Meet A Deac
It’s Meet A Deac Monday! But before we get there, President Wente has a video message for parents and families about our approach to the fall and the next phase of the pandemic, which I hope you will watch here. She stresses that we know how to do this, we have the right tools to be successful, and we will find a way to “get to yes.” I hope you find her message as encouraging and exciting as I did!
And now it is my pleasure to introduce you to one of our faculty members, Grey Ballard.
To get us started, will you please tell me your job title and how long you’ve been at Wake? I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science. I just finished my fifth year at Wake.
And tell me a little about your educational background. I’m a Demon Deacon! I graduated with a BS in math and in computer science in 2006, then completed a Master’s in math in 2008 also at Wake, then went to UC Berkeley, where I got my PhD in computer science.
Two degrees – that makes you a Double Deac! How would you describe your job in layperson’s terms? I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in computer science and perform research in the subfield of high-performance and parallel computing. I am having the most fun when I’m trying to design algorithms (basically a sequence of steps that you can program a computer to execute in order to solve a problem) that run really fast on machines, varying from my laptop to the fastest supercomputers in the world. Most of my interactions with students occur through classes or within my research group. I also lead a team of undergraduates who compete in the International Collegiate Programming Competition.
I know COVID radically changed the day to day work of our faculty. Talk a little about that. I actually was on sabbatical during the 2020-2021 academic year, so I avoided much of the struggles of remote teaching and learning. The new project I took on this past year was book writing. With separate sets of coauthors, I’ve started two books, one that is intended to be used in the classroom, and one that is a research monograph. I’ve found it very challenging to balance the demands of these long-term projects with the pace of my typical research projects.
On a personal level, childcare was certainly the toughest challenge in my household. All of the clear distinctions between work time and family time became blurry. But I’m thankful that both of us parents had the flexibility to make things work and the kids seemed to weather the times relatively well.
Anything you are particularly looking forward to now that you are back this year? Faculty meetings. Not really, but I do look forward to seeing my colleagues in person, having impromptu conversations, and catching up on life outside of work. Sometimes that happens right before or after faculty meetings…
What do you like best about working at Wake? I am really grateful for the community/family atmosphere at Wake. The size of student body, the classes, and my department has a lot to do with it; I am able to get to know each student in my class and I can see the relationships they form with each other. But I also think there is a culture among the faculty and staff on campus that is contagious, and I think Wake Forest is able to attract students that are personally ambitious but also community oriented.
If you were offering advice to a student, what would you say? Go to office hours. Most students do a good job of it, but some (like me as a student) feel too intimidated or like too much of an imposition to approach their instructor outside of class. Wake Forest is unique among its peers in the accessibility of its faculty to students, and that characteristic is what attracted me to Wake, both as a student and as a faculty member. Going to office hours is the easiest (but not only) way to make the connection happen.
What about advice to Wake parents and families? Encourage exploration. There are likely many paths that your student could take to find fulfillment and happiness, and they probably haven’t yet been exposed to most of them. Taking risks on classes that are at the periphery of their current interests, attending events put on by clubs they’ve never heard of, playing an intramural sport they’re not good at, they’ll all help expose new paths, new ideas, and new friendships.
Excellent advice. Ready for the bonus questions? Here goes!
Books you’re reading now: Harry Potter, Berenstain Bears, Curious George. I’m not doing a whole of reading for myself, but these are what my boys are currently into. My parents did a pretty good job saving my books from childhood, so many of them have my name inside the front cover, which makes me smile as I (frequently) re-read them.
Favorite band/musician/genre: I tend to go through phases, but right now it’s The Black Keys.
TV, movies, Netflix, etc.: The Big Lebowski
Website you frequent: GitHub. My whole (research) life revolves around repositories.
Guilty pleasures: Dessert. I feel guilty because I’m very stingy with dessert for my kids.
Introvert or extrovert: Introvert. I actually really liked the working-from-home bit when my kids were back to school. But now I’ve had my fill.
Something most people don’t know about you: I played soccer at Wake and love following the success of the program.
What question didn’t I ask that you wish I had? “What was your favorite class at Wake (as a student)?”
I took a first year seminar called “Philosophy of Science” that was co-taught by a philosopher and a physicist. It blew my mind, went deep on several fundamental ideas I had taken for granted. It was also the first time I learned what an eigenvalue is — I compute them all the time now.
[Editor’s note – you can read past Meet A Deacs here].