Biography

Dr. Laney Strange is an Associate Teaching Professor at Northeastern University. She’s in her sixth year of full-time teaching, and brand new to her current school. In addition to her position at Northeastern, Laney is a passionate advocate for underrepresented groups in computer science, and a typical Saturday morning will find her teaching Women’s Community of Code programming workshops that empower girls, women, and even local Girl Scout troops.

Education

• BS in Computer Science, Simmons College
• PhD in Computer Science, Dartmouth College

About me

• Field of research/teaching: Encouraging Members of Underrepresented Groups in Computer Science

What is your research focus in a bit more detail? Is your current research path what you always had in mind for yourself, or has it evolved somewhat? If so, how/why?

Teaching professor; no active research!

What courses/subjects do you teach?

I teach all over the undergraduate curriculum, as well as in the ALIGN program, a master’s degree for students who have a Bachelor’s in a field other than computer science.

Where did you grow up/spend the most defining years of your childhood/young adulthood?

My husband and I both had “non-traditional” college experiences. We went to college after we got married (me in my twenties, Tom in his forties), and while holding down regular jobs. So if you ever feel like you came to computer science “late,” I am right there with you. And it doesn’t matter — I belong here, and so do you.

Where did you study? Any reason in particular behind your choice (a program you were excited about, a city you love, a researcher you wanted to work with)?

My first exposure to computer science came my freshman year of college, when I randomly signed up for the intro class. I ended up majoring in it, and going on to grad school, because I loved it… but mostly because I had an amazing teacher. Now, my whole goal in life is to try to be that teacher for someone else.

What are the specifics of your industry experience?

From grad school, I went into industry. I was a senior software engineer for Amazon.com’s search team, at their A9 subsidiary in Palo Alto. I worked on all kinds of projects related to search, including the spelling correction engine, query completion, generating synonyms, and many more.

After Amazon, I was Product Director for an international nonprofit organization called TechSoup Global. The organization was just starting to build their software engineering team when I came on board, and we built software for social change instigators all over the world.