Professor Prairie Rose Goodwin finishes first full year at Vassar

Continued from Professor on page 1 what you can do if you can actually harness that information is really powerful.” Goodwin specifically worked on cloud-based solutions for IoT business applications. She particularly enjoyed working on problems that many others were unsure of how to solve, even though solutions were needed. After her time in industry, Goodwin went on to teach at North Carolina State University and The Arts Institute of Raleigh-Durham before returning to Vassar. In coming back to Vassar, she hoped to connect on a more individualized level with her students, which she mentioned is a trait specific to the school. Since being back, she has enjoyed the eagerness of her students to learn about the world. She has noted that the people in her classroom genuinely want to be there, and it has made a difference in her engagement with academia. Goodwin also mentioned that she also enjoys working with the department’s faculty, who she characterized as caring and supportive of their colleagues' success. She concluded that as of now, they are one of the most caring teams she has worked on, whether it be in industry or academia.

I have had the pleasure of taking two courses with Goodwin: Data Structures & Algorithms and Analysis of Algorithms. Her teaching style is unlike any other in the department. She peppers her lectures with anecdotes of current events, as well as lessons learned from her time in industry. I believe she has been successful in connecting her real-world experiences to the classroom, and my understanding of the potential applications of computer science in my future have been expanded because of it.

Outside of the classroom, Goodwin enjoys creativity, which manifested itself in the form of an embroidery business she ran prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. She also enjoys video games and believes they are a great tool for teaching tenacity and thinking skills. Specifically, she enjoys that games are able to tell diverse and deep stories in a comprehensible manner that other platforms cannot.

Goodwin will return in the fall as an Associate Professor of Computer Science. When asked what she hopes to contribute to the Vassar community, she remarked, “I do feel like I have a fresh point of view having recently been in industry, especially postCOVID. ” She continued, “The world is different and having gone through that, I feel like I have really good advice for people who are just starting out in the workplace.” Goodwin specializes in human-computer interaction, which is a unique subfield she is bringing to the department. Over the next few years, she hopes to contribute academically to a new area of research as well as more personally with advice she is able to offer students.