New Faculty Member, 2020–21
Gennaro De Luca
Lecturer
As an Arizona State University alum, Gennaro De Luca is looking forward to starting his career at a place that shares his commitment to the inclusivity and success of its community.
“I wanted to continue working with the talented faculty and staff here,” De Luca says. “I also strongly believe in ASU’s charter and want to contribute to those goals.”
De Luca will be teaching programming skills to information technology undergraduates. The new lecturer’s courses will include introductions to Python and Java in addition to co-instruction of a senior capstone course.
“I want to not only teach the subject but also improve how the classes are taught,” De Luca says. “With relatively small class sizes, my aim is to help and inspire each student who takes my courses.”
During his doctoral studies at ASU, De Luca developed a visual programming language and corresponding artificial intelligence that replicated a human teaching assistant. The AI was capable of looking at a student’s project, understanding its functionality and grading it based on the code written.
“I consider this my proudest academic achievement,” says De Luca, “because it has been used to teach programming and computer science concepts within ASU and across universities worldwide.”
In his spare time, De Luca enjoys bike riding and reading.