The University of Alabama Board of Trustees appointed Dr. Jeff Gray, a professor in the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering, as a Distinguished Teaching Professor. Gray was recognized for his exceptional contributions to teaching at the Capstone and beyond.
“I am honored to be among the new cohort of faculty to be named a Distinguished Teaching Professor,” Gray said. “The University has provided abundant resources and opportunities to allow faculty to thrive and explore our individual paths for contributing to our community, state and nation. The diverse teaching, research and service offered by the collective faculty across campus has allowed the Capstone experience to serve as a foundation for many students. I look forward to the future interactions with our students and faculty.”
Gray’s research interests include software engineering, computer science education, programming languages and human-computer interaction, with a specific interest in opportunities to support interdisciplinary research.
Additionally, Gray serves as director of the Randall Research Scholars Program, a nationally acclaimed interdisciplinary undergraduate research and mentorship program in the Honors College. Over the past two decades, Gray has mentored high school, undergraduate and doctoral students, assisting in hundreds of high school and undergraduate projects and serving as chair of 17 completed doctoral dissertations.
Gray is an award-winning researcher, having received funding from the National Science Foundation (including a CAREER award), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, IBM, Boeing, Google, and various governmental and industry entities. There have been 44 funded awards for his research as principal investigator or co-PI, with a total combined value of over $23 million.
Aside from his research interests, Gray’s passion lies in diversifying and broadening computer science education. He strives to increase K-12 computer science opportunities throughout Alabama and the nation for both students and educators, through summer camps, contests, research mentoring and educator professional development. He has trained over 2,600 elementary teachers and initiated an online course that prepared over 2,100 U.S. high school teachers for the first year of AP Computer Science Principles through a grant from Google. He also chairs Governor Kay Ivey’s Computer Science Advisory Council and co-chairs the College Board’s Development Committee for AP CSP.