Reyan Ahmed joining UA Department of Computer Science!
Welcome new Assistant Professor of Practice!
Dr. Reyan Ahmed will be joining the Department of Computer Science faculty in fall 2023. We asked Dr. Ahmed to answer our "Getting to know you" questions. Responses below.
Educational background/short bio:
I have served as a visiting assistant professor at Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, USA. I received my PhD in Computer Science at the University of Arizona. I received BS and MS degrees in Computer Science and Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
Research interests:
My research interests include graph algorithms, network visualization, and data science.
Why did you apply to join the University of Arizona Department of Computer Science?
Previous years of teaching and research experience was significant for my career. I am grateful to the department for providing me the opportunity to achieve my Ph.D. degree. The department also provided me the option to enter into a teaching profession. Since the department has an enormous contribution to my career, I decided to join the department again.
What made you interested in pursuing a career in higher education/the academy?
The institutes that offer higher education similar to UA have a faculty that has expertise in different domains. Hence there are opportunities to participate in different interesting projects. Also, the department is able to offer a broad list of graduate courses. Overall, there is a huge amount of learning scope which is nearly impossible in a non academic organization. That is why I decided to pursue a career in academia.
What are you looking forward to most in coming to UA?
I will be teaching courses related to programming, discrete mathematics etc. These are some fundamental courses in computer science. The courses are so fundamental that during my undergrad in every semester I needed to revise those course contents at least partially. I have also heard similar from all other students that I have talked with about that. I am looking forward to teaching the courses in a way that will be easy to understand and exciting to the students.
Any other information you would like students, staff, faculty, alumni, etc. to know about you.
Luckily, the above courses are some of my favorite courses. I plan to teach them in a way that the students also like the courses. Hopefully, that will be motivating for the students. Besides that, I am very excited to meet my old friends in the department.