1999-2001: Associate Lecturer, Newcastle, Australia

From May of 1999 until September of 2001 I was an associate lecturer in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering in the University of Newcastle, Australia. During this time, along with teaching and researching, I was the International student Mentor, Work Experience Coordinator, honours student supervisor, MIT student supervisor, and summer project supervisor. This role taught me many things, one of which is how much fun being a lecturer can be. It does however take good time management skill to be a successful academic who can blend their teaching and research. 

Being a lecturer is very time consuming, very rewarding but sometimes you get thanks….

Teaching Award

In June of 2001 I received the 2000 Annual “Excellence in Engineering Education Award” from the Newcastle Division of the Institute of Engineers Australia. Based on student nomination and then a student survey I was selected. Receiving this award was made possible by having a group of excellent and committed tutors and the outstanding technical support staff in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering at the University of Newcastle.

For all seven courses I taught in Newcastle I received either a commendation (courses placed among the highest in the faculty) from the Dean of Engineering for my teaching (based on student surveys) or a nomination for the Excellence in Engineering Education award.

Other Details

While I was on staff I also worked on my PhD in Computer Science. I submitted my PhD thesis in August of 2001 on Large Scale Relational Information Visualization, Clustering and Abstraction (download PDF)

While finishing my PhD in early 2001 I was remained on staff at the University, during which time I developed one new course, taught two courses, and supervised two Masters students.

In the first semester of 2001 I taught a new course that I developed on Web Engineering called SENG205: Introduction to Web Engineering. I also taught COMP105: Internet Communications. For a grand total of 350 students. In the second semester of 2000 I taught SENG114:The Online Society. In the first semester of 2000 I taught and re-developed COMP105: Internet Communications In the second semester of 1999 I taught and re-developed SENG114:The Online Society.