A legacy of excellence

By Sarah White

After teaching in Tufts’ Department of Computer Science for 15 years, Associate Professor Norman Ramsey will be retiring at the end of the calendar year. Ramsey joined Tufts in 2008 and has had a distinguished career, offering a wide range of courses across the computer science department. He is arguably best known for developing and teaching two of the most unique course offerings within the Department of Computer Science—CS 40: Machine Structures and Assembly Language Programming, and CS 105: Programming Languages. Computer science majors highly praise both courses every year as exemplifying what a truly excellent college course should be.

Ramsey’s research focuses on programming languages and systems, and functional programming. He has written numerous papers in these areas of study, and his work has been shared at conferences such as Programming Language Design and Implementation, Principles of Programming Languages, and ICFP—three of the top conferences in his areas of study—and published in Transactions on Programming Languages and Systems (TOPLAS), the premier journal in programming languages.

In addition to his research, Ramsey has made a significant impact on students at Tufts University. In 2015, he won the Tufts Lerman-Neubauer Prize for Outstanding Teaching and Advising. The award is nominated by graduating seniors and provides a testament to his excellent reputation, and the popularity of his version of the CS 105 course, with students at Tufts. His version of CS 105, which has been ably taught by other faculty as well, developed a bit of a cult following at one point. The department still displays a sign for CS 105 office hours designed by one of his former TAs that includes a caricature of Ramsey with his signature flowing hair.

Perhaps Ramsey’s most significant accomplishment is the recent completion and publication of his book. Countless Tufts CS alumni will remember buying copies of the CS 105 manuscript from the CS front office—and for years it was two volumes long—while he worked tirelessly on many iterations and revisions. The finished text is called Programming Languages: Build, Prove, and Compare, and naturally it is currently being used for CS 105. Although Ramsey will no longer teach his popular programming languages course at Tufts, his book will continue to be used as an essential course text in the coming semesters.

The Department of Computer Science thanks Norman Ramsey for his years of service and congratulates him on his many contributions to the field of computer science and to the Tufts community!