Professor Keefe receives the Morse-Alumni Award
Associate Professor Daniel Keefe has received the 2018-19 Horace T. Morse award from the University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education.
Keefe specializes in interactive computer graphics and scientific data visualization. Over the course of his teaching career, he has been lauded by both students and colleagues for his classroom teaching, advising, advocacy, artistic activities, and research at the University of Minnesota.
Keefe is known throughout the Department of Computer Science and Engineering (CS&E) for his educational leadership and curriculum development, as well as working with his students in outreach efforts within CS&E and the university as a whole. He brings a project-based and active learning philosophy to his classrooms in an effort to engage a broader community of future computer scientists and confront one of the major challenges facing computing education nowadays: its alarming lack of diversity and inclusion.
One innovative approach he has taken has been the creation of the experimental seminar Visualization and Virtual Reality (VR) for Social Justice, where his class studied the context, theory, and personal accounts of racism and interwove these lessons into their own visualization and VR projects.
His energy and enthusiasm toward bringing advocacy and awareness to computer science and engineering has greatly impacted the department and led to him being the first CS “champion” for the new grassroots College of Science and Engineering’s Diversity and Inclusivity Alliance.
The Morse-Alumni Award is given annually to exceptional faculty who reflect the University’s emphasis on the importance of high-quality undergraduate education. In addition to this award, Keefe will become a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers, which aims to improve teaching and learning at the university.
Please join the Department of Computer Science & Engineering in congratulating Professor Keefe on this achievement.