About

Colleen M. Lewis is an Associate Professor of computer science at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her research seeks to identify and remove barriers to computer science (CS) learning and to understand and optimize CS education. She curates CSTeachingTips.org, a project sponsored by the NSF, aimed at disseminating effective CS teaching practices. Lewis has received several awards for her efforts to broaden participation in computing, including the NSF CAREER Award, the NCWIT.org Undergraduate Mentoring Award, and the AnitaB.org Emerging Leader Award. Her academic background includes a Ph.D. in science and mathematics education, an M.S. in computer science, and a B.S. in electrical engineering and computer science, all from the University of California, Berkeley. She has held positions at Harvey Mudd College, where she was the McGregor-Girand Associate Professor of Computer Science, and has also served as teaching faculty at the Race and Equity Center at USC Rossier School of Education. Her research interests focus on broadening participation in computing and computer science education research.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Political Science
• Sociology
• Software engineering
• Marketing
• Medical education
• Knowledge management
• Business
• Medicine
• World Wide Web
• Law
• Data science
• Cognitive psychology
• Programming language

Selected publications

• Why Some Students Still Opt Out of CS: Student Perspectives in a Culturally Responsive Program

  2026-02-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Background: Prior research on a culturally responsive summer computer science (CS) program for high school students found that demographic disparities remained in students' likelihood of pursuing CS.

  PublisherDOI

• Exploring the Relationship Between Department Characteristics and Computer Science Student Diversity in the US

  2026-02-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Background: In higher education, efforts to broaden participation in computing (BPC) are typically evaluated at a single institution, which limits our ability to isolate their impacts from those of other factors at the institution.

  PublisherDOI

• Transparent Teaching

  2026-02-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  College has a lot of unwritten rules, and some of our students will matriculate knowing those rules while others don't. Research has shown that revising homework assignments to make these unwritten rules explicit can help students' academic confidence and sense of belonging. This tutorial is intended for faculty who may be interested in revising their assignments to make those unwritten rules clear to students. We will focus on Transparent Assignment Design, a framework used to make explicit the purpose, task, and criteria of assignments. Come to this tutorial for a crash course on making your assignments transparent followed by hands-on help! Please bring an assignment you are interested in revising (or we will provide samples) and your choice of editing tool (e.g., laptop, pen/paper).

  PublisherDOI

• Using Kotter’s Eight-Stage Model to Understand Departmental Efforts to Broaden Participation in Computing

  ACM Transactions on Computing Education · 2026-03-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Background : Motivated by the need for a diverse technological workforce, broadening participation in computing (BPC) efforts aim to increase the representation of people who identify as women, African American or Black, Hispanic or Latinx/a/o/e, Native American, Indigenous, persons from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and persons with disabilities. Research on BPC efforts has highlighted exemplar institutions and activities, but tends to focus on what initiatives computing departments have undertaken and the outcomes of these initiatives. Purpose : Given this prior focus on what initiatives computing departments are undertaking, we propose refocusing on how change happens to increase our collective capacity for impactful change efforts. We apply a well-known organizational change framework, John Kotter’s eight-stage process of leading change, to examine catalysts for change in computing departments, who contributes to this work, and what motivates the work. Doing so can deepen our understanding of BPC efforts and how to enhance them. Theoretical Framework : Kotter’s framework for leading change includes the following eight stages: (1) establishing a sense of urgency, (2) creating the guiding coalition, (3) developing a vision and strategy, (4) communicating the change vision, (5) empowering broad-based action, (6) generating short-term wins, (7) consolidating gains and producing more change, and (8) anchoring new approaches in the culture. Methods : Using a practitioner research approach, we conducted interviews with 13 faculty and staff members across R1 and R2 U.S. institutions via Zoom. Participants were recruited based on their involvement in BPC efforts at their respective institutions. We used inductive and deductive analytic coding approaches to capture how the Kotter framework illuminated participants’ experiences leading BPC efforts. Findings : Kotter’s stages provide a useful breakdown of processes with which to understand and illuminate catalysts for change in computing departments. Across our participants, we see examples of how each stage not only takes shape in different departments, but also how subsequent stages build upon the one(s) before it. Findings reveal a variety of factors that motivate the urgency for computer science (CS) departments to engage in BPC work, along with the importance of top-down leadership and institutional resources. Implications : Kotter’s organizational change model provides an appropriate frame to guide BPC efforts and may be useful to practitioners. Findings from this study illuminate several areas for CS departments to address in order to build capacity for organizational change efforts that support BPC goals. These include examining a variety of departmental data, effectively using meetings and other communications mechanisms, and revising hiring and promotion policies.

  PublisherDOI

• Extracurricular Activities Predict CS Internship Attainment

  2026-02-13

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Background: Computer Science (CS) industry internships are valuable experiences for undergraduate CS students, and internship participation is predicted by extracurricular participation.

  PublisherDOI

• Sticky Analogies

  2026-02-13

  article

  Analogies and metaphors are ubiquitous in computing education, helping instructors break down complex or abstract ideas by connecting them to familiar experiences. This Birds of a Feather session invites educators from across the CS curriculum—from introductory through advanced courses—to share ''sticky'' analogies: explanations that clarify challenging concepts and remain memorable for students. Facilitators will begin with a small set of example analogies that illustrate how to articulate a learning goal, map each component of the analogy to the target concept, and identify any needed cultural or background knowledge. The floor will then open for attendees to contribute analogies that have either worked well for them or fallen flat, enabling collective reflection on what makes an analogy effective or ineffective. A shared document will be collaboratively built during the session so attendees can take away new analogies, refine existing ones, and continue contributing after the symposium.

  PublisherDOI

• Teaching Tips We Would Tell Our Younger Selves

  2026-02-13

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Analyzing High School CS Teachers' Likelihood of Attrition

  2025-07-31

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• SIGCSE Reads 2025: The New Science of Learning

  2025-02-18 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Share your "Great Examples" -- Short Programs that Demonstrate Big Ideas

  2025-02-18

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• CER: Import PCK: What 10K Novice Teachers Can Learn from Teachers with 10K Hours of Experience

  NSF · $771k · 2013–2017

• CAREER: Physical Representations of Programming Concepts

  NSF · $670k · 2022–2027

Frequent coauthors

• Niral Shah

  University of Washington

  10 shared

• Vidushi Ojha

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  9 shared

• Daniel D. Garcia

  University of California, Berkeley

  8 shared

• Tracy Camp

  Computing Research Association

  8 shared

• Sally Fincher

  University of Kent

  7 shared

• Burçin Tamer

  Computing Research Association

  6 shared

• Kathleen Isenegger

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  6 shared

• Christopher Perdriau

  University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  6 shared

Education

• Ph.D., Computer Science

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  2000

• M.S., Computer Science

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  1996

• B.S., Computer Science

  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

  1994

Awards & honors

• NSF CAREER Award
• NCWIT.org Undergraduate Mentoring Award
• AnitaB.org Emerging Leader Award
• Lasting Impact Award (2024)
• Honorable Mention for Best Paper (2024)