Jeff Potter's new cookbook shows that a CS nerd can have talent on the keyboard and in the kitchen

What happens when you take a CS nerd out of the Sun Lab and put her into the kitchen? Apparently, a great cookbook. Alumnus Jeff Potter recently published his new cookbook Cooking for Geeks: Real Science, Great Hacks, and Good Food. Potter, who has no traditional culinary experience, concentrated in computer science and visual arts at Brown. In addition to providing a variety of recipes that vary in difficulty, Potter includes chapters on such geeky topics as molecular gastronomy (which he calls “modernist cuisine”) and “Fun with Hardware.”

So, CS concentrators, if you ever make it out of the CIT, make sure to pick up Potter’s cookbook for some culinary programming.

After nearly a decade of studying computer science at Brown, Meier headed to Los Angeles to lend her talents to animation and visual effects production companies (her projects include Batman Returns, Toys, Fantasia 2000, Devil’s Advocate, True Lies and Michael Jackson’s iconic Black or White music video).

But Meier found, it seems, the world within the CIS building more animating than studios like DreamWorks, Cinesite and Hammerhead Productions, where she has worked as art director or senior animator. She left Tinseltown to return to College Hill, where she’s been teaching since 2003. Meier’s Intro to Computer Animation is offered this fall, but be prepared to fight for a seat in the popular course capped at 20  students (it helps to have some CS courses under your belt, or an artistic background, or good groveling skills).

Name: Barbara Meier

Age: Over 21 is all that matters [Read more →]

Professor Van Hentenryck has authored 5 books and more than 170 scientific articles. He calls CS 31  (Introduction to Computer Systems) and 258 (Solving Hard Problems in Combinatorial Optimization) his “dream courses,” and believes he was “born…to work on constraint programming.”

Name: Pascal Van Hentenryck

Age: 0x2E

Occupation: Professor of Computer Science

What’s your job description, in one sentence? I teach undergraduate and graduate courses, do research with my students, and write optimization software.

What’s the best part of your job? All the above

The worst? The elevators in the CIT (Center for Information Technology) drive me nuts.

How long have you lived in Providence? 18 years, if you count Barrington as part of Providence. [Read more →]