CS2104 Problem Solving in Computer Science

CS2114 Software Design and Data Structures

BURGS: Broadening Undergraduate Research Groups

Motivating Students in Computer Science

Computer Science Teaching Assistant Training Project

Testing the Effects of Peer Discussion with Runestone

ILORE CSGenome Project

Hidden Figures Project

VarSys Project

JOMO Project

TechGirls

ICAT Designing Cyberbiosecurity Case Studies

SIGCSE24 & SIGCSE25 Organizing Committee Evaluations Co-Chair

SC23 35th Anniversary Committee

Securitas Learning Living Program Steering Committee and Faculty Affiliate

Hokie Talk

College of Engineering and Computer Science Diversity Committees

TLOS Digital Assessment Community of Practice

Computer Science Undergraduate Program Committee

Outreach Involvement:

• VT IT: Hidden Figures Day, VT Science Festival

• AWC: Women in Computing Day

• Various CEED Activities

Ellis, Margaret; Jones, Brett D.; Gu, Fei; and Fenerci, Hande (2024) "Designing an Effective Motivational Climate: Effects on Students’ Effort and Achievement," International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Vol. 18: No. 1, Article 9.

Wang, Y., Furman, S., Hardy, N., Ellis, M., Back, G., Hong, Y., & Cameron, K. (2024). A Detailed Historical and Statistical Analysis of the Influence of Hardware Artifacts on SPEC Integer Benchmark Performance. IEEE Transactions on Computers, 73(5). https://doi.org/10.1109/TC.2024.3365941

Jones, B. D., Ellis, M., Gu, F., & Fenerci, H. (2023). Motivational climate predicts effort and achievement in a large computer science course: Examining differences across sexes, races/ethnicities, and academic majors. International Journal of STEM Education, 10, Article 65. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-023-00457-0

Jennifer Alexandra Thompson, Margaret Ellis, and Sara Hooshangi. 2023. The Impact of High School Region Socioeconmic Status on Computer Science Student Performance. 2023 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) Proceedings, College Station, Texas.

Margaret Ellis and Sara Hooshangi. 2023. Replication and Expansion Study on Factors Influencing Student Performance in CS2. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education Vol. 1 (SIGCSE '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 896-902.https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569867

Bob Edmison, Stephen H. Edwards, Lujean Babb, Margaret Ellis, Chris Mayfield, Youna Jung, and Marthe Honts. 2023. Toward a New State-level Framework for Sharing Computer Science Content. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education Vol. 1 (SIGCSE '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 59-65. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545945.3569808

Williams, D. et al. (2022). Data-Informed Learning Design in a Computer Science Course. In: Spector, M.J., Lockee, B.B., Childress, M.D. (eds) Learning, Design, and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17727-4_176-1

Ryan Gniadek, Margaret Ellis, Godmar Back, and Kirk Cameron (2022, August), Integrating DevOps to Enhance Student Experience in an Undergraduate Research Project. Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. https://peer.asee.org/40747

Margaret Ellis, Crystal Pee, Godmar Back, Walter Lee, and Kirk Cameron (2022, August), Using High Impact Practices to Broaden Undergraduate Participation in Computer Systems Research. Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN. https://peer.asee.org/40475

Sara Hooshangi, Ryan Buxton, and Margaret Ellis. 2022. Integration of Practical Computing Skills and Co-curricular Activities in the Curriculum. In Proceedings of the 27th ACM Conference on on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Vol. 1 (ITiCSE '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 61–67. https://doi.org/10.1145/3502718.3524802

Sara Hooshangi, Margaret Ellis, and Stephen H. Edwards. 2022. Factors Influencing Student Performance and Persistence in CS2. In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE `22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 286-292. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3478431.3499272

Allyson Senger, Stephen H. Edwards, and Margaret Ellis. 2022. Helping Student Programmers Through Industrial-Strength Static Analysis: A Replication Study. In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 8-14. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3478431.34993107

Domino, M. R., & Ellis, M. O., & Kafura, D. (2021, July), Qualitative Evaluation of Visualizations for List-based Iteration. Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. https://peer.asee.org/37624

Farghally, M. F., & Mohammed, M. K. O., & Mahmoud, H. F. F., & Ellis, M. O., & Haqq, D. A., & Domino, M. R., & Jones, B. D., & Shaffer, C. A. (2021, July), Student Perceptions of the Complete Online Transition of Two CS Courses in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. https://peer.asee.org/37755

Margaret Ellis, Liesl Baum, Kimberly Filer, and Stephen H. Edwards. 2021. Experience Report: Exploring the Use of CTF-based Co-Curricular Instruction to Increase Student Comfort and Success in Computing. In Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1 (ITiCSE '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 303–309. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456376i

Ellis, M., Edwards, S.H., Shaffer, C.A., and Amelink, C.T. 2020. Incorporating Practical Computing Skills Into a Supplemental CS2 Problem Solving Course. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice. 20, 11 (Dec. 2020). 13 pages. DOI:https://doi.org/10.33423/jhetp.v20i11.3771

Duncan, S., Zhang, B., Thomason, W., Ellis, M., Meng, N., Stamper, M., Drape, T. Securing data in LIFE Sciences-A plant Food (EDAMAME) systems case study. Frontiers in Sustainability. 1 (2020, November 12).10 pages doi: 10.3389/frsus.2020.600394

Amelink, C.T., Edwards, S.H., Shaffer, C.A., & Ellis, M. (2020). “Incorporating Practical Computing Skills into a Supplemental CS2 Problem-solving Course”, ASEE, 13 pages.

Margaret Ellis, Clifford A. Shaffer, and Stephen H. Edwards. 2019. Approaches for Coordinating eTextbooks, Online Programming Practice, Automated Grading, and More into One Course. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 126–132. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287487

Amelink, C.T., Ryder, B., Davis, K., & Ellis, M. (2018). “Exploring Factors Influencing the Career Interest in a Computer Science Major: A Case Study”, ASEE, 19 pages.

Sioson, A. A., J. I. Watkinson, C. Vasquez-Robinet, M. Ellis, M. Shukla, D. Kumar, N. Ramakrishnan, L. S. Heath, R. Grene, B. I. Chevone, et al., "Expresso and Chips: Creating a Next Generation Microarray Experiment Management Systems", Proceedings of the Next Generation Software Workshop, 17th International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium (IPDPS'03), Nice, France, IEEE Computer Society, 2003.

Watkinson, J. I., A. A. Sioson, C. Vasquez-Robinet, M. Shukla, D. Kumar, M. Ellis, L. S. Heath, N. Ramakrishnan, B. I. Chevone, L. T. Watson, et al., "Photosynthetic Acclimation is Reflected in Specific Patterns of Gene Expression in Drought-Stressed Loblolly Pine", Plant Physiology , vol. 133, no. 4, pp. 1702-1716, 2003.

M. Clement, M. Ellis, J. Steele, Y. Tian, C. North, "Gene expression mural: Visualizing gene expression databases", Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization (InfoVis' 01), pp. 71 - 73, 2001.

Jones, B. D., Kim, I., Fenerci, H., & Ellis, M. (2024, April). Relationships between the motivational climate in a computer science course and students’ attainment value. Research presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Philadelphia, PA.

Jones, B. D., Zhu, X., Ellis, M., Fenerci, H., & Ambarkutuk, Z. (2023, August). Relationships between course motivational climate and students’ computer science beliefs and goals. Research to be presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association, Washington DC.

Ellis, M., Jones, B. D., Fenerci, H, & McCarty. (2023, June). Assessing the motivational climate in computer science courses to improve instruction. Research presented at the Illinois Computer Science Summer Teaching Workshop, Illinois University, virtual meeting.

Fenerci, H., Kaplan, A., Jones, B. D., & Ellis, M. (2023, April). Challenges in capturing motivational climate as a complex dynamic system: Application with the MUSIC Model of Motivation. Research presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL.

Jones, B. D., Ellis, M., Gu, F., & Fenerci, H. (2023, April). Course perceptions predict effort and achievement in an engineering course: Comparing genders, ethnicities, and majors. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, IL.

Ellis, M., Jones, B. D., Fenerci, H., & Gu, F. (2023, February). Differences in motivational climate in face-to-face, online, and hybrid courses. Research presented at the Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy, Blacksburg, VA.

Hooshangi, S., & Ellis, M. (2022). Impact of practical skills and co-curricular activities on students' professional development. Presented at ICER 2022 conference.

Ellis, M., Jones, B. D., Fenerci-Soysal, H., & Gu, F. (2022, May). Redesigning a computer science course during the pandemic: Effects on students’ motivation and achievement. Presentation at the Pandemic Pedagogy Research Symposium 2022, Duke University, virtual meeting.

Duncan, S., Zhang, B., Thomason, W., Ellis, M., Meng, N., Stamper, M., . . . Drape, T. (2021). Securing data in life sciences - A plant food (edamame) systems case study.. In Edamame Supply Chain Workshop, December 1-3, 2021. Charlotte, NC.

Ellis, M., Blank, A., Daily, S. (2021, March). Panel: Building a Successful Teaching Track Career. Pre-SIGCSE CRA-E Workshop, Virtual Conference.

Ellis, M., Back, G., Cameron, K, “Broadening Participation via Computer Systems Genome Research Group” via J. C. Adams et al., "Lightning Talks of EduHPC 2020," 2020 IEEE/ACM Workshop on Education for High-Performance Computing (EduHPC), GA, USA, 2020, pp. 59-64, doi: 10.1109/EduHPC51895.

Kathleen Freeman, Margaret Ellis, Jennifer Parham-Mocello, and Henry M. Walker. 2020. Panel: Supporting Student Co-Curricular Experiences. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 641–642. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366973, conference canceled due to COVID - 19.

Thomas Bressoud, Margaret Ellis, and Lea Wittie. 2020. “I’ve taken a first CS class and liked it! What’s next?” Exploring the Multiplicity of CS2 Paths for Majors and Non-Majors. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1401. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3372523, conference canceled due to COVID - 19. (Birds of a Feather Session)

Ellis, M., Esakia A.,(2019, August). Engaging Students with Capture-the-Flag Activities in Class. 2nd Annual Virginia Cybersecurity Education Conference, Arlington, VA.

Ellis, M., Hilton M., Williams, T. (2019, February). Panel: Building a Successful Teaching Track Career. Pre-SIGCSE CRA-E Workshop, Minneapolis, MN.

Amelink, C.T., Hatfield, L., & Ellis, M. (2017, February). Factors Impacting the Career Interest of Computer Science Majors. Eastern Educational Research Association, Richmond, VA.

Ellis, M. (2015, July). Implementation of Strategies to Promote Self-efficacy in Computer Science. Women in Engineering ProActive Network Change Leader Forum, Denver, CO.

Ellis, M. (2010, October). iPad Apps for Assistive Technology and Special Education. Virginia Training and Technical Assistance Center TechKnowledgy Conference, Roanoke, VA.

Melissa Cameron, Margaret Ellis, and Dimitrios Nikolopoulos. 2024. Parallel Islands: A Parallel Computing Educational Video Game. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 2 (SIGCSE 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1586–1587. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626253.3635591

Jennifer Alexandra Thompson, Margaret Ellis, and Sara Hooshangi. 2023. High School Socioeconmic Neighborhood Status and CS1 Performance. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education Vol. 1 (SIGCSE '23). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1348. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3545947.3576294.

Mohammed F. Farghally, Mostafa Mohammed, Hamdy F. F. Mahmoud, Margaret Ellis, Derek Haqq, Molly Domino, Brett Jones, and Clifford A. Shaffer. 2021. The Online Transition of Two CS Courses in Response to COVID-19. Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1251. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3439571

Ellis, M. (2019, February).Computer Science Problem Solving Course: Practical and Technical Thinking Skills for CS Majors. ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Minneapolis, MN.

Mohammed, M., Mandava, S., Chon, J., Ellis, M., Shaffer C.A. (2018, February). An Interactive Tutorial for Learning to Manipulate References. ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Baltimore, MD.

Basu, D., Barnette, D.N., Back, G., McPherson, D., Naiciri, W.M., Plassmann, P.E., Ribbens, C.J., Lohani, V.K., Ellis, M., Gantt, K.R. (2018, February). Development and Analysis of a Spiral Theory-based Cybersecurity Curriculum. ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, Baltimore, MD.

2024 IEEE Mary Kenneth Keller Computer Science and Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award

2023 Computer Science Faculty Service Award, Virginia Tech

2023 Finalist, Student Engineers' Council Undergraduate Research Advisor Award, College of Engineering, Virginia Tech

2023 Finalist, College of Engineering Sporn Award for Undergraduate Instruction, Virginia Tech

2020 Dean's Excellence in Teaching Award, College of Engineering, Virginia Tech

2019 Finalist, Sporn Award for Teaching Introductory Subjects, Virginia Tech

2015 Engineering Inclusive Teaching (EIT) Inclusive Educators Award by Women in Engineering ProActive Network (WEPAN)

2011 Finalist, Innovator Award of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council

2011 DevelopEase profile, Chapter 7 of Computers and Society: Computing for Good by Lisa C. Kaczmarczyk.

2010 Finalist, Entrepreneur Award of the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council

1998 Sallie Mae First Year Teacher Award