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Thomas VanDrunen, Ph.D.Professor of Computer Science
On Faculty since 2004
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- Biography
- Education
- Areas of Expertise
- Professional Affiliations
- Links
- Courses Taught
- Textbooks
- Selected Publications
- Media
Beginning in 2004, Dr. VanDrunen spent the first part of his career at Wheaton reshaping the computer science major, particularly the introductory programming sequence, the discrete math course, and the sophomore-level data structures course. He wrote a textbook integrating functional programming into discrete math (Discrete Mathematics and Functional Programming, 2012) and a textbook for data structures and algorithms (Algorithmic Commonplaces, 2023). More recently his attention has been in developing electives in computational linguistics and machine learning. He and his wife, Esther, have four children. Their children attend Naperville Christian Academy. The family worships at Bethel Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Wheaton where Dr VanDrunen teaches middle school catechism class.
Purdue University
Ph.D., Computer Science, 2004
Purdue University
M.S., Computer Science, 2000
Calvin College
B.S., Computer Science and Mathematics, 1998
- Computational Linguistics
- Programming Languages
- Machine Learning
- Data Structures
- Discrete Mathematics
Association for Computing Machinery
- CSCI 235 Programming I: Problem Solving
- CSCI 243 Discrete Mathematics
- CSCI 245 Programming II: Object-Oriented Design
- CSCI 335 Software Development
- CSCI 345 Data Structures and Algorithms
- CSCI 365 Programming Languages
- CSCI 381 Machine Learning
- CSCI 384 Computational Linguistics
- CSCI 445 Analysis of Algorithms
- CSCI 494 Social and Ethical Issues
- Discrete Mathematics and Functional Programming, Franklin, Beedle & Associates, 2012.
- Algorithmic Commonplaces, Franklin, Beedle, & Associates, 2023.
Functional Programming as a Discrete Mathematics Topic, AMC Inroads, 8(2):51-58, May 2017.
The Case for Teaching Functional Programming in Discrete Math, in the proceedings of the Educators' Symposium at Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity (SPLASH), October 2011.
A Christian Analysis of Gabriel's "Mob Software", The Journal of ACMS, 2010-2011 Issue.
Wake up and smell the coffee: Evaluation methodology for the 21st century, Communications of the ACM, 51(8):83-89, with S.Blackburn et al.
The DeCapo benchmarks: Java benchmarking development and analysis, in the proceedings of Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA), with S. Blackburn et al., October 2006. (Most influential paper award)