Leigh Ann Sudol, CSD (Advisor: Mark Stehlik)
2nd yr PIER, 2nd  yr CSD
At the largest level Leigh Ann is interested in how people learn computer science.  Her current focus is on mental models of data and instructional methods that make use of student's prior knowledge and abstract data type libraries to improve introductory computer science education.
Leigh Ann started as a Math Education major at Pace University and graduated with a minor in computer science and a large amount of database design and systems management on her resume.  While in school she became known as the database guru on campus and was hired by several departments at the time to not only write their systems, but also to train the staff in its use.  From the university she took a job teaching high school math and computers at an inner city school in Fort Lauderdale Florida.  During that time she learned a lot about teaching and became the person on campus for staff development in technology.
After two years of teaching in South Florida, Leigh Ann moved back to the northeast and took a shared time teaching job at Fox Lane High School where 60% of her time was devoted to teaching math and computer science and 40% of her time was devoted to the position of computer helping teacher.  A computer helping teacher was responsible for not only helping with small technical problems (larger issues were referred to the district technology staff), but mostly with developing and implementing staff development for the use of technology in the classroom for all disciplines.
During this time Leigh Ann also completed a masters degree from Columbia University's Teacher's College.  The degree was in Instructional Technology with a focus in Online Learning and Staff Development.  For her master's project
Leigh Ann developed a tool for assessing a teacher's competence level with instructional technology, and a full series of workshops to help teachers reach the highest level of competence and continue to stay at that level over time.  These workshops were constructed as online, asychronous learning experiences meant to provide teachers with the ability to increase their skills in line with their own teaching schedules.
In the past few years Leigh Ann has moved to a more narrow focus in Computer Science Education.  She has served as a College Board consultant for the AP Computer Science Discipline, writing articles for the apcentral website for other teachers to use.  She has also been actively involved in training AP teachers about how to teach computer science and instructional methodologies for that subject.  Leigh Ann also served as a member of the Policy board for her district's Staff Development Center, helping to direct the mission of the center and working to create and distribute grants to teachers and staff development for teachers in all areas, not just technology.
Recently Leigh Ann has been a member of the Computer Science Teacher's Association (CSTA) and ACM's Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education (SIGCSE).  She was elected to the board of directors for CSTA (an international organization) and served in that position until this past June.  While on the board she was a member of the equity committee focusing on broadening the participation of minorities and women in computer science, as well as the policy and membership committees.  She was also the chair of the publications committee and helped direct the path of the organizations blog, newsletter, and redesigned the web page.  As a SIGCSE member Leigh Ann has served as the K12 liaison for the annual conference for the 2007 and 2009 conferences.
Most recently she has been named to the Advisory Board for the Istitute for Personal Robotics in Education as well as the Curriculum Oversight and Strategic Planning Committee for the Pittsburgh Science and Technology Academy.  Leigh Ann has also published two textbook on Java programming as well as several articles, a research article and has presented at a variety of conferences.
People might be surprised to know that back in NY Leigh Ann volunteers with a local Ambulance Corps and spends her holidays often driving an ambulance.