UAB prof is Alabama’s best, says Carnegie Foundation

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Jeffrey Gray, Ph.D., associate professor of computer sciences in the UAB School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics, was named Alabama Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching during an awards luncheon Nov. 20 in Washington, D.C.
The award is co-sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) to recognize university educators that excel in teaching both on and off campus. CASE and the Carnegie Foundation have honored a single university professor from every U.S. state annually since 1982. Gray is the second UAB faculty member to win the honor; Associate Professor Joe March, Ph.D., in the Department of Chemistry received it in 2003.

“There are a lot of great things going on at UAB across the various departments on campus,” Gray said. “Recognition like this will increase the university’s profile and aid us as we continue to recruit the best science students in the Southeast and the country.

Worthy of honor
Gray was recognized for his positive impact on and involvement with undergraduate students and for his scholarly approach to teaching. He works closely with his UAB students as the director of the campus Software Composition and Modeling Laboratory, a facility that focuses on software engineering and automated evolution of large-scale software.

Gray, who received high marks for his contributions to education in the larger Central Alabama K-12 community, also initiated a statewide technology competition.

Beyond the traditional school year, he also has helped establish successful annual summer camps in Birmingham, in which middle- and high-school students program and design video games and robotics software. Gray said he laments the fact that Alabama is ranked near the bottom nationally for its emphasis on teaching technology to K-12 students. He hopes the recognition of his outreach programs will reverse the trend – and he sees great opportunities for Alabama’s science and math students.

“I want to raise the awareness of computing and mentor students the way I was in school, and my outreach programs are my little way of giving back,” Gray said.

“Teaching kids Microsoft Office just won’t get it done anymore because they will have to learn how to be technology developers, not just users, so they can compete in the future economy.”

“Jeff’s dedication to UAB and all students in Central Alabama makes him more than deserving of this great honor,” said Lowell Wenger, Ph.D., dean of the UAB School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics. “His recognition as Professor of the Year will serve UAB well as we look to recruit the best of the next generation of computer scientists because students want to work and learn with the best, and Jeff is the best.”

Gray is a six-year member of the UAB faculty. His research focuses on techniques that assist in automating many of the tasks of software development. A 2007 National Science Foundation Career Award winner and chairman of the Alabama Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Computer Society, Gray received his Ph.D. in computer science from Vanderbilt University in 2002. His undergraduate and graduate work at West Virginia University earned him a B.S., summa cum laude, in computer science in 1991 and an M.S. in computer science in 1993.

More about Gray’s background is online at www.cis.uab.edu/gray/.