(Photo of Dan) Me | RAD | Travel | Schedule | Awards | Interests | Fun | Skool | 6-month Plan | Life Plan | Contact

Dr. Dan Garcia : Full Frontal Nerdity

Dr. Dan Garcia
ddgarcia@cs.berkeley.edu

There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart...pursue those.
-- Anonymous
Dan and Yuan Garcia @ 3 years @ Jasons Wedding

Who am I? (Hi-from-Dan Sound) (short biography, curriculum vitæ)

I'm a Lecturer SOE in the Computer Science division of the EECS department at the University of California, Berkeley. I graduated with a Ph.D. from the same department in May 2000, where I worked with the OPTICAL project doing Computer Graphics and Scientific Visualization.

I'm deeply interested and active in computer science education, having presented at the SIGCSE annual conference every year since 2001. I'm actively involved with a 3-year (2008-2011) Ensemble NSF project to bring computing to the family of NSDL Pathway projects. I currently serve on the ACM Education Board (chairing the Technology that Educators of Computing Hail [TECH] project), the College Board's AP Computing Advisory Group and the advisory board of BFOIT, a wonderful Berkeley outreach effort.

I'm on Active Service Modified Duties in the Fall of 2009, but still coordinating the self-paced classes and teaching a wonderful, new introductory freshman-sophomore seminar (later to become a full, 4-unit course for non-majors) entitled: CS39N : The Beauty and Joy of Computing.

I'm quite enthusiastic about the RAD (research, art & development) groups I advise. If you're interested in joining one of these groups (shown below), check their schedules for times and locations.

I'm also married to the beautiful and brilliant Tao Ye and have a wonderful son Yuan and newborn daughter Talia.

My active RAD (Research, Art & Development) Student Groups and Projects

Game Theory
(GamesCrafters)
Graphics
(UCBUGG)
Mac Programming
(MS-DOS X)

(often wacky!)

(who are often wacky!)

(who are often wacky!)
Fall 2009 Mtgs
MW 1-3pm in 606 Soda,
F 1-3pm in 310 Soda
Fall 2009 Mtgs
We 5:30-7:30pm in 200 Sutardja-Dai Hall
(Taught as a Decal)
Fall 2009 Mtgs
Mo 5-7pm in 200 Sutardja-Dai Hall
(Taught as a Decal)

My not-so-active recent RAD Projects

Weiner Lecture Archives (WLA) CS Illustrated Time-lapse HD (CITRIS)

Upcoming Travel

* 2009-09-25 - 2009-09-26 (week 5 FS): ACM Education Council Mtg in Vancouver, BC, CANADA
* 2009-10-08 - 2009-10-09 (week 7 θF): ENSEMBLE Mtg in Mountain View, CA
* 2009-10-20 - 2009-10-21 (week 9 TW): CS Education Leadership Summit @ Google in Mountain View, CA
* 2009-11-17 - 2009-11-18 (Week 13 TW): NSDL Annual Meeting in Washington, DC
* 2010-02-27 - 2010-02-28 (Week 6 SS): AP Computer Science: Principles Commission/Advisory Group Meeting in Atlanta, GA
* 2010-03-10 - 2010-03-13 (Week 8 TWθFS) : SIGCSE 2010 in Milwaukee, WI
* 2010-04-8 - 2010-04-9 (Week 11 θF): Computer Science Education Talk @ Grinnell College in Grinnell, IA

Fall 2009 Tentative Schedule

Dan Garcia : Schedule
proposed time in italics Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday  
9:00 CS0 / CS39N
Staff Mtg
795 Soda
In the Fall of 2009 I'll be on paternity leave
(aka Active Service Modified Duties)
and will be
off-campus Tu-Fr;
email is the best way to reach me.
9:00
9:30 9:30
10:00 TECH
Staff Mtg
777 Soda
10:00
10:30 10:30
11:00 Self-Paced
Staff Mtg
210 CITRIS
11:00
11:30 11:30
12:00 Faculty
Lunch
Woz

12:00

12:30

12:30

1:00

GamesCrafters
Meeting
606 Soda

1:00

1:30

1:30

2:00

2:00

2:30

2:30

3:00

CS0 / CS39N
Lecture + Disc
200 Sutardja Dai

3:00

3:30

3:30

4:00

4:00

4:30

4:30

Teaching Awards

* 2006 Highest HKN Teaching Effectiveness rating (6.7) of any CS LowerDiv instructor, ever (tied w/1 other) (2 years after the previous high mark)
* 2005 UC Berkeley Everyday / Unsung Hero (2 years after my promotion to PSOE)
* 2005 CS Division IT Faculty Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2 years after my promotion to PSOE)
* 2004 Highest HKN Teaching Effectiveness rating (6.6) of any CS LowerDiv instructor, ever (tied w/1 other) (2 years after the McEntyre Award)
* 2002 CS Division Diane S. McEntyre Award for Excellence in Teaching (2 years after my UCB CS Ph.D.)
* 1997 EECS Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (2 years after my UCB CS M.S.)
* 1992 UCB Outstanding CS Graduate Student Instructor (2 years after my MIT CS B.S.)

RAD Interests (curriculum vitæ)

* Computer Science Education (along with course development and diversity / community outreach)
* Ginat, David; and Garcia, Daniel D.; Mathematical Games as an Aid for CS Instruction (Birds of a Feather), SIGCSE 2001, Charlotte, NC, February 23, 2001.
* Ginat, David; Garcia, Daniel D.; Bergin, Joseph; Astrachan, Owen. Colorful Illustrations of Algorithmic Design Techniques and Problem Solving (Special Session), SIGCSE 2001, Charlotte, NC, February 23, 2001.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Ginat, David; Gasarch, William I. Aha! An Illuminating Perspective (Special Session), SIGCSE 2002, Northern Kentucky, KY, February 28, 2002.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Levine, David B.; Estell, John K.; Reed, David; Zelinski, Julie. Nifty Assignments -- CS3 Gamesman : Shall We Play a Game? (Special Session), SIGCSE 2002, Northern Kentucky, KY, March 2, 2002.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Ginat, David; and Henderson, Peter. Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Game Theory* (*but were afraid to ask) (Special Session), SIGCSE 2003, Reno, NV, February 20, 2003.
* Ginat, David; and Garcia, Daniel D. Ordering Patterns and List Inversions, Journal of CS Education, Nov 2003.
* Begel, Andrew; Garcia, Daniel D.; and Wolfman, Steven A. Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom (Special Session), SIGCSE 2004, Norfolk, VA, March 5, 2004.
* Dougherty, John P.; Garcia, Daniel D.; Horton, Thomas B.; and Rodger, Susan H. Teaching Faculty Positions (Panel), SIGCSE 2004, Norfolk, VA, March 5, 2004.
* Ginat, David; Astrachan, Owen; Garcia, Daniel D.; and Guzdial, Mark. But it looks right!: The Bugs Students Don't See (Special Session), SIGCSE 2004, Norfolk, VA, March 5, 2004.
* Begel, Andrew; Garcia, Daniel D.; and Wolfman, Steven A. Kinesthetic Learning in the Classroom (Workshop), SIGCSE 2005, St. Louis, MO, February 23-27, 2005.
* Ginat, David; Anderson, Richard; Garcia, Daniel D.; and Rasala, Richard. Randomness and Probability in the Early CS Courses (Special Session), SIGCSE 2005, St. Louis, MO, February 23-27, 2005.
* Garcia, Daniel D. One size fits all?! One size fits none!, Integrative Computing Education & Research (ICER) West NSF Workshop, Palo Alto, CA, January 27-28, 2006.
* Cortina, Thomas J; Garcia, Daniel D.; and Slater, Don. Teaching Track Faculty in CS (Birds of a Feather), SIGCSE 2006, Houston, TX, March 1-4, 2006.
* Garcia, Daniel D. Games, Graphics & Genealogy : Galleries of Garcia's Groups (Invited Talk), Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, CA, June 17, 2004 and June 19, 2006.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Astrachan, Owen; Parlante, Nick; and Reges, Stuart. Teaching Tips We Wish They'd Told Us Before We Started (Panel), SIGCSE 2007, Covington, KY, March 7-10, 2007.
* Forbes, Jeffrey; and Garcia, Daniel D. ...But What Do the Top-Rated Schools Do? A Survey of Introductory Computer Science Curricula (Special Session), SIGCSE 2007, Covington, KY, March 7-10, 2007.
* Slater, Don. and Garcia, Daniel D. Teaching Track Faculty in CS (Birds of a Feather), SIGCSE 2007, Covington, KY, March 7-10, 2007.
* Garcia, Daniel D. Peer Instruction w/Clickers in CS61C {or, how to engage a large class and get direct feedback} (Invited Talk), University of California, Berkeley Teaching, Learning & Technology Symposium, Berkeley, CA, May 2, 2007.
* Garcia, Daniel D. DART Opportunities for CS Students {Development, Art, Research, Teaching} (Invited Talk), University of California, Berkeley Teaching, Learning & Technology Symposium, Berkeley, CA, May 2, 2007.
* Garcia, Daniel D. Revitalize your AP Computer Science course! (Invited Talk), College Board AP Annual Conference Computer Science Keynote, Las Vegas, NV, July 14, 2007.
* Garcia, Daniel D. Teaching Tips, Best Practices, and Other Initiatives to Improve CS Education (Invited Talk), University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, October 16, 2007. Repeated at La Trobe University November 12, 2007, at the Fourth Melbourne Computing Education Conventicle (MCEC2007), November 16, 2007, and at RMIT University (School of Business Information Technology), November 28, 2007.
* Zhang, Gene; Carr, Sean; Iyengar, Sameer; Edelstein, Hava; Liu, Albert and Garcia, Daniel D. The Weiner Lecture Archives : An Ontology-Driven Interface for Viewing Synchronized Lectures and Notes, EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley, Tech. Rep. UCB/EECS-2007-135, Nov. 2007.
* Garcia, Daniel D. 200 Students Can't Be Wrong! GamesCrafters, a Computational Game Theory Undergraduate Research and Development Group at UC Berkeley (Invited Talk), University of Melbourne, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA, November 13, 2007.
* McGettrick, Andrew; Garcia, Daniel D.; Roberts, Eric; and Stephenson, Chris. Rediscovering the Passion, Beauty, Joy and Awe : Making Computing Fun Again (Special Session), SIGCSE 2008, Portland, OR, March 12-15, 2008.
* Boustedt, Jonas; Tenenberg, Josh; Eastman, Caroline M.; Gestwicki, Paul; McCartney, Robert; Anderson, Scott D.; Garcia, Daniel D.; and Menzin, Margaret. It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (Special Session), SIGCSE 2008, Portland, OR, March 12-15, 2008.
* Slater, Don; and Garcia, Daniel D. Teaching Track Faculty in CS (Birds of a Feather), SIGCSE 2008, Portland, OR, March 12-15, 2008.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Ishida, Valerie; and Johnson, Maggie. Technology and Tools for Computing Educators (Birds of a Feather), SIGCSE 2008, Portland, OR, March 12-15, 2008.
* Johnson, Matthew; Liao, Robert H.; Rasmussen, Alexander; Sridharan, Ramesh; Garcia, Daniel D. and Harvey, Brian. Infusing Parallelism into Introductory Computer Science using MapReduce (Poster), SIGCSE 2008, Portland, OR, March 12-15, 2008.
* Garcia, Daniel D. Hashing (Guest Lecture), Computer Science 70 : Discrete Mathematics for Computer Science class, Berkeley, CA, March 17, 2008.
* Chen, Yanpei; Fong, Patricia C.; Hong, Jerry; Mahajan, Deepa; Okita, Cynthia; Poll, David Eitan; Roytman, Alan; Sadgat, Ofer and Garcia, Daniel D. 200 Students Can't Be Wrong! GamesCrafters, a Computational Game Theory Undergraduate Research and Development Group at UC Berkeley AAAI Spring Symposium 2008 : "Using AI to motivate greater participation in Computer Science", Stanford, CA, March 26-28, 2008.
* Johnson, Matthew; Liao, Robert H.; Rasmussen, Alexander; Sridharan, Ramesh; Garcia, Daniel D. and Harvey, Brian. Infusing Cluster Computing into Introductory Computer Science Curriculum, EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley, Tech. Rep. UCB/EECS-2008-34, Apr. 2008.
* Garcia, Daniel D. Infusing Concurrency into the Intro CS Undergraduate Curricula (Invited Talk), Academic Community Multi-core Programming Roundtable, Intel Developer Forum, San Francisco, CA, August 20, 2008.
* Garcia, Daniel D. Twenty Top Time-Tested TA Teaching Tips (Invited Talk), Fall 2008 Teaching Conference for International GSIs, Berkeley, CA, August 21, 2008.
* Garcia, Daniel D. What is Digital Media? (Invited Talk), BAM/PFA Digital Culture 0101 class, Berkeley, CA, October 2, 2008.
* Garcia, Daniel D. Computer Science & GamesCrafters (Invited Talk), Engineering 92 : Perspectives in Engineering class, Berkeley, CA, October 20, 2008.
* Yim, Ketrina; Garcia, Daniel D. and Ahn, Sally. Computer Science Illustrated (Poster), SIGCSE 2009, Chattanooga, TN, March 4-7, 2009.
* Brusilovsky, Peter; Carpenter, Steve; Cassel, Lillian; Delcambre, Lois; Edwards, Steve; Fan, Patrick; Fox, Edward; Furuta, Richard; Garcia, Dan; Hislop, Greg; Johnson, Maggie; Maier, David; Perez-Quinones, Manuel; Seidman, Steve; Shipman, Frank; Stephenson, Chris; Topi, Heikki and York, Bryant; Ensemble: Creating a National Digital Library for Computing Education (Poster), SIGCSE 2009, Chattanooga, TN, March 4-7, 2009.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Cutler, Robb; Dodds, Zachary; Roberts, Eric; and Young, Alison. Rediscovering the Passion, Beauty, Joy and Awe : Making Computing Fun Again, continued (Special Session), SIGCSE 2009, Chattanooga, TN, March 4-7, 2009.
* Garcia, Daniel D. and Zelenski, Julie. New Teaching Faculty Roundtable (NTFR) (Pre-symposium event), SIGCSE 2009, Chattanooga, TN, March 4-7, 2009.
* Slater, Don; and Garcia, Daniel D. Teaching Track Faculty in CS (Birds of a Feather), SIGCSE 2009, Chattanooga, TN, March 4-7, 2009.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Bailes, Don and Fincher, Sally. Technology that Educators of Computing Hail (TECH) (Birds of a Feather), SIGCSE 2009, Chattanooga, TN, March 4-7, 2009.
* Huddleston, Jeremy. Advanced Digital Animation Curriculum Development: An Interdisciplinary Approach (MS supervised by Dan Garcia), EECS Dept, UC Berkeley, May, 2009.
* Yim, Ketrina. Computer Science Illustrated (MS supervised by Dan Garcia), EECS Dept, UC Berkeley, May, 2009.
* Yim, Ketrina; Ahn, Sally; and Garcia, Daniel D. Computer Science Illustrated: Engaging Visual Aids for Computer Science Education (Paper) SIGCSE 2010, Milwaukee, WI, March 10-13, 2009.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Zhang, Gene; Carr, Sean; Iyengar, Sameer; Edelstein, Hava; and Liu, Albert. The Weiner Lecture Archives : An Ontology-Driven Interface for Viewing Synchronized Lectures and Notes (Paper) SIGCSE 2010, Milwaukee, WI, March 10-13, 2009.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Chapman, Gail; Hazzan, Orit; Johnson, Maggie; and Sudol, Leigh Ann. Rediscovering the Passion, Beauty, Joy and Awe : Making Computing Fun Again, part 3 (Special Session) SIGCSE 2010, Milwaukee, WI, March 10-13, 2009.
* Garcia, Daniel D.; Dougherty, John P.; Jadud, Matthew C.; and Lewis, Colleen M. If _____________ , You Might Be a Computational Thinker! (Special Session) SIGCSE 2010, Milwaukee, WI, March 10-13, 2009.
* Computational Game Theory (I developed Gamesman under Prof. Elwyn Berlekamp!)
* Berkeley Graphics Recreational Computer Graphics & Animation (Here is some CGI I've done with textures and icons)
* Programming Mac OS X

Fun Interests

* Heart Candy (friends)
* Tao Ye, mi amor y esposa
* Michael Rehl, my best friend (since 1977!)
* Family and friends, although keeping up with email is difficult
* GTAT: Angie Schuett, Drew Roselli, Dan Rice and Fielding Mellish
* Jaycito Cofresi, my second cousin from 'da Bronx
* Ronnen Levinson, my fellow upstate NYer ex-housemate
* Would you believe I'm not the only Dan Garcia!
* (Icon of CCS Alumni) Cooperstown Central School (NY) Alumni
* Eye Candy (Television and Movies)
* Thu The Office
* Anything by Aardman Animations (like Wallace & Gromit)
* Body Candy (Sports and Recreation)
* Golf! (low:93, avg:100) My swing w/iron and wood 1, 2, 3 times has changed!! I once hit two birdies!
* Ultimate
* Hoops My high school hoops team finished fourth in the state!
* Rock Climbing at the RSF, Tilden Park and nearby parks
* Softball. My ex-teams: Badness 10000 and NP Complete Idiots (who went 8-0 in league play!). I batted, uh, pretty well
* Juggling I learned to do a 5-ball cascade!
* Brain Candy (Puzzles and Games and Learning)
* Puzzles (logic, math, programming, etc.) Books, videos and CDROMs I own
* My Atari 2600, 7800 & emulators. Wanna trade carts?
* Computer Games: TIM, Firestorm, Smart Games, MacMAME.
* Ear Candy (Music and Humor)
* Listening to Monty Python and memorizing sketches
* Jazz, Salsa, Classic Rock, Folk, Rap, Classical, Opera
* Woody Allen films, books, CDs Moose Kidnapped Eyesight
* Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, Cheech & Chong, Eddie Murphy, Smothers Brothers, and other classic comedians
* Random comedy. (e.g. the real and faked "bambulance")
* Random Candy
* My Apple 3.0GHz 8-core 16GiB-RAM 3TB-HD Mac Pro and 3.06GHz 17-inch 8GiB-RAM MacBook Pro (Ferris Sound)
* (Icon of SPAM) SPAM (the food)
* Puerto Rico (PR Flag) ¡Soy Borinqueño (de Nueva York)... Soy ¡Nuyorican!

Education

* Fatherhood! 2005, 2009
* Ph.D. in Computer Science UCB 2000
* M.S. in Computer Science UCB 1995
* B.S. in Computer Science (VI-III) MIT 1990 (entered in Class of 1989) Baker House
* B.S. in Electrical Engineering (VI-I) MIT 1990 (entered in Class of 1989)
* N.Y.S. Regents Diploma from Cooperstown (NY) Central HS 1985
* Public Grade School Education from Public School 94 in 'da Bronx, NY (just like comedian Robert Klein!)

Six month plan

* Teach CS39N (The Beauty and Joy of Computing) and the self-paced courses
* Polish the Technology that Educators of Computing Hail (TECH) site for eventual full-scale launch by adding a reward system.
* Build Ensemble, the NSDL Computing Pathway
* Be a great EECS / CITRIS AV Czar

Life plan (Monty Python Sound)

* Be a super dad to my two children, a super husband to my wife Tao, and a super [grand]son to my [grand]parents.
* Be the best computer science instructor I can be.
* Research my family genealogy
* Reduce personal entropy.
* Break 90 on the links (previous low: 93 on par 72 course)


Dan Garcia (ddgarcia@cs.berkeley.edu) This page last modified: 2009-11-13@16:05:07 PST
Office: 777 Soda Hall, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720-1776 (o) 510-642-9595 (f) 510-642-5775
Computer Science Dept., UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, (Bay Area)

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