Dr. Randy Ribler, professor of computer science, is one of nine U.S. scholars selected by the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF) to teach at Vietnamese universities as part of its U.S. Faculty Scholar (USFS) Program.
Dr. Ribler taught as a Fulbright Scholar at Vietnam National University, Hanoi (VNU-HN) in 2006 and will return to VNU-HN for spring 2013 to teach software engineering and artificial intelligence. “We had a mutual desire to continue working together and to expand the relationship between our two institutions,” Dr. Ribler said.
He plans to develop his courses with his Vietnamese colleagues so they can be taught jointly in the future, allowing LC and VNU-HN students to work together. “It’s almost like study abroad without the travel,” he said.
Dr. Ribler will be teaching at both the undergraduate and graduate level. He said most of the students speak English well, but he has learned techniques to help those whose language skills are not as strong.
VNU-HN has a world-class computer science program, Dr. Ribler said, but he will bring a different perspective to the classroom. He hopes to provide a more student-centered education compared to the lecture model generally used at VNU-HN.
The U.S. Faculty Scholar Program contributes to the VEF mission of bringing the United States and Vietnam closer together through educational exchanges related to science, engineering, mathematics, medicine, and technology. U.S. Faculty Scholars teach in English at Vietnamese universities in their fields of expertise.
Dr. Ribler said his interest in Vietnam stems from the fact that his wife is Vietnamese. She and their two 10-year-old daughters will travel with Dr. Ribler for the spring semester.
Dr. Ribler is chair of LC’s Department of Computer Science. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Virginia Tech, a master’s in computer science from George Mason University, and a B.S. in computer science from the University of Maryland, College Park. Prior to joining the faculty at LC, Dr. Ribler completed a two-year postdoctoral appointment at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Ribler has also worked extensively in the computer industry, primarily in high-performance computing.
The Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF), a U.S. federal government agency, is in its tenth year of operations. With regard to other VEF programs, the VEF Fellowship Program has placed nearly 450 Fellows at more than 80 top-tier U.S. graduate research institutions, mostly for doctoral degrees. Since 2007 the VEF Visiting Scholar Program has provided opportunities for 38 Vietnamese to pursue post-doctoral programs at U.S. universities for up to 12 months. VEF Fellows and Visiting Scholars are required to return to Vietnam after completing their academic programs in the United States.
