Meet the instructors
We are very excited to teach you this semester! If you have logistical questions or concerns, please contact the course staff.
Instructors give course lectures, manage course staff, and oversee course policies.
Dr. Stephens graduated with B.S. in Physics from BYU in 1996 and then went on to receive a M.S and Ph.D. in Astronomy from New Mexico State University in 1999 & 2003. He also holds a Masters of Library Science degree from the University of North Texas which he received in 2016. After receiving his Ph.D, Dr. Stephens went to work at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center doing software development for the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope mission, a project he still works on. He has served as a developer, the Testing and Release Manager, Software Manager, and as a Senior Scientific Software Developer over the years. He also served for a year as the Information Systems Development Manager at the Science Support Center of NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infra-red Astronomy (SOFIA). For three years (2014-2017) Dr. Stephens was the Physical and Mathematical Sciences Librarian at the Harold B. Lee Library here at BYU before NASA lured him back. He started as professor in the Computer Science Department in December of 2020.
Dr. Richardson joined the BYU Computer Science faculty three years ago. He is the Counselor and former President of the Association for Machine Translation in the Americas (AMTA) and has been involved in Machine Translation (MT) research and development since attending BYU as an undergrad and graduate almost five decades ago. Before coming to teach at BYU, he worked for 10 years as the Manager of Machine Translation and Translation Systems at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Prior experiences include presiding over the Brazil São Paulo South mission, 17 years at Microsoft Research as a Partner Researcher and Manager of the Machine Translation Group, and 11 years at IBM working on NLP and MT, including at the TJ Watson Research Center. His BS and MA degrees are in Computer Science and Linguistics from BYU, and his PhD is in Computer Science from the City University of New York. He and his wife Marianna have 12 children and 33 grandchildren. He is excited to teach and work with the amazing CS students at BYU!
Nancy Fulda the director of BYU's DRAGN Lab, a research group that studies machine learning, knowledge representation, and societal impacts of generative AI. She was a 1995 Howard W. Hunter scholar, a 2011 Jim Baen Memorial Award winner, and a team lead in Amazon's inaugural Alexa Prize Competition. In 2024 she was named one of Utah's top 100 AI professionals. Recent publications from Dr. Fulda's research group include Out of One, Many: Using Language Models to Simulate Human Samples and A Tale of Two Cultures: Comparing Interpersonal Disclosure Norms on Twitter. Ongoing research in her lab is studying ways to make large-scale language models more usable and energy-efficient. Part of this involves developing machine learning algorithms that more closely resemble the neurochemical processes in biological brains. She is also studying the application of neural programming interfaces in the context of knowledge grounding and mechanistic interpretability. In addition to her academic work, Dr. Fulda also writes science fiction. She has been nominated for the both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and has written on request for David Brin, TOR Books, and MIT’s Technology Review, as well as for the Dark Expanse space strategy game. She is the delighted mother of six children.
I worked at Microsoft for 16 years and was invited to teach here at BYU. I am here to help you make the world a better place. [child of God, disciple of Christ, father, husband, 4 sons, 5 daughters, piano, singing, skiing, snowboarding, basketball, soccer referee, hiking, camping, BYU, teaching, learning, Provo, Seattle, Russia, Guatemala, Israel, Scotland ]
Meet the TAs
Teaching Assistants (TAs), focus their teaching efforts on a particular component of the course, such as sections, exam prep, or walkthrough videos. Head TAs additionally manage a broader component of the course, such as logistics, content, software, office hours, etc.
Head TAs
Abigail
Section 11
abbydelorey04
Hello! I am one of the head TAs for this course! I am a social science teaching major, with a minor in computer science. My favorite things are the color pink, my cat chai chai, and being a teacher! I am so excited to work with y'all this semester!
Ethan
ecdye_64930
I'm Ethan, I am a Computer Science major with an emphasis in software engineering. I'm primarily focused on course development, so if you have any issues with the content or you just want to make a suggestion, please reach out! Also, if anything on the website breaks or isn't working let me know :)
Jason
nanonumpy
Hey! I'm one of your head TAs for the course (mainly focused on making sure things stay working behind the scenes). I'm majoring in ACME and love Python, the color green and making people's days just a little better.
Section TAs
Andrew
Section 11
beantheboy12
My name is Andrew, and I'm an applied mathematics major studying data science and machine learning. I am a big fan of coding and am excited to have a blast teaching you. Feel free to reach out if you ever want to know anything about machine learning or AI.
Ari
Section 16
quantum.arioso.irl
Hi everyone! My name is Ari (they/them) and I am a junior majoring in Computer Science with minors in Math and Physics. Most of my free time right now is spent hanging out with my fiancé. I also love cats, space, playing the piano, and listening to music (classical, soundtracks, musicals). I’m excited to get to know you all this semester!
Charles
Section 17
chuckthetruck
Hey I'm Charles! I'm currently switching majors to computer science with a machine learning emphasis. I've been coding in python for a long time I'm exited to help you all out.
Collin
Section 15
lavertas55
My name is Collin, I am a Microbiology major with a minor in Computer Science. I like playing disc golf, reading, and cooking. I'm looking forward to working with you all!
Cooper
Section 19
cooper_johnston
I'm Cooper and I am finishing my Senior year in the C S program. I love gaming, lifting, drawing and good food. I work mostly online so please feel free to reach out.
Donovan
Section 15
simpleturtle3
I'm Donovan and I'm a sophomore majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Math. I enjoy playing trumpet, playing games, designing games, and programming in general.
Gage
Section 18
12gagesmith
My name is Gage, and I am a sophomore majoring in computer science with an emphasis on software engineering. In my spare time, I enjoy playing piano and playing video games. Coding is something that I find a lot of fun in, and I'm excited to share that fun with you all!
Harrison
Section 13
harrisonkjacobs_
Hello! I'm Harrison, a freshman/sophomore majoring in Computer Engineering. In my free time I like baking, 3d printing, and playing video games.(especially good indie titles). I love having fun with programming, so I'm pretty excited to see what creative things you all can come up with this semester!
Jeff
Section 17
dark.ender
Hello there! My name is Jeff and I am a CS: Software Engineering Major. I love playing and designing video games and just about anything space related, especially Star Wars. Computer Science is really cool, and I'm excited to help y'all on your own adventure in creating amazing things!
Jonas
Section 19
jbarzee2
My name is Jonas, I am a Computer Science major. I love music, drums, guitar, sports, and friends. I may not be the best or most knowledgeable, but I am excited to help other with what I know for this semester!
Jonathan
Section 20
jc6143
Hello there! I'm Jonathan and I'm currently studying Cybersecurity here at BYU. I spend most of my free time playing Beat Saber Competitively and have even created unofficial levels for the game. If you have any questions about the course, my hobbies, or anything else, feel free to reach out to me!
Kate
Section 18
kaytj
Hey! I'm Kate, a sophomore majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Creative Writing. I love reading, writing, programming, dancing, playing music, and bread. I'm excited to get to know you all this semester!
Luke
Section 12
aathok0453
Hey all! I'm Luke! I'm a Computer Science major here at BYU. (Surprising, I know) Aside from Computer Science I love learning about literally everything, I'm a big-time hiker and enjoy the outdoors, and I'm learning Chinese. I'm excited to be working with all of you!
Nick Brown
Section 14
moralldo0827
Hey! I'm Nick and I'm majoring in Computer Science. I love playing games, listening to music, and meeting new people. Feel free to reach out to me if you need help with something! (Unless I don't know how to help, then I'll find someone smarter for you)
Lab TAs
Ben Baker
benbaker4742
Hey, I'm Ben, and I'm a junior majoring in computer engineering. My interests include Star Wars, building things, and video games. I'm looking forward to meeting and helping each of you!
Emily Chase
emily_chase8
Greetings friends, my name is Emily and I am excited to be one of your TAs this semester. I am a computer science major and mathematics minor. Outside of school, I enjoy reading, board games, TTRPGs, choral singing, and spending time with friends. Looking forward to a wonderful semester :)
Michael
acxnitine_
Hey! My name is Michael, and I'm a freshman majoring in computer science. I love to read and write as well as play the piano. I love coding and I love helping people, so I'm thrilled to be able to help you this semester.
Niel
nsenecal
안녕 여러분, I'm Neil, a help lab TA. I am a mechanical engineering major and a hobbiest, or "that guy" - the one with the random box of electronics and parts. If I'm not tinkering (breaking) or debugging (also breaking) something, I'm listening to music and cooking. I'm happy to answer any questions you have, nerdy or otherwise!
Ryan
youngblood316
My name is Ryan, and I am a freshman majoring in computer science with an undecided emphasis. I enjoy playing piano and teaching people how to play video games. I'm excited to help you all this semester!
Saul
saultoast
I'm Saul, a CS major with an emphasis in animation and games. I enjoy playing video games, listening to music, and programming just to name a few things. I love helping people learn how to code so feel free to ask me any questions!
Contact Us
The best way to contact course staff is through the course Discord server
If you have not already, please join our Discord server using the following invitation link: https://cs111.byu.edu/discord.
Send a direct message (DM) to one or more of the course staff and we will respond as soon as possible.
TA Help Lab
The TA Help Lab is located in TMCB 1121. TAs are also available to help over Discord. To get help from the TAs, please sign up on the online help queue. Please see the schedule below for daily hours and TA availability.