Awards and Recognition

Funding

• National Science Foundation (NSF) Award 2506612 ($900,000 | 3 years)

  • Project Title: Towards a Large Language Model-based Smart Learning Hub for Computing Education
  • Project Team: Sorin Lerner (PI), Ramamohan Paturi (co-PI), and Gerald Soosairaj (co-PI)
  • Project Duration: October 2025 - September 2028
  • Funding Agency: NSF’s Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL)
  • Award Link: Link to NSF Award 2506612

• California Learning Lab Foundation Award ($1,500,000 | 3 years)

  • Project Title: Improving student engagement and outcomes equitably with course-specific open-sourced AI-tutors
  • Project Team: Ramamohan Paturi (PI), Sorin Lerner (co-PI), Gerald Soosairaj (co-PI), Sam Lau (co-PI), Gena Sbeglia (co-PI, SDSU), Gail Heyman (co-PI), Stanley Lo (co-PI), Trevor Bonjour (co-PI), and many others
  • Project Duration: January 2025 - December 2027
  • Funding Agency: California Learning Lab Foundation
  • Institutions Involved: University of California San Diego (UCSD), San Diego State University (SDSU), California State University San Marcos (CSUSM), and Palomar College
  • Project Link: Link to California Learning Lab Grant

• National Science Foundation (NSF) Award 2417531 ($300,000 | 3 years)

  • Project Title: Improving Student Comprehension of Programming Components within Large Code Bases
  • Project Team: Gerald Soosairaj (PI) , William G Griswold (co-PI), and Anshul Shah (lead PhD student)
  • Project Duration: October 2024 - September 2027
  • Funding Agency: NSF’s Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE)
  • Award Link: Link to NSF Award 2417531

• National Science Foundation (NSF) Award 2417787 ($300,000 | 2 years)

  • Project Title: Generation and Evaluation of Culturally Relevant Computing Resources for Latines in Introductory Programming
  • Project Team: Gerald Soosairaj (PI), Ismael Villegas Molina (lead PhD student), and Audria Saravia-Montalvo (second lead PhD student)
  • Project Duration: September 2024 - August 2026 (tentative)
  • Funding Agency: NSF’s Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF)
  • Award Link: Link to NSF Award 2417787

• National Science Foundation (NSF) Award 2315909 ($300,000 | 3 years)

  • Project Title: BPC-DP: Improving Computing Education for Incarcerated College Students
  • Project Team: Leo Porter (PI), William G Griswold (co-PI), Gerald Soosairaj (co-PI), and Emma Hogan (lead PhD student)
  • Project Duration: October 2023 - September 2026
  • Funding Agency: NSF’s Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF)
  • Award Link: Link to NSF Award 2315909

• Course Development and Instructional Improvement Program (CDIIP) Award ($50,000 | 1 year)

  • Project Title: Teaching the “Hidden Curriculum” of Software Development and Creating a Supplemental Free, Digital Textbook
  • Project Team: Gerald Soosairaj (PI)
  • Project Duration: 2023 - 2024
  • Funding Agency: Course Development and Instructional Improvement Program (CDIIP)

• Course Development and Instructional Improvement Program (CDIIP) Award ($38,273 | 1 year)

  • Project Title: (More) Free, Interactive, Open Educational Resources for Lower-Division Programming Courses
  • Project Team: Niema Moshiri (PI), Joe Politz (co-PI), and Gerald Soosairaj (co-PI)
  • Project Duration: July 2021 - June 2022
  • Funding Agency: Course Development and Instructional Improvement Program (CDIIP)

• National Science Foundation (NSF) Award 2044473 ($299,973 | 3 years)

  • Project Title: Determining the Effectiveness of Live Coding on Student Learning in Introductory Programming
  • Project Team: Gerald Soosairaj (PI), Bill Griswold (co-PI), Leo Porter (co-PI), and Anshul Shah (lead PhD student)
  • Project Duration: Jan 2021 - Dec 2023
  • Funding Agency: NSF’s Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE)
  • Award Link: Link to NSF Award 2044473

• Google ExploreCSR Award ($18,000 | 1 year)

  • Project Title: Introducing Community College Women to 4-Year University Research Opportunities
  • Project Team: Christine Alvarado (PI) and Gerald Soosairaj (co-PI)
  • Funding Agency: Google
  • Project Duration: July 2019 - June 2020

• US Department of Education Award U411C190048 ($3,993,941 | 4 years)

  • Project Title: CS for English Learners (CSforEL)
  • Project Team: Jake Baskin (project director), CSTA Chapters, Deborah Costa Hernandez (co-PI), Beth Simon (co-PI), CRLP staff/facilitators, Megan Hopkins (co-PI), Gerald Soosairaj (collaborator), and many others
  • Funding Agency: US Department of Education
  • Project Duration: July 2019 - June 2023

• Scott Kloeck-Jenson Fellowship ($4,500 | 3 months)

  • Project Title: Effect of Bilingual Education and Live-Coding on Student Learning and Engagement in Teaching and Learning Computer Sciences
  • Project Team: Gerald Soosairaj (Ph.D. Candidate), Jignesh Patel (co-advisor), and Richard Halverson (co-advisor)
  • Funding Agency: Scott Kloeck-Jenson Fellowship at University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Project Duration: July 2018 - September 2018
  • Link to Project Report: SKJ Fellowship Report

Honors and Awards

• Best Student Paper Award: For our research paper titled Faculty Identities and Their Effects on Implementing Culturally Relevant Pedagogies at Hispanic-Serving Institutions at the ACM Global Computing Education Conference (CompEd). December 2025.
  • Authors: Ismael Villegas Molina, Emma Hogan, Nawab Mulla, Josue Martinez, William G. Griswold, Leo Porter, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj
  • Paper Link: https://doi.org/10.1145/3736181.3747163
• Best Paper Award: For our research paper titled Needles in a Haystack: Student Struggles with Working on Large Code Bases at the ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER). August 2025.
  • Authors: Anshul Shah, Thomas Rexin, Anya Chernova, Gonzalo Allen-Perez, William G. Griswold, and Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj
  • Paper Link: https://doi.org/10.1145/3702652.3744218
• Best Undergraduate Teacher Award: Department-wide teaching award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at University of California, San Diego. 2022-23.
  • Award Link: https://jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/faculty/best-teacher-awards

• oSTEM UCSD Faculty of the Year Award: Awarded by the UCSD chapter of oSTEM (Out in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). 2020.

• Best Paper Award: For our research paper titled Live-coding vs Static Code Examples: Which is better with respect to Student Learning and Cognitive Load? at the Australasian Computing Education (ACE) Conference. February 2020.
  • Authors: Adalbert Gerald Soosai Raj, Pan Gu, Eda Zhang, Arokia Xavier Annie R, Jim Williams, Richard Halverson, and Jignesh M. Patel
  • Paper Link: https://doi.org/10.1145/3373165.3373182

• Capstone Ph.D. Teaching Award: University-wide teaching award in recognition of outstanding achievement as a graduate student instructor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. March 2019.

• Best CS Graduate Student Instructor Award: Department-wide teaching award for excellence in teaching as a graduate student instructor in Computer Sciences at University of Wisconsin-Madison. May 2018.

• UW-CS Thank You Award: UW-Madison Computer Sciences Department’s Thank You Award for Efforts in Broadening Participation in Computer Sciences. May 2018.

• UW-CS Thank You Award: UW-Madison Computer Sciences Department’s Thank You Award for Creating Pathways for Women to Major in Computer Sciences. May 2017.

• Cisco’s CAP Award: Cisco’s Achievement Program (CAP) award for outstanding contributions to Diameter Credit Control Protocol (DCCA). January 2012.

• Cisco’s Star Award: Cisco’s Star performer award for developing a successful technical on-boarding program for new hires. April 2011.

• CEG Alumni Association Endowment Award College of Engineering Guindy (CEG) Alumni Association’s Endowment Award for outstanding performance during the first two years of undergraduation in Information Technology. February 2008.

Student Awards

Two of my undergraduate research students were honored by the Computing Research Association’s (CRA) Undergraduate Research Awards.

• Jessica Lam: Finalist, CRA Undergraduate Research Award. 2022.
• Ana Selvaraj: Honorable Mention, CRA Undergraduate Research Award. 2022.