Jennifer S. Kay


Professor
Computer Science Department
Rowan University
201 Mullica Hill Road 
Glassboro,NJ 08028 
kay@rowan.edu 
Phone: (856) 256-4593
Fax: (856) 256-4741















I'm a Professor of Computer Science at Rowan University. My current research focuses mostly on CS Education, Educational Robotics, and effective online education. I am the proud recipient of Rowan University's Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award as well as Rowan's President's Award for Excellence in Innovative Instructional Delivery. I did my Masters and Ph.D. work in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and have Bachelors Degrees in Math and Computer Science from the University of Pennsylvania.


Teaching | Research | Office Location | Office Hours | Robots! | Publications | Need a Recommendation from Me? | | Fun | Biographical


 

Teaching

I am the proud recipient of Rowan University's Lindback Distinguished Teaching Award as well as Rowan's President's Award for Excellence in Innovative Instructional Delivery

In Fall 2022 I am teaching:

Previous semesters:

Please note: old classes pre-blackboard/canvas include hyperlinks, accessing newer materials is a little more complicated. I am happy to share my material with other instructors, please email me for access.

GradRobotsS22, FoundS22, AIF21, FoundF21, FoundS21, AIS21, HonorsFoundS21, FoundF21, AIF20, FoundF20, FoundS20, gradRoboticsS20, FoundF19, HIPRF19, FoundS19, IOOPS19, FoundF18, RoboticsF18, HonorsISPRobotsS18, FoundS18, gradrobotsf17 foundf17, founds16, libbyf15, ioopf15, foundf15, libbys15, ioops15, libbyf14, robotsf14, gradRobotsf14, libby1314 honorsispS14 ioopS14 ioopf13 introscif13 introscis13 honorsintroscis13 introscif12 robotsf12 gradrobotsf12 founds12 indstudys12  introscif11 introrobotsf11 ioopf11 introrobotss11 intros11 founds11 robotsf10 introrobotsf10 introscif10 intros09 introrobotss09 founds09 introscif08 introrobotsf08 csps08 introsci intros06 robof06 intros06 introf04 robos04 intros04 founds04 introf03 csps03 founds03 introf02 cspf02 csps02 robos02 foundf01 cspf01 algoss01 csps01 cspf00 csps00 robos00 dsf99 cspf99 dsminif99 cspsp99 dsf98 cspf98


Research

My areas of interest include computer science education, educational robotics, effective systems for learning at scale (MOOCs), tools for online STEM education, intelligent software agents, robotics (especially mobile robots), vehicle teleoperation, human-computer interaction, user interfaces, computers and the elderly, cryptography, computer vision, and artificial intelligence.

My Publications are listed below.

Please visit the Rowan University Laboratory for Educational Robotics (RULER) home page

For my Ph.D., I developed the STRIPE system, which was part of Carnegie Mellon's Navlab Project. STRIPE is a system for teleoperating vehicles across low bandwidth links, and links with delays.

While working on my Ph.D., I also did some work in cryptography. You can take a look at a technical report of mine: Cryptanalysis Techniques: An Example Using Kerberos

[ You may also want to look at my official Rowan Research page, though beware that it gets updated even less frequently than this one ]


Office Location: Robinson 328S

Office Hours

Please visit https://tinyurl.com/kay-office-hours for information.

 

robots

ROBOTS!

I'm the director of the Rowan University Laboratory for Educational Robotics (RULER Lab). Check out our web page for lots of information about educational robotics, as well as many resources for K-12 and University Educators who wish to use robotics in the classroom.

While I'm interested in a bunch of different aspects of computer science, I find myself returning again and again to the fields of robotics. As a graduate student at CMU, I got to play with really big robots. Nowadays the robots my students and I play with tend to be a lot smaller, but some of them fly, others dance, and some even wear fancy costumes!

My favorite first activity for anyone learning about robotics is to ask them to do a robot dance.

I think that robots are a great way to get people excited about computer science - I've exposed hundreds of computer science educators to robotics through the Robot Rodeo and Experience It! events at the SIGCSE 2011, SIGCSE 2012, and SIGCSE 2014 conferences for computer science educators (check out this great news report about the Rodeo from CBS 11 News in Dallas) as well as through workshops for K-12 teachers at Rowan and two free MOOCs (online courses) for K-12 teachers (also free to others) that teach LEGO robotics sponsored by Google CS4HS

From 1997 - 2013 I co-chaired the Rowan's FIRST LEGO League Qualifier that brought hundreds of 9-14 year olds to campus to participate in a robotics and research competition that is designed to get kids excited about STEM. In 2016, I passed on the torch as Rowan became the Southern NJ FLL partner.



Publications

Refereed Publications

Ph.D. Thesis

  • STRIPE: Remote Driving Using Limited Image Data
    Jennifer Kay
    Ph.D. Thesis, Carnegie Mellon University, January 1997. Available as technical report CMU-CS-97-100, Computer Science Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

Book Chapter

Invited Publications

Refereed Panel Presentations and Published Summaries

  • CS Professional Development MOOCs
    Erin Mindell (Moderator),     Karen Brennan, Gwendolyn Britton, Jennifer S. Kay, and Jennifer Rosato
    to appear in the Proceedings of the 45th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, SIGCSE 2014, March 2014

  • Panel: Beyond First Impressions and Fine Farewells: Electronic Tangibles Throughout the Curriculum
    Jennifer S. Kay (Moderator), Frank Klassner, Fred G. Martin, David P. Miller, Keith J. O?Hara,
    Proceedings of the AAAI Spring Symposium on Educational Robotics and Beyond: Design and Evaluation, March 2010, pp. 58-59.

Old Tech Reports ... incomplete ... adding them as I find them

Instructions for Current Rowan Students Looking for a Recommendation

Do the following:
  1. Email me and ask me if it's ok (this is just normal courtesy, you need to do this before you request a recommendation from anyone!
      Be sure to let me know the date the recommendation would be due! Be sure to let me know how I would send this recommendation
  2. Fill out the CS Dept recommendation request form
  3. After doing that, please email me a bulleted list of things that you would include if you were me and you were writing this letter. Don't be shy! No promises that I will use any of it, but this will help me to sell you and also helps jog my memory about what was special about you in my class (or our other interactions).

Fun Stuff

These links are really old. One day, I'll have time to add some of my more recent favorites.

Biographical


I did my undergraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, in Computer Science (in the School of Engineering and Applied Science) and in Mathematics (in the School of Arts and Sciences). I also worked in the GRASP Lab at Penn.

While I was an undergraduate I also spent a year as a visiting student at Somerville College, Oxford University, which is in Oxford, in the United Kingdom.

I've also been a research assistant at the AI Vision Research Unit in the Psychology Department at the University of Sheffield.

I graduated with my Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon in December of 1996.  I was a member of the CMU Vision and Autonomous Systems Center (VASC), which is a part of the Robotics Institute.

I used to be a member of the AI Laboratory in the Advanced Technology Laboratories in Camden, New Jersey .

I was also a part-time faculty member in the Computing Sciences Department at Villanova University.