Meet the Faculty

Role at Northeastern:As a teaching professor, Tamara gets to interact and collaborate with many amazing students, through classes, mentoring, and various research projects. Interacting with students is absolutely the best part of her job.

Educational / Professional Background:
Tamara received her doctoral degree in 2015 from the University of Washington. Her dissertation research merged several different areas—privacy and security, robotics, bioengineering, networking, and ethics. This interdisciplinary research allowed her to recognize and experience the importance of diverse voices, perspectives, and expertise in computer science research and education. It has also inspired her long-term research focus—privacy, security and societal impact of emerging technologies.

Personal Background:
Tamara grew up in Europe, in beautiful Croatia. Prior to moving to the Pacific Northwest, she lived in Vancouver, BC. Each of these places has inspired her and helped shape her into who she is today.

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Role at Northeastern:
Working with highly motivated, passionate graduate students throughout the master’s program is wonderful. But as someone who came to computer science via an indirect path, Tony feels a particular affinity for students making the challenging transition into computer science from another background.

Educational/ Professional Background:
Tony received his bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of Washington. He then went on to earn a master’s degree in linguistics at Trinity College, Dublin, and finally a doctoral degree in natural language processing at the University of Groningen. This led to his research work in natural language processing and machine learning, and eventually to academic work in computer science.

Personal Background:
Tony grew up in the Seattle area, but spent most of his 20s and 30s living in Europe and Japan.

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Role at Northeastern: As a Teaching professor, Divya loves to interact with students and other faculty members. She enjoys learning new things and always look forward to them. She also finds immense joy in the success and achievement of her students.

Educational / Professional background: Divya received her doctoral degree in computer engineering from NSIT, University of Delhi in 2018. Her research domain in PhD degree was based on optimizing and load scheduling in cloud computing. She was also a University topper and gold medalist in her master's program in computer science. Over the years, she has published research papers in various journals and conferences. She has also worked on many research projects with undergraduate students. She has over seven years of experience working in academia. She has taught undergraduate courses in the roles as an Assistant Professor and as a teaching assistant at Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology (NSIT, NSUT) in New Delhi, India for five years. She has also taught undergraduate courses in various capacities at several governmental departments of Delhi, India. For over two years, she even taught high school students the basics of computers and programming languages.

Personal background: Divya grew up in New Delhi, India. Before moving to Seattle, she has lived and worked in Delhi.

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Role at Northeastern: Sarita enjoys working with students as an educator, researcher and mentor dedicated to supporting students in their learning journey through delivering lectures, guiding capstone and research projects that reflect current trends in the field.

Educational / Professional background: Sarita has a PhD in Computer Science as well as a doctoral degree in education. Her PhD research focused on designing and implementing cryptographic algorithms in the area of Information Security. She was awarded the Infosys research fellow for pursuing her PhD degree from the Center for Advanced Development in Computing (C-DAC Mumbai). She completed her EdD degree from Northeastern University. Her education research focused on the use of innovative educational technology in classrooms to support student learning. Sarita has worked for various universities in Singapore, Malaysia and India. She also holds a master’s degree in software engineering and another master’s degree in electrical engineering.

Personal background: Prior to moving to Seattle, Sarita lived and worked in Singapore.

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Role at Northeastern: As teaching-focused faculty, Oscar works closely with students of diverse backgrounds daily. He is always integrating the latest in Computer Science education research and project-based learning in the classroom, with the goal of demonstrating that CS is for everyone.

Educational/ Professional background: Oscar earned PhD in Computer Science from The University of Texas at El Paso. His research in Artificial Intelligence focused game theoretic models of reasoning under uncertainty in large games. He also worked as a Lecturer at UTEP, teaching non-CS students introductory CS classes, while completing his dissertation and earning the Google CAHSI Dissertation Award. Oscar became Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he taught various classes related to computer science and information systems. He has worked for ExxonMobil, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft; and is also a longtime high school CS educator with the Microsoft TEALS Program.

Personal background: Oscar grew up on the US-Mexico border and has worked in various US cities before moving to Seattle.

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Role at Northeastern: Professor and Assistant Director for Computing Programs. Bruce teaches in the MS CS Align Bridge and MS Electives, particularly computer vision and machine learning. He is also helping to build academic-industry connections in the Seattle area, and is overseeing new undergraduate programs in Seattle.

Educational/ Professional background: Bruce obtained a BA in Political Science and a B.S. in Engineering with a Concentration in Computer Science from Swarthmore College in 1991. He has earned an M.Phil. in Computer Speech and Natural Language Processing from Cambridge University in 1992, and a Ph.D. in Robotics from Carnegie Mellon University in 1996.

Personal background: Bruce grew up and lived in many places around the US, including Indiana, Oregon, Texas, and North Dakota. Professionally, his first academic position was at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. In 1998, he moved to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania for nine years. In 2007, he moved north to Colby College in Maine as the Chair of CS. In 2020, he joined Northeastern University as the founding Director at the Portland, ME campus, the Roux Institute. In 2022, he moved to the Northeastern Seattle campus as Assistant Director. He enjoys hiking, playing violin and viola, biking, running, carpentry, and bird-watching.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor at Khoury College.

Educational / Professional background: PhD in Computer Science. 10+ Years of research and teaching experience in computer Science. In particular, machine learning, information retrieval and user behavior. Shanu loves using data to investigate and build products/solutions to improve user experience. She has had opportunities to use and apply various machine learning and information retrieval techniques in areas like: search engines, digital libraries, social media, healthcare, and music. Her passion is teaching, she loves the energy of being amongst students. She has taught courses at both graduate and undergraduate level for computer science and business school.

Personal background: Shanu is a proud mother of two daughters (5 years and 1 year old). She is very mindful of ways in which she contributes to the world in making it an open and respectful place. As family, they love to travel and enjoy music.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor at Khoury College.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor at Khoury College.

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Role at Northeastern: Ramkumar Hariharan, Ph.D., is Data Science Engineering Faculty and the Inaugural Director of College of Engineering Programs in the Seattle Campus. Ram's research is at the nexus of Artificial Intelligence and Geroscience.

Educational / Professional Background: Previously, he was the Head of Applied Artificial Intelligence at Macro-Eyes, Inc, and led a globally diverse team of data scientists. Prior to that, Ram was a Senior Data Scientist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, building novel AI applications to drive biomedical discoveries using large image and genomic datasets. Ram has also worked with biomedical big data at both the Hood-Price Laboratory at the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle and at the Promislow Lab at the University of Washington.

Personal background: When not researching or communicating science, Ram can be found spending time with his wife and daughter while binge-watching Chuck Lorre sit-coms on CBS or checking out the newest restaurant in town.

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Role at Northeastern: Teaching Professor in COE

Professional Background: I received my PhD in Computer Vision Scientist from UC Berkeley under Jitendra Malik, and did PostDoctoral work at CalTech with Pietro Perona. We did some of the first work in the use of passive optical cameras for object detection, 3D mapping, lane position tracking, visual odometry and vehicle control for autonomous driving. Afterwards I worked in the cable television industry and eventually for the consumer electronics company TiVo. During that time I remained an adjunct professor teaching computer vision for over 20 years, and have now transitioned to teaching full time.

Personal Background: After many years in Silicon Valley we moved the family to the Seattle area where we are enjoying the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor at College of Engineering.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor at College of Engineering.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor at College of Engineering.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor at College of Engineering.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor in the Doctor of Law and Policy Program

Educational/ Professional background: Megan has earned her law degree from Gonzaga University School of Law. She worked as an Assistant District Attorney in Massachusetts for six years. During her time as a prosecutor, she worked in the sexual assault and family violence unit. She has also earned a PhD. in criminal justice from the University at Albany - State University of New York.

Personal background: Megan currently lives in Seattle. She enjoys hiking, paddle boarding, and reading.

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Role at Northeastern: Associate Teaching Professor for a variety of courses in the Master of Science in Project Management program and serving as a Principal Instructor for several courses in the Agile Concentration. Also, liaising with thought-leading organizations in the Project Management space and industry bodies to boost student career prospects and industry engagement.

Professional Background: A scholar, educator, and practitioner with over 24 years of experience in Project Management, Business Resilience and IT. His academic qualifications include a PhD in Computer Science, an MBA, an MSc in Electrical Engineering, and a PG Certificate in Higher Education.

Personal Background: Born in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, Dr. Kovela lived through the emergence of the newly independent Ukraine. Pivoting from international touring as a dancer to academic and industry pursuits, Dr. Kovela has experienced many aspects of what we presently call the VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world. Through his personal life and work, he has developed a keen interest in Organizational Resilience, organically complementing his specialisms in Project Management and IT.

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Role at Northeastern: Assistant Teaching Professor in the Doctor of Education.

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Role at Northeastern: Professor of the Practice with a joint appointment in CSSH and Khoury College of Computer Sciences.

Educational/ Professional background: Florin has an MA and PhD in Economics from the University of Minnesota, an MA and BS in Applied Mathematics, and a BA in Economics from Babes-Bolyai University. As an academic, he taught at J. Mack Robinson College of Business (Georgia State University), Macalester College and the University of Minnesota (plus a couple of European universities), and he was a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. As an industry practitioner, he worked in Tech (Amazon) for five years and in Finance (hedge fund industry) for 3 years.

Personal background: Florin grew up in Cluj, the capital of Transylvania, the central region of Romania. He was interested in Mathematics and Computer Science for as long as he can remember, and became interested in Economics as Romania was transitioning from communism to a market economy.

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