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

Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

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 us ...

Education

Petre obtained her Ph.D. in computer science from the

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

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. 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 Fellowship, known as the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award until 2020, is a 5 years fellowship awarded by the Royal Society since 2000. The scheme is described by the Royal Society as providing ''long-term flexib ...

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