Marian Petre (born 1959) is a British computer scientist and Professor of Computing at the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

and Director of its Centre for Research in Computing (CRC), known for her work on Visual Programming Environments, and co-developed the concept of

cognitive dimensions of notations Cognitive dimensions or cognitive dimensions of notations are design principles for notations, user interfaces and programming languages, described by researcher Thomas R.G. Green and further researched with Marian Petre. The dimensions can be ...

Education

Petre obtained her

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

in computer science from the

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 1989.

Career and research

In 1990 she started her academic career at the Institute for Perception Research (IPO), in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, which was directed by

Theo Bemelmans Theodore Aloysius Maria (Theo) Bemelmans (born 24 February 1943) is a Dutch computer scientist and Emeritus Professor of Administrative Information Systems and Automation at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Biography Born in Heerlen, Be ...

. Back in Britain she joined the

and started cooperation with Thomas R.G. Green, with whom she developed the concept of

. At the Open University she was eventually promoted to Professor of Computing. Petre was awarded a

Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award The Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award was an award made by the Royal Society from 2000 to 2020. It was administered by the Royal Society and jointly funded by the Wolfson Foundation and the UK Office of Science and Technology, to provide ...

in "recognition of her empirical research into software design."Andy Oram, Greg Wilson (2010), ''Making Software: What Really Works, and Why We Believe It.'' p. 582.

Selected publications

Her selected publications include: * Fincher, Sally, and Marian Petre, eds. ''Computer science education research.'' CRC Press, 2004. * Petre, Marian, and

Gordon Rugg Gordon Rugg (born 1955) is a British academic, head of the Knowledge Modelling Group at Keele University and a visiting senior research fellow at the Open University, known for his work on the Voynich manuscript.Schinner, Andreas. "The Voynich man ...

. ''The unwritten rules of PhD research.'' McGraw-Hill International, 2010. * Green, Thomas R.G., Marian Petre, and R. K. E. Bellamy. "Comprehensibility of visual and textual programs: A test of superlativism against the’match-mismatch’conjecture." ''ESP'' 91.743 (1991): 121–146. * Petre, Marian.
Why looking isn't always seeing: readership skills and graphical programming
" ''Communications of the ACM'' 38.6 (1995): 33–44. * Green, Thomas R. G., and Marian Petre.
Usability analysis of visual programming environments: a ‘cognitive dimensions’ framework
" ''Journal of Visual Languages & Computing'' 7.2 (1996): 131–174. * Petre, Marian, and Alan F. Blackwell. "Mental imagery in program design and visual programming." ''International Journal of Human-Computer Studies'' 51.1 (1999): 7-30. * Carswell, L., Thomas, P., Petre, M., Price, B., & Richards, M. (2000).
Distance education via the Internet: The student experience
" ''British Journal of Educational Technology,'' 31(1), 29-46

References

1959 births Living people British computer scientists British women computer scientists British cognitive scientists Human–computer interaction researchers Alumni of University College London Academics of the Open University {{Cognitive-psych-stub