Brown CS News

Click the links that follow for more news about other Brown CS winners of ACM's Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and other recent accomplishments by our alums.

In a ceremony on June 15, 2019, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and professional computing society, presented Robert Sedgewick (William O. Baker '39 Professor at Princeton University) with the Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award for developing classic textbooks and online materials for the study of algorithms, analytic combinatorics, and introductory computer science that have educated generations of students worldwide. Robert is not only a Brown University alum (Bachelor of Science in 1968 and Master's of Science in 1970) but one of the initial seven Brown CS faculty members. He's the second Brown CS winner of the award, following Andy van Dam, whom he thanked during his acceptance speech.

Robert is best known for his series of algorithms textbooks, which have been bestsellers for four decades (12 books in four editions covering five programming languages). The books develop a scientific approach to the study of algorithms, based on experiments with real code to validate hypotheses about performance based on mathematical analysis. His recent book (with Kevin Wayne), Computer Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach, is a comprehensive introduction to the field and was named by ACM Computing Reviews as a “Best of Computing Notable Book” for 2017. His book Analytic Combinatorics (with Philippe Flajolet) is an advanced graduate text that has been recognized with the 2019 Leroy P. Steele Prize for Mathematical Exposition. More recently, Sedgewick has been extremely active as a pioneer and innovator in online education. He has co-developed extensive online content associated with his books that attract millions of visitors annually. Robert has also recorded over 100 hours of online lectures on programming, computer science, and algorithms that reach hundreds of thousands of people around the world. The Sedgewick-Wayne Algorithms online course has been listed as one of the top 10 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) of all time.

The Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award is presented annually to an educator who has been appointed to a recognized educational baccalaureate institution, recognized for advancing new teaching methodologies or effecting new curriculum development or expansion in computer science and engineering, or who has made a significant contribution to the educational mission of the ACM. It's accompanied by a prize of ten thousand dollars, with financial support provided by Pearson Education.

For more information, click the link that follows to contact Brown CS Communication Outreach Specialist Jesse C. Polhemus.