Richard Meyers was hired as an adjunct professor in 1982. He initially taught programming in Basic and computer hardware to technology, computer science, and engineering majors. During his time at NYIT he has taught numerous first- and second-year courses to students majoring in technology, telecommunications, engineering, and computer science.
Over this extended period, he has had a sustained interest in CS1 (introductory programming) pedagogy. Regardless of the changing pedagogy and languages presented in the various CS1 texts over the years, he has continued to emphasize semantics and the use of pseudocode in his approach. With each change in programming language, he made sure to create his own source code examples, ones he felt matched the flavor of the current language of instruction.
In 1998, Meyers published Pascal: the Software Fundamentals of Computer Science as a Prentice-Hall author. At present, he is working on a text for a self-published book, Idiomatic Programming. This book will not focus on any particular language. Its basis will be on programming semantics where the book’s cornerstone will be founded on the presentation of idioms found in any C-based programming language.
Over the last few years, he has been teaching a two-semester sequence in computational analysis. Part of the syllabus shows students how to obtain easily plotted numerical solutions to differential equations using MATLAB’s solver functions. As part of the curriculum, Meyers came up with an algorithm to apply MATLAB’s solvers to systems of equations with forcing functions that have discontinuities in them. He plans on publishing another paper to present this algorithm as an addition to the existing pedagogy.
Meyers received his B.A. degree from Hamilton College in 1968, his B.S.E.E. degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in 1968, and his M.S.E.E. degree from Columbia University in 1977.
Recent Projects/Research
- a self-published text in Idiomatic Programming
- potential paper(s) on numerical solutions to ordinary differential equations that have discontinuous forcing functions using MATLABs ode solvers
Publications
- Idiomatic Programming: A Pedagogical Tool for All CS1 Courses, presented at CIEC, Phoeniz, AZ 2013
Honors and Awards
- Presidential Engagement Award for teaching and Learning, New York Tech 2013
- Member, Engineering Honorary Society, Tau Beta Pi
- Member, Electrical Engineering Honorary Society, Eta Kappa Nu
Courses Taught at New York Tech
- CTEC 201: Computer Applications in Telecommunications
- TELE 165: Electrical Circuits for Telecommunications
- TELE 276: Digital Systems for Telecommunications I
- TELE 281: Digital Systems for Telecommunications II
- ETEC 110: Electrical Circuits I
- ETEC 120: Electrical Circuits II
- ETEC 131: Electronics Technology I
- CTEC 215: Digital Computer Fundamentals
- CTEC 216: Digital Electronics
- CTEC 225: Digital Computer Systems
- CSCI 120: Programming I (medium of instruction: C)
- CSCI 130: Computer Organization
- CSCI 160: Programming I (medium of instruction: C++)
- CSCI 125: Programming I (medium of instruction: Java)
- CSCI 180: Programming II (medium of instruction: C)
- CSCI 210: Programming II (medium of instruction: C++)
- CTEC 204: Programming Techniques I
- CTEC 205: Computer Programming Techniques
- CTEC 206: Programming Techniques II
- CTEC 243: Computational Analysis I
- CTEC 246: COMPTOOL
- CTEC 247: Computational Analysis II
- CTEC 471: Internet Development
- ETCS 105: Career Discovery in Engineering, Tech and Comp Sci