Another successful OwlHacks in the books! After returning as a Night Owl, judging the Health and HCI track, and teaching the Deploy Now Workshop for a second time, I want to take a moment to reflect on workshop development: what really matters, and what makes a workshop a good workshop.

Revising this workshop made me reconsider some of my assumptions about that. I had initially wanted to give students a substantial application with plenty to learn from. This time, I used a much smaller example and focused on helping them get something online that they could use during the hackathon. Hearing how students applied the material to their own projects helped me think more carefully about which learning goals belonged in the workshop and which deserved their own time.

I’m honored to share that our paper, To Tab or Not to Tab: Measuring Critical Engagement in AI Code Completion Tools Using Behavioral Signals and Attention Checks, won the Best Paper Award at ITiCSE 2026.

I am excited to share that our paper, To Tab or Not to Tab: Measuring Critical Engagement in AI Code Completion Tools Using Behavioral Signals and Attention Checks, has been accepted for publication at ITiCSE 2026.

We have been asking a simple but important question: when novice programmers accept AI code suggestions, are they thoughtfully engaging with those suggestions or simply tabbing through them? Our paper introduces attention checks, deliberately incorrect AI suggestions that conflict with a programmer's immediate goals, as a way to study whether users notice, question, and critically evaluate AI-generated code before accepting it.

I am excited to share that TUDev, the student organization I have been advising at Temple University, has begun offering software engineering workshops for students! David Loder, student president of TUDev, designed and taught workshops providing hands-on learning experiences in various aspects of software development, including coding, backend, software, and collaboration tools. Our goal is to equip students with practical skills and knowledge that will help them succeed in their academic and professional careers. We look forward to seeing the impact these workshops will have on our student community and are eager to continue expanding our offerings in the future.

On January 26, 2025, I was part of the Temple CST Open House, where I had the chance to show prospective students and families what Computer Science can look like through past student capstone projects.

On October 6, 2024, I had the chance to serve as the Temple OwlHacks hackathon Night Owl for the second time. I love being around students during those late-night stretches when ideas are still messy, teams are still figuring things out, and a quick conversation can help someone get unstuck.