Cruz Izu

Dr Cruz Izu

Lecturer

School of Computer and Mathematical Sciences

Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


Cruz hold a B Sc Hons (Computer Science) and a PhD (Computer Architecture) from the University of the Basque Country, and a Graduate Certificate on Online learning for UoA.

Cruz has extensive research experience on the design and evaluation of interconnection networks, from parallel systems to networks on chips, as key component of a parallel system, in collaboration with their colleagues from the University of Cantabria and University of Zaragoza, Spain.

Cruz has developed and taught multiple Systems, Programming and Problem solving courses at UoA, ranging from small groups of 20 students to large classes of 300. She has being Honours coordinator, course advice coordinator and current is the coordinator for the Masters of Computing and Innovation.

From 2011 to 2020, Cruz led the Google funded Educators PD program (formerly CS4HS) which helps middle and high school teachers introduce Computer Science and computational thinking into their school curriculum. She participated in the write up for the new SACE course Digital Technologies, which was first implemented in 2018 (Stage1) and 2019 (Stage2).

In the last 7 years, Cruz has been research active in the area of Computer Science education, exploring computational thinking, problem solving and how to teach programming skills and code comprehension to first year university students. She regularly an associated PC member for top conferences SIGCE and ITiCSE and has recently edited a special issue for the Journal Informatics in Education.

I have two areas of research.

My first area of research has covered both interconnection network design and performance evaluation of parallel architectures/interconnects. I have regularly collaborated with the ATC research group at the University of Cantabria, Spain and the GAZ group at the University of Zaragoza.  

Since 2016,  I have dedicated most of my research time to Computer Science Education, focusing mainly on how undergraduate students acquire program skills and how they problem solve. I regularly review and chair sessions on this area. 

I'm researching this area in collaboration with local staff and students, and have grown strong collaborations with Italy (Dr Mirolo for University of Udine, and Dr Lonati from University of Milan), plus other international colleagues.  

Key contributions include leading a working group in ITiCSE'19 on the topic of Program Comprehension, being a  guest editor for Informatics in Education for the 2021 special issue on "The Role of Abstraction in CS Education" and creating a resource to introduce students to code refactoring. 

 

 

 

Barbara Kidman Fellowship - 2017   A$24,115

Cruz  main teaching topics are mapped into her areas of expertise  

  • Systems and Computer Architecture:   Computer Systems, Computer Networks, Operating Systems 
  • Problem Solving: Specialised Programming, Problem Solving and Software Development, Puzzle Based Learning
  • Learning to code: Foundations of CS, Introduction to Programming 

In the administration side she has been a coordinator for the Masters of Computing and Innovation (2015 to 2023) and for the Masters of Computer Science (2023). She has previously hold other admin duties such as  Outreach, Health&Safety and  Course Advice Coordination, and coordinated the Google grant programs CS4HS (2013-2017) and CS Educator PD (2018-2020).

  • Other Supervision Activities

    Date Role Research Topic Location Program Supervision Type Student Load Student Name
    2023 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Automating the Detection of Novice Code Smells in C/C++ The University of Adelaide B Comp Sci (Advanced) Other - Jose De los Santos, Faisal Umar, Seojun Lee
    2023 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Evaluation of refactoring strategies for intermediate programmers The University of Adelaide B Comp Sci (Advanced) Other - Lazar Skrob
    2023 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Improving code structure: IDE feedback versus manual refactoring The University of Adelaide B Comp Sci (Advanced) Other - Yin Cyrus Hui
    2023 - 2023 Co-Supervisor Suitability of AI-related Code Bots in Tracing for Novice Programmers The University of Adelaide B Comp Sci (Advanced) Other Part Time Aun Haider
    2023 - 2023 Co-Supervisor Enhancing Programming Education: The Impact of AI-Powered Code Comprehension Tools in the Classroom The University of Adelaide B Comp Sci (Advanced) Other - Yiran Song
    2022 - 2023 Principal Supervisor Code Style in the context of CS1 education: a Literature Review The University of Adelaide Master of Computer Science Master - Sun Huixin
    2022 - 2022 Co-Supervisor Automatic evaluation of code quality The University of Adelaide B Comp (Adv) Other - Edward Gilchrist
    2022 - 2022 Principal Supervisor Improving code structure: refactoring tools versus manual refactoring The University of Adelaide B.Comp (Adv) Other - Dhyan Darji
    2022 - 2022 Principal Supervisor Readability vs Efficiency: Analysis of C++ compiler optimizations School of Computer Science, UoA B. Comp Sci (advanced) Other - Marco Groot (a1797584)
    2022 - 2022 Principal Supervisor Exploring Notions of Code Quality School of Computer Science, UoA B. Comp Sci (Advanced) Other - Soham Sevak
    2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Creativity in Computer Science: a systematic literature review The University of Adelaide B Comp Sci (Hons) Honours Full Time Guanqi Li
    2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Using Source Code Analysers to Detect Refactoring Patterns in Students' Code The University of Adelaide Masters of Computer Science Master Full Time Shrey Chandra
    2021 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Refactoring for Novice Programmers The University of Adelaide B. Comp (Hons) Computer Science Honours Full Time Sayoni Roy
    2020 - 2021 Principal Supervisor Choosing a Problem-Solving Strategy: Maths vs Simulation The University of Adelaide Masters of Computer Science Master Full Time Akshay Pradeep
    2018 - 2018 Principal Supervisor Exploring Novice Programmers' Abilities To Solve A String Manipulation Problem The University of Adelaide Masters of Computer Science Master Full Time Xiangkang Pan
    2018 - 2018 Principal Supervisor Novice programmers ability to define and write functions University of Adelaide Bachelor of Computer Science (Advanced) Other Full Time Peter Dinh
    2016 - 2018 External Supervisor Performance and fairness of routing mechanisms for commodity Ethernet networks The University of Cantabria - Doctorate Part Time Mariano Benito Hoz
  • Memberships

    Date Role Membership Country
    2005 - ongoing - ACM -
  • Consulting/Advisories

    Date Institution Department Organisation Type Country
    2015 - ongoing SACE Board of South Australia Information Technology Writers Group Instructional and training Australia
    2014 - 2015 SACE Board of South Australia Information Technology/ Curriculum Leaders Group Instructional and training Australia
  • Review, Assessment, Editorial and Advice

    Date Title Type Institution Country
    2019 - ongoing Associate Program Chair Conference Review ACM SIG group Computer Science Education United States
  • Position: Lecturer
  • Phone: 83135762
  • Email: cruz.izu@adelaide.edu.au
  • Fax: 83134366
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Ingkarni Wardli, floor 4
  • Org Unit: Computer Science

Connect With Me
External Profiles