Faculty Profiles

Alvarado works to develop new curriculum and programs for computer science education that engage a wider audience, particularly students from groups underrepresented in computing.  In her position at Harvey Mudd College prior to coming to UC San Diego she co-designed a new introductory computer course, nicknamed CS for Scientists that takes a broad focus on the discipline of computer science. This course along with other programmatic efforts she helped implement has raised the percentage of women in the computer science major at Harvey Mudd College from 12% to around 40%. At UC San Diego she founded the CSE Early Research Scholars Program, an inclusive research apprenticeship for early computing undergraduates. Since 2014, the program has engaged 339 early undergraduates in research, including 200 women and non-binary students and 75 students from racial and ethnic groups that are underrepresented in computing.
 

Capsule Bio:

Christine Alvarado joined the UC San Diego faculty in 2012. Prior to coming to the Jacobs School of Engineering, she was a tenured associate professor at Harvey Mudd College. She received her undergraduate degree in computer science from Dartmouth College in 1998, graduating summa cum laude. She received her and S.M. and Ph.D. in computer science from MIT in 2000 and 2004, respectively. Her work has been funded by several grants from the National Science Foundation including a CAREER award in 2005. She has won several awards for her teaching and contributions to education including the A. Richard Newton Educator ABIE Award (2013), the UC San Diego Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award (2017), the UC San Diego Chancellor’s Associates Faculty Excellence Award for Undergraduate Teaching (2019), the first NCWIT Academic Alliance Joanne McGrath Cohoon Academic Service Award (2022), and in 2018 was named a Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science Education.