About Me
My name is Kevin Alvarenga, and I am a rising senior at Duke University. I am scheduled to graduate Spring 2025 with a Bachelors in Computer Science. I am currently planning on applying to graduate school to potentially earn a PhD in Computer Science. I got interested in Computer Science after taking an introductory course here at Duke. I loved this class and am currently an undergraduate teacher assistant for it! This has sparked another interest in CS Education and I hope to enter academia in the future! In my free time, I like to listen to music, walk my dogs, and play soccer with friends.
Please reach out to me at my email: kalvarenga3088@gmail.com or on Linkedin.
About My Mentor
Professor Susan Rodger is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science and Professor of the Practice of Computer Science at Duke University. Her main area of research is Computer Science Education, where she has worked on visualization and interaction software for theoretical applications. Professor Rodger has developed JFLAPS, a software that experiments with formal languages and automata, for 30 years with 48 students. This is one her more popular works as it is being used in over 160 countries. Also, Rodger has focused on integrating computing into K-12 by using Alice 3-D virtual worlds and has helped developed curriculum materials. More information of her work and interests can be found here.
About My Project
My research project this summer is focused on developing autograders for open-ended assignments in an introductory coding Coursera course. These autograders are written in python using the testing framework, pytest. We are performing literature review on open-ended assignments and autograders to see current designs and perspectives. However, it’s evident that there isn’t much work on autograders for open-ended assignments, meaning that there are some areas for innovation. The main goal of this research project is to develop autograders that can allow for students to be creative in their learning. Open-ended assignments give students the chance to test their knowledge in ways that best suit them, which is shown, from our literature review, to be beneficial to their learning. In order to aid this research process, I am also part of an introductory research course, UR2PhD, to gain a better grasp on research skills.