John DeNero, an Associate Teaching Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS), has been named the new Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies for the Division of Computing, Data Science, and Society at UC Berkeley. He takes on the position with the retirement of Professor Deb Nolan.
DeNero joined Berkeley in 2014 and is the Giancarlo Teaching Fellow in EECS. Formerly a Senior Research Scientist at Google working on Google Translate and natural language processing, he came to campus to focus on undergraduate education in computer science and data science.
Since his arrival, DeNero has co-developed and teaches two of the largest courses on campus, CS 61A and Data 8, which are both foundational components of the Data Science major and minor. His teaching has been honored with the Distinguished Teaching Award, the Jim and Donna Gray Faculty Award for Undergraduate Teaching, and the Diane McEntyre Award for Excellence in Teaching. John has also served as the Vice Chair for Undergraduate Matters in EECS and CS, chair of the EECS Data Science Degree Committee, and member of the Data Science Governance Committee.
DeNero’s research on natural language processing focuses primarily on interactive AI-based systems to assist professional translators. His research on computer science education focuses primarily on large-scale delivery of computing content. He received his Master’s degree in Philosophy from Stanford and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from UC Berkeley.