Sally A. Fincher (born 1959) is a British Computer Scientist and Emerita Professor of Computing Education at the

University of Kent The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a Collegiate university, collegiate public university, public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its roya ...

. She was awarded the

Suffrage Science award The Suffrage Science award is a prize for women in science, engineering and computing founded in 2011, on the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day by the MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences (LMS). There are three categories of awar ...

in 2018 the SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education in 2010 and a National Teaching Fellowship in 2005.

Early life and education

Fincher was an undergraduate student at the

, where she studied

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

. She moved to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

for her graduate studies, where she was awarded a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA or AM) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Those admitted to the degree have ...

degree in English from

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private Jesuit research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789, it is the oldest Catholic higher education, Ca ...

Research and career

Fincher leads the

Computing Education Group. Here she has led computing education projects, including the bootstrapping research in Computer Science Education series and the UK sharing practice project. These programmes looked to identify best practise for computer science education and disseminate this information to the teaching community. Beyond innovations in computing education, Fincher studies patterns and the development of patterns for

human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is the process through which people operate and engage with computer systems. Research in HCI covers the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and comp ...

. She created a pattern library for

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

s for human–computer interactions.

Awards and honours

Fincher was honoured by Ann Blandford for ‘making computer science education inclusive and effective’. She served as chair of the Council of Professors and Heads of Computing (CPHC) from 2018 to 2020. Other awards include: * 2003 Mary Kenneth Keller Computer Science & Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award * 2004 Honorary Doctorate from Antenor Orrego Private University * 2005 Awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the

Higher Education Academy Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) is a British charity and professional membership scheme promoting excellence in higher education. It advocates evidence-based teaching methods and awards fellowships as professional recogniti ...

(HEA) * 2009 Awarded distinguished membership of the

Association for Computing Machinery The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membe ...

* 2010 Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education from the

(ACM)

Special Interest Group A special interest group (SIG) is a community within a larger organization with a shared interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular f ...

(SIG) on Computer Science Education ( SIGCSE) * 2018

Selected publications

Her publications include: * ''Computer Science Education Research'' with Marian Petre * ''The Cambridge Handbook of Computing Education Research'' with Anthony V. Robins * ''Programming Environments for Novices'' * ''Computer science project work : principles and pragmatics''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fincher, Sally Living people 1959 births British computer scientists Alumni of the University of Kent Georgetown University Graduate School of Arts & Sciences alumni Academics of the University of Kent British women computer scientists Fellows of the Royal Society of Arts