Smaranda Sandu

Background

About Smaranda Sandu

I'm passionate about curriculum development, developing and implementing strategical and transformative solutions, and empowering students to grow and challenge themselves. I'm currently a Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at Wellesley College. I've been teaching and designing curriculum for introductory CS courses, as well as theoretical courses. Some larger scale projects from the past few years include creating a new introductory programming course for the sciences, through a collaboration with two other departments, and developing and running a CS tutor training. I graduated with a PhD in Mathematics from Cornell University, with a Master of Science in Computer Science from Cornell, where my research revolved around modeling human decision making under uncertainty, working on projects at the intersection of game theory and epistemic modal logic. During graduate school I also developed and implemented a first-year writing course on writing in mathematics (no traditional proofs involved!). For a while, I ran a podcast called "Tidbits of Research"(https://smarandasandu.wordpress.com/tidbits-of-research/), chronicling my search for interesting tidbits in the lives of researchers across diverse fields. This is an attempt to increase visibility of researchers of diverse backgrounds and was an embodiment of my interest in science writing and communication.