Mark C. Lewis
Mark Lewis is a Professor of Computer Science at Trinity University in San Antonio, TX. He did his undergraduate work in Computer Science and Physics at Trinity before going to the University of Colorado at Boulder to work on a Ph.D. in Astrophysics and Planetary Science. His research work focuses on numerical simulations of planetary systems, particularly large N-body collisional simulations of planetary rings. The computational aspects of his research led him to complete a Masters degree in Computer Science while working on his Ph.D.
After completing his graduate studies, Dr. Lewis returned to Trinity as an Assistant Professor and has been teaching there since. His love of coding has led him to teach lots of introductory programming, in the hopes of passing on this love to the next generation. He originally learned Scala as a route to better understand the X10 and Fortress parallel languages, but fell in love with the expressive blend of object-oriented and functional programming. This love for Scala led to Trinity being the first University to adopt the language in CS1 and CS2 and the materials he created to teach that turned into his first textbook.
In addition to working to open students' eyes to the beauty of programming, Dr. Lewis also teaches the occasional Solar System Astronomy course and a section of Roller Skating every spring semester.