizer of the San Diego affiliate of Papers We Love. Lisa recently stepped down after eleven years serving on the the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Education Council. 

Lisa is the Chair Elect for the American Evaluation Association Independent Consulting Topical Interest Group (AEA IC-TIG) and Vice-Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computers and Society (SIGCAS).  Previously, Lisa was Program Chair and Co-Chair for the IC-TIG, served several years on​ the board of UX Speakeasy / IxDA San Diego, and for close to a decade was Associate Editor and quarterly columnist for ACM Inroads Magazine. She has served as the United States representative on the International Committee of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), has served on numerous industry and academic conference committees and was the keynote speaker at the 2nd Indiana Women in Computing Conference (InWIC).

Lisa speaks Spanish quite well and is actively working on being able to hold her own in a French dinner conversation.
Listen to Lisa's interview by Reinventing Nerds
"People Issues in Project Evaluations"
Lisa's research and teaching expertise is in interdisciplinary computing and education, outreach to women and girls, and computing for social good. She has published numerous peer reviewed articles, is a published book author, and has taught across the computer science curriculum. Here is a sampling of Lisa's recent publications, including papers she has published with clients, followed by some of the more interesting college courses she has taught.

Selected Publications:

  • “Rebooting the Pathway to Success: Preparing Students for Computing Workforce Needs in the United States” (pdf). With Renee Dopplick (March 2014) ACM Education Policy Committee. Provides data driven recommendations for education and business leaders and public policy officials to help these leaders create a comprehensive plan that addresses K-12 computer science education.
  • “Computers and Society – Computing For Good”. Chapman & Hall/CRC Textbooks in Computing (December 2011). In-depth technical case studies of people and organizations using computer science to improve society and the environment. 
  •  “Describing the What and Why of Students’ Difficulties in Boolean Logic”. Herman, Geoffrey L., Loui, Michael C., Kaczmarczyk, Lisa, Zilles, Craig. (2012, March).ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE) 12(1), 3:1-28.
  • “Programming Tutors, Practiced Concepts, and Demographics”  Kumar, Amruth N., Kaczmarczyk, Lisa C. (2013, October). . Presented at the Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
  •  “Selecting open source software projects to teach software engineering”  Smith, Therese Mary, McCartney, Robert, Gokhale, Swapna S, Kaczmarczyk, Lisa C. (2014, March). Presented at the 45th Annual Technical Symposium of Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2014), Atlanta, Georgia.
  • "Identifying student misconceptions of programming" Kaczmarczyk, Lisa C., Petrick, Elizabeth R., East, J. Phillip, Herman, Geoffrey L. (2010, February). Presented at the 41st Annual Technical Symposium of Computer Science Education (SIGCSE 2010), Milwaukee, Wisconsin. **The Top Ranked SIGCSE Symposium Paper of All Time**

Selected Interesting Classes:

  • "Technology and Sustainability" The University of California San Diego
  • "Technical Writing" The University of Texas at Austin
  • "Computer Science Education Research"  Harvey Mudd College
  • "Cognitive Science" The Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology