
About Dr. Youwen Ouyang
Ouyang was born and raised in China. In 1982, when very few Chinese families knew what computers were, her parents somehow recognized the potential of computing and convinced her to major in Computer Science. She is grateful for their vision and enjoys the creative and ever-changing nature of the computing profession.
In 1990, Ouyang came to the states for a doctoral degree. The booming economy in mid-1990 had led many of her talented friends away from doctoral programs and found high-paying industrial jobs with attractive stock options. Ouyang is grateful for her husband's understanding and support that allowed her to stick with the pursuit of her dream job in academia. She joined the Computer Science and Information Systems Department in Fall 1997.
Ouyang is blessed with three wonderful children (Bryan, Katherine, and Tiffany). She is a proud alumnus of these great institutions, all of which have excellent academic program, beautiful campus, and exciting student life.
Louisiana State University
- Ph.D. in Computer Science (1996)
- Master in Applied Statistics (1993)
Xiamen University
- Master in Computer Science (1989)
Peking University
- Bachelor in Computer Science (1986)
Grants
Dr. Ouyang is an advocate for and practitioner of interdisciplinary collaborations. She is an entrepreneur who creates and implements education opportunities and career pathways for students, with a passion for those traditionally underrepresented in computing.
Dr. Ouyang has led multiple large scale projects funded by National Science Foundations (NSF). Her earlier NSF grants (e.g. iQUEST, CyberQUEST, QUEST CT) focused on supporting upper primary and middle school teachers in integrating computational thinking into subject content areas such as mathematics, science, language arts, and social studies. These grants also provided opportunities for students at CSUSM to create software applications for children and to lead after school programs for children. Dr. Ouyang founded Women's Hackathon @ CSUSM in 2014, serving hundreds of high school girls and college women since then. She has built on its successful model to create after school programs in local high schools and the Fab Friday program at CSUSM that helps students build their portfolios for internship and job search. In collaboration with MiraCosta College, Dr. Ouyang led the GOALS in CS project that gave the ownership of active learning to students in computer science.
Currently, Dr. Ouyang is the principle investigator and director for two interdisciplinary projects:
- From Curiosity to Career Readiness in collaboration with Drs. Marisol Clark-Ibanez (sociology)
- Harmony in Hacking in collaboration with Drs. Merryl Goldberg (music) and Jing Hou (CIS).
Courses
Dr. Ouyang has taught the following courses since joining CSUSM in 1997:
- CS 100 Introduction to Computing Fields
- CS 111 Computer Science I
- CS 200-1 Living in a Virtual World
- CS 201 Introduction to Data Science for Social Scientists
- CS 211 Computer Science II
- CS 301A Computer Mastery (ASP)
- CS 311 Data Structure
- CS 441 Software Engineering
- CS 443 Database Management Systems
- CS 481 Introduction to Mobile Programming
- CS 513 Analyses of Algorithms
- CS 539 Client/Server Computing
- CS 542 Object-Oriented Analysis and Design Patterns
- CS 643 Advanced Database Management Systems