Risa Myers is carving out her own path at Rice University. Myers has been promoted to associate teaching professor of computer science. This is the first promotion of this type in the department.
"What stands out about Risa is her ability to innovate,” said Chris Jermaine, chair of Rice’s Department of Computer Science. “The teaching track for Rice faculty is relatively new, and there's a lot of space for our faculty members to define what it means to be a ‘Teaching Professor’ at Rice. Risa has leveraged the position to create unique educational programs such as CS-RESP and has obtained funding for these programs from organizations such as Google and the National Science Foundation."
Myers’ teaching areas include databases and data science. Innovating in data science pedagogy is what drives her. It is her goal to bring her extensive industry experience and real-world data, applications, and challenges to the classroom to benefit students.
Prior to joining the department as a faculty member in 2017, Myers spent a number of years working on medical systems, devices, software engineering, information technology, and project management. Much of her experience focused on the field of healthcare and data science, including time spent working for the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Methodist Hospital.
Myers completed her undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Engineering at MIT, followed by an M.S. in Computer Science at Stanford University. After working in industry for a number of years, she returned to academia, earning an M.S. and then a Ph.D. in Computer Science at Rice.
In 2017, Myers began as a lecturer in the department. She was appointed to an assistant teaching professor position in 2019. She’s also been tapped for leadership roles for a number of high-profile department initiatives.
Since joining the faculty, she has led several different programs including serving as the director of the Computer and Data Science (CDS) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. More recently, she’s taken the lead on the department’s efforts to broaden participation in computing (BPC). Rice CS’ BPC program aims to better prepare students for early success in their Rice CS courses.
Myers’ most recent leadership position is as director of the CS-RESP program. “We hope to help some students succeed at Rice in computer science, who might otherwise not have. During the program, we plan to tackle some stereotypes about computer science that are often psychological barriers and teach these students how higher education works.”
“Promotion is an important milestone and recognition of the faculty member’s accomplishments,” said Provost Amy Dittmar. “We are proud of all our faculty who have been promoted and wish them continued success as they maintain this trajectory of excellence for many years at Rice.”