Professor John Grundy receives Education Award
In Summary
Swinburne University of Technology’s Professor John Grundy has received the 2014 Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Technical Council on Software Engineering (TCSE) Distinguished Education Award for his major influence on Software Engineering curriculum.
The international award recognizes researchers and practitioners who have demonstrated long-standing, sustained and meaningful contributions to the theory and practice of the information sciences.
Professor Grundy has been a major contributor to the development and implementation of higher education Software Engineering programs throughout Australia and New Zealand. He said this award signifies the great impact teaching innovations have on student learning outcomes.
“I am honoured to receive this award. Software Engineering has grown at an unprecedented rate and it has been both a challenging and rewarding experience developing the discipline within the higher education landscape,” Professor Gundy said.
“Setting the frameworks to give the next generation of software engineers an impactful and meaningful learning experience, sets up society with a richer and more knowledgeable digital infrastructure.”
Professor Grundy was a key part in developing the Bachelor of Engineering (Software Engineering) programme at the University of Auckland in 2002. He ran the program as Director for three years, which has become the largest programme of its kind in Australasia.
More recently, Professor Grundy played a major role in developing the new Bachelor of Engineering (Software Engineering) programme at Swinburne, which began operation in 2011.
Australian National University Professor John Hosking provided one of the three nominations required for the award. He said Professor Grundy is an innovator with an active research program in pedagogical issues, particularly empirical experiments to assess new teaching innovations.
“Professor Grundy is innovative in his approaches and his ability to inject real life industrial and research experience into his teaching is extremely well received by his students.
“He is the epitome of a research and industrial experience led educator, taking cutting edge experience and bringing it into the classroom in accessible and appealing ways.
“He is always willing to experiment with new methods of delivery and new pedagogical styles and to use evidence to understand the effectiveness of his approaches,” Professor Hosking said.
Professor Grundy is Deputy Chair of the Swinburne Senate Courses Committee, which oversees all courses in the University. This experience has led to a number of refinements of the Computer Science and Software Engineering programmes to improve quality of structure and delivery.
Previous winners of the IEEE TCSE Distinguished Education Award include luminaries in the Software Engineering education field such as Mary Shaw (Carnegie Mellon University), Ian Sommerville (University of St Andrews), Tony Wasserman (Carnegie Mellon University), and Mehdi Jazayeri (University of Lugano).