Susan B. Horwitz facts for kids

Susan Beth Horwitz (born January 6, 1955 – died June 11, 2014) was an American computer scientist. She was famous for her work on programming languages and software engineering. This included special areas like program slicing and dataflow analysis. She also won awards for her research papers and for being an amazing teacher.

Susan B. Horwitz: A Computer Science Star

Susan B. Horwitz was a brilliant computer scientist. She helped make computer programs better and easier to understand. She also worked hard to help students learn computer science.

Her Journey into Computer Science

Susan Horwitz started her higher education at Wesleyan University. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1977. Later, she studied Computer Science at Cornell University. She received her Master of Science degree in 1982 and her Ph.D. in 1985.

After finishing her studies, she joined the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1985. She started as an assistant professor. She became a full professor in 1996. She also served as an associate chair for the department from 2004 to 2007.

Making Computer Science Easier to Learn

Susan Horwitz was a highly respected teacher. She created a program called Peer Led Team Learning for Computer Science (PLTLCS). This program helped students learn computer science together. It was also known as the Wisconsin Emerging Scholars-Computer Science (WES-CS) program.

What is Peer-Led Team Learning?

PLTLCS involved students helping each other learn. Older students who had done well in computer science would lead study groups. This method helped many students, especially those who might not have thought about studying computer science before. Susan Horwitz led a big project with eight schools to use this learning method. They found that it really helped more students succeed in computer science classes.

Shaping High School Computer Science

Susan Horwitz also played a big role in computer science education for high school students. For ten years, from 1987 to 1997, she was part of a committee. This committee developed the Advanced Placement (AP) Computer Science Test. She even led the committee for five of those years. During her time, the programming language used for the AP exam changed from Pascal to C++. This was a big change that she helped manage.

Understanding How Programs Work

Susan Horwitz's research focused on making computer programs more reliable. She worked on two main areas: program slicing and dataflow analysis.

What is Program Slicing?

Imagine a very long recipe. If you only want to know how much sugar you need, you don't need to read the whole recipe. You just find the parts that mention sugar. Program slicing is similar for computer code. It helps programmers find only the parts of a program that affect a specific calculation or outcome. This makes it easier to fix errors or understand complex code.

What is Dataflow Analysis?

Dataflow analysis is like tracking how ingredients move through a recipe. It helps computer scientists understand how information (data) flows and changes inside a program. This is important for making sure programs work correctly and efficiently.

Awards and Recognition

Susan Horwitz received many awards for her important work. She won several "best paper" awards for her research. These awards recognized her papers as some of the most important in her field.

In 2011, she received a special award called the ACM SIGSOFT Retrospective Impact Paper Award. This award was for a paper she wrote in 1994. It showed that her ideas continued to be very important many years later.

She also won several teaching awards at the University of Wisconsin. These included the William H. Kiekhofer Excellence in Teaching Award in 1993. These awards showed how much she cared about her students and how well she taught.

Her Legacy

Susan B. Horwitz passed away on June 11, 2014, at the age of 59, after battling stomach cancer. Her work continues to influence how computer programs are designed and understood. She also left a lasting impact on how computer science is taught to students of all ages.