Cinda Heeren is an associate teaching professor in the computer science department at the University of British Columbia. Prior to moving to UBC in Summer, 2017, Cinda was a Professor of teaching of CS at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Her typical teaching activities include UBC’s large, core-CS Data Structures course, CPSC221. Her consistent, engaging work in the course was recognized in Spring, 2020 when she was awarded the Killam Teaching Prize.

Cinda is a committed user and early adopter of a reliable, modern, freely available, scalable, online assessment tool called PrairieLearn, and she supports a community of practice around its adoption at UBC.

Her most recent creative project is the development of CPSC203—a data structures and algorithms course designed specifically for non-CS majors, that ties together classic problems from CS with applications from the arts and sciences.

Finally, and most importantly, Cinda continues to be a vocal advocate for diversifying the field of computing through outreach, program development, and undergraduate community-building. She is the Chair of the CS Department’s Committee on Outreach, Diversity, and Equity (CODE), and she evangelizes for inclusive and innovative teaching practices at every level of instruction.