Valerie Barr

Jean E. Sammet Professor of Computer Science; Chair of Computer Science

While actively pursuing the application of software testing to artificial intelligence systems, Valerie Barr promotes the interdisciplinary application of computing through a combination of changes to computer science curricula and courses, as well as research and course collaborations with faculty from the full range of disciplines within the liberal arts. She is very active in the computer science education community and has led significant diversity efforts for the Association for Computing Machinery.

Recent Campus News

A group of students assembled at Project Stream, which is part of the Campus Living Lab

Campus as classroom

As monitoring stations silently record the heartbeat of the Mount Holyoke College campus, students and faculty develop the means to decode the data.

Mount Holyoke College student working on a computer in a library

Data science new major at Mount Holyoke

Mount Holyoke College launches a new major in data science for fall 2019 

Valerie Barr ’77 is the first Jean E. Sammet Professor of Computer Science.

A computer science legacy extends 70 years

Valerie Barr ’77, the first Jean E. Sammet Professor of Computer Science, shares with her benefactor an interdisciplinary vision of computing.

When Jean Sammet was given her first computer programming assignment, the field was so new that she had no books or papers to refer to. “I only had the instructions for the computers and what little brain power I had gotten from Mount Holyoke,” she said.

Computer pioneer Jean Sammet ’48 has died

Jean Sammet ’48, one of the most important early pioneers in computer science, was a long-time supporter and advocate for Mount Holyoke.

Recent Mentions in the Media

Valerie Barr named Distinguished Member of ACM

Nov
01
2019

Recent Publications

Horton, N. J., Baumer, B. S., Zieffler, A., & Barr, V. (n.d.). The Data Science Corps Wrangle-Analyze-Visualize Program: Building Data Acumen for Undergraduate Students. Harvard Data Science Review. Retrieved from https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/nvflcexe/release/1

Beaury, E.M., Finn, J.T., Corbin, J.D., Barr, V. and Bradley, B.A. (2019), Biotic resistance to invasion is ubiquitous across ecosystems of the United States. Ecology Letters. doi:10.1111/ele.13446

Recent Awards

Named a 2019 Distinguished Member of the Association for Computing Machinery. The Distinguished Member program recognizes professional experience and significant achievements in the computing field.

Recent Honors

Valerie Barr was quoted in the article "Minding the Gaps" by Samuel Greengard, Communications of the ACM, Sept. 8, 2020. 

On September 8, Valerie Barr gave a talk entitled "What is it really and how do we do it?  Exploring Data Science, Data Analytics, Data Feminism" as part of the Iona College Careers in Science series.

Was featured in the Member Spotlight of the October 2020 issue (Volume 52, number 4) of the SIGCSE Bulletin, a publication of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education.