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 in 2021. 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 over 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!
Andrew Cluff rides bikes, grows tomatoes, automates boring tasks, knows several languages (but speaks only English), prints plastic, and works with young men that are part of a quorum of Teachers. He is careful to avoid pumpkin in anything. Those who know him best note his ability to solve difficult problems. He enjoys seeing the transformation in students when they begin to learn computer science. Andrew and his wife have 3 daughters, 1 son, and no goldfish.
Brendan graduated with a B.A. in Linguistics and Arabic with minor in Computer Science from BYU in 2021. He then worked three years as a compuational linguist for a government contractor, MITRE, based in Washington D.C. There he conducted evaluations for translation and other NLP systems and built language processing tools to support analyst workflows. During this period, he got an M.S. from BYU in Computer Science, and is now a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science researching low-resource machine translation, speech translation, and sign language recognation. He speaks Arabic and Spanish, and his greatest passion is foreign languages. He also dabbles in writing, and loves to hike and follow cooking videos on YouTube.
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
Ari
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!
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 Canvas breaks or isn't working let me know, and I'll try to get it fixed.
Kate
kaytj
Hey! I'm Kate, a junior 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!
Teaching Assistants
Ben
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!
Brayden
pnobscot
Hello! I am Brayden Howells. I like basketball, frisbee golf, running, climbing, hip hop, Legos, and video games. My favorites are Splatoon and Zelda. My major is TES and my minors are Computer Science and Math Education. I also like Everdell, if you wanna play hmu. Uh yeah good luck in the course! You got this!
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.
Claire
clairevance_21
Hey everyone, I'm Claire! I'm a Computer Science: Software Engineering major and am so excited to be one of your TAs this semester! I'm obsessed with travel and am currently learning French. I also love reading (especially sci-fi and fantasy), singing, and playing/watching sports. I can't wait to help y'all this semester!
Clara
Section 21
clarabaker2725
Hi everyone! My name is Clara and I'm majoring in Accounting with a minor in Computer Science. I love lifting weights, playing any sports, reading, and playing video games. I'm so excited to meet everyone and help in any way I can!
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 junior majoring in Computer Science with a minor in Math. I enjoy reading, playing trumpet, playing games, and designing games. I love discussing cs topics, game design, and philosophy, so feel free to reach out with questions!
Emily
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 :)
Gage
Section 18
12gagesmith
My name is Gage, and I am a junior 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!
Gavin
aceventor
Hey! I'm Gavin, and I'm a sophomore majoring in machine learning. I love being outdoors, playing games, reading, and going on adventures! I'm looking forward to helping you all and having a great semester!
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!
Joseph
Section 7
josephgeis
Hello, everyone! I'm Joseph, a sophomore at BYU currently majoring in Computer Science and minoring in math. I love consumer tech, electronics, swimming, travel, and anything science/math-related. Ask me about Linux, what I'm learning in my classes, and web development. 我也會中文！
Matthew
23mscoresby
Hi! I’m Matthew. I’m a freshman majoring in Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science. I love the Gospel and all that BYU offers in connection with those truths. I’m also way too into roller coasters and Star Wars. I’m excited to help out this semester—feel free to reach out!
Mia
imapepsi01
I’m Mia, a CS PhD student focused on Human-Computer Interaction and education. My current project is Safe Scales, a gamified app that delivers self-paced social media literacy education for young adults on the Autism Spectrum. I love spending time with my family and am always happy to chat about balancing mom life with school and work.
Michael
acxnitine_
Hey! My name is Michael, and I'm a sophomore 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.
Neil
nsenecal
안녕 여러분, I'm Neil, a help lab TA. I am a mechanical engineering major and a hobbyist, 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!
Nick
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)
Preston
plarke_
Hey everyone! My name is Preston and I’m a sophomore majoring in Computer Science. I love problem solving, reading books (mostly fiction), and tinkering with whatever catches my interest. I find programming to be endlessly fascinating and fun, so I hope to be able to help you all have fun with it as well!
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.