(This is the transcript from a conversation I had with Professor Ben Hescott of Northeastern University on October 10, 2020. Please note that any mistakes in the transcription are mine and mine alone.)
To watch the edited version on Spotify, follow this link.
Arjun: Today’s guest is a 2011 Lerman-Neubauer Prize-winner for Outstanding Teaching and Advising, a 2012 Henry and Madeline Fischer Award recipient (Engineering Teacher of the year award) and the 2012 Lillian and Joseph Leibner Award recipient for Excellence in Teaching and Advising of Students, he’s a Teaching Professor and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education and Experience at Northeastern University’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Professor Ben Hescott. Thanks for being here!
Ben: Thank you! I’m so excited! It’s a wonderful introduction!
Arjun: I had a couple questions. What prompted you to get into Computer Science? I feel like for a lot of professors, or for people in general that are into Computer Science, there’s a lot of parts of the field that they are interested in. Some people really like solving problems and doing math, and that’s their in. Some people are really involved in technology and they get involved because of that, and then some people just start by hearing about Computer Science and then it becomes something more interesting. What was your in?
Ben: It was a long story but I’ll try to make it shorter. So I started programming when I was probably 10. I’m going to be 50 soon, so it was about 40 years ago and essentially, back then, it was the dawn of the personal computer. I grew up outside of Flint, Michigan and I grew up rather poor, so it was a big deal to get a computer in the house. I was just obsessed with it, so somehow I convinced my parents to give me personal computing magazine subscriptions and I got a Texas Instrument. You would plug it into the TV and I would, through the magazine, would program in BASIC to get the computer to do different things. I was just fascinated by the machine, me telling it what to do, and it doing it.
I didn’t do a lot of programming in high school, and when I graduated and became an undergraduate, I was originally slated to be an Astronomy and Physics major. I quickly switched to Math and just loved Math. It was required to take a programming class and I failed miserably. Well, I didn’t fail, but I didn’t do well. I always joke that I got a C in C, and so I swore I would never program again, which is interesting because I was so interested in it in middle school, and in college I thought that this would be good for me, and I’d like it, and so, I sort of stopped programming.
Then I graduated and went and worked in finance, in accounting, with my math degree for a while. It was probably mid-90’s. It’s easy to remember, because a new program came out called Windows 95, and Windows 95 came out in ’96 or something, or something weird along those lines, and I was just really good at it, so I did some more work for the company with it, some SQL programming, and I kind of got int it a bit more as the personal computer craze started up again. You know, Dell and Gateway when they were doing these things. I decided to take a programming class and took one at night. I had seen one before, so I took an accelerated version of it, and I started to really enjoy it, and thought “All right, I’ll get a masters in Computer Science,” thinking I would do software development, and then, took a cryptography class. And it was all over after that. So I had this existential crisis. So I was 28 at the time, and I was just like, “I think I’m going to quit my job and get a Ph.D. in Computer Science because I want to do cryptography. So I started taking more graduate courses in more theoretical Computer Science and took an Algorithms class, got accepted into a Ph.D. program and eventually quit my job. I found computation complexity, and ended up getting my Ph.D. in that space. Computational complexity is looking at the bounds of what computers can do and what space and time mean to solve problems academically.
So you had said that people get into it differently. I got into it in an unusual way, as I was enamored with the machine but then fell in love with the math and that persevered. My research area, now I do mostly administration, but my research area before I sort of stopped doing research was Computational Biology, which I never thought would be the space that I would enter in.
Arjun: I’ve been reading this book, it’s called The Code Book by Simon Singh and its about cryptography and in it, he talks about ciphers and cryptanalysts and things like that and I thought that it was really exciting to see involvement in that field. For example, I know that Northeastern University is rolling out the Cyber Security major, or its been rolled out. So that’s an interesting part of the Khoury College that I didn’t expect.
Ben: Yeah and number 1, I absolutely loved The Code Book and I think, anyone who hasn’t read it, it’s an absolutely wonderful story because it starts with cryptography back from like the dawn of time and it goes through quantum so it’s really a wonderful book. He’s a great author too and all of his books are great, and I recommend them to everyone. But, anyway, what’s wonderful about Northeastern and cyber security is that not only do we have that core major, but also all of the combined majors that combine cyber security in the business environment and cybersecurity and criminal justice and one of the things that’s great is that Northeastern has made a big investment in that space so we’ve got some of the leading cybersecurity people in the entire world looking at everything from the cryptography side of things all the way through to data and privacy, and how are things hacked, and so we’ve got hacking, we’ve got privacy, we’ve got security, we’ve got data, we’ve got cryptography, so it’s wonderful to have such a robust program.
Arjun: Going off of that, I think that at the Khoury College, being able to access so many facets of Computer Science, is wonderful. When I was applying to colleges, a lot of them said “we have a Computer Science degree, and it’s in our Computer Science school, or in our College of Engineering, or in our college of Arts and Letters and Sciences,” but at Northeastern, when I was touring here, I was told, “We’ve got our Computer Science track, our Data Science track, our Cyber Security track, and all of the Combined Majors here, you pick which one you want,” and I remember being intrigued by the way it’s broken up. I think that plays a part in the college attracting a certain type of student who is interested in one of these sub fields of Computer Science already.
Ben: One of the things I love about teaching and working with students is exactly that. They see connections that I could never possibly come up with. They’re so creative, they’re so thoughtful, they’re like “I want this degree!” It’s just wonderful to be at a place where we can reward that flexibility and that creativity because like you said, we’ve got 40 majors. That’s absolutely insane.
Arjun: I do want to ask you, you did mention thinking about software development before you saw cryptography and fell in love with the theoretical aspect of Computer Science. I’m just curious, what do you think are some of the most severe, drastic, or defining changes that have happened outside of the academic world and in the industry during the time you’ve been teaching.
Ben: Yeah, I would say in terms of my relationship with Computer Science and definitely, as you said, I started down this path of getting a Ph.D. and teaching 20 years ago or over 20 years ago now. So 20 years ago, everything was networking. It was about computers talking to each other and there was just some wonderful work, this was about 25 years ago now, by people who were looking at “the Internet is here, let’s map it, what are the algorithms to make better search engines,” the dawn of Google, but also the revolution of the Information Age.
So we started with the Connected Age, I’d say, with the Web, and we remember it by thinking about the “.com bubble” and the burst there but we still actually did get connected. We were completely connected, people were on the Internet, we got high speed. If you think about if 20 years ago, Covid-19 happened, we would not be anywhere near we would be today because we can just have this conversation virtually cause again the data and the technology has changed so much. I think we’re living in another revolution and I would call this one the Machine Learning Age in some sense, and you know, I’m just making up these names, but if you think about it, we’re now taking data and learning from it and it’s been fun for me to grow up and see it happen. My Ph.D. advisor said to me once, he said “this was hot. And now everyone was worried about this. And then everyone’s worried about networking. It’ll be something next.” And of course the something that was next was Machine Learning. So I think it will be something else in the future. We will have studied that and something will be popular again. If you asked me what I’d love to see next, I think it would be really good for Computer Scientists to use this moment and realize our impact on society. So I’d love to see us sort of grow in the space of looking at both the ethics of Computer Science, looking at social justice in Computer Science, realizing that we as a discipline do touch everything in our lives, and allow people to sort of study and respect that space, that Computer Science and people side of things.
Arjun: I know that you’re really involved in providing opportunities for people that are underrepresented in Computer Science. I know, for example, that the Khoury College’s motto is “Computer Science for all” and I just wanted to know more about the initiatives you are taking to help advance that message.
Ben: Thank you for that question. I think I can answer that with what my day looked like today, in some sense. On alternate Friday mornings, I do a little bit of work with the Center for Inclusive Computing which is through the generosity of Bill and Melinda Gates. The center looks for ways to increase the number of Women In Tech, and in particular, looking at the pipeline in college. And so one of the things I was working on this morning was looking at university data and looking at ways to present it programmatically, trying to looking at statistics like persistence in different demographics, be it women, black and native women, and so on. Last night I was able to host or co-moderate with some other people at Khoury and with Lee West, at our LGBTQ+ center, and it was basically looking at LGBTQ+ in tech, and people who were working in that space in the industry and what their experiences were. It’s these kinds of experiences that I’m so lucky to have at the job where we can make sure that everyone is having a rich, wonderful experience. One of the things I am so passionate about is talking to first-year students. I was talking with a student today, for example, who was interested in a combined major of either CS and Econ or CS and Business, and we got virtual coffee because we wanted to talk about the election. So really, CS for everyone is about making it a place so that anyone can be themselves and anyone passionate about CS can succeed. This isn’t saying that everyone should be a Computer Science major, that wouldn’t make sense. It’s more that, if you’re interested in Computer Science, you should be able to succeed in it. It’s also about what we were talking about earlier, that Computer Science really touches everything, that it’s really part of everyone’s lives, so. This professor, there’s a wonderful professor in the college of social science and humanities and we were having dinner once and it was like “What we’re trying to build is a responsible digital citizen and we have a responsibility to understand data in a critical way now that we’re in an Information Age. And when people are telling us about polls or data, we should look at what they really mean.” And I think that being able to make decisions based on this data is something I want to empower students to do, especially in tech.
Arjun: You touched on a really important point when you talked about being an informed citizen in cyberspace. I just wanted to ask you, there’s a lot of hotly debated issues right now in tech companies concerning data and privacy and things like that. So what do you think are some of the hotly debated issues right now in the field and how do you think they will be redefined in Computer Science, Data Science, or Cyber Security? What do you think is a long term outlook on that?
Ben: I’m definitely an optimistic person, and so I’d like to get to an instance where we have an educated population and demands. I would like people to demand to know what’s going on with their data. You know, we get our Credit Card statements with their privacy policy, and they write it in such a way that you have absolutely no ability or desire to read it. I think we need to come up with a way to read it like they do with carton labels, like if there is food, there’s an easy way to see it and know what the gist of it is, like with the calories, the contents. We should get to something like this with how our data is used. A common nomenclature that says “This is what is going to be public, this is what will be private. We will sell this, but not this.” That would lead to people making reasonable choices with who you would do business with or who would you let have access to your data. With that said, there are cryptographers who are on two sides of the spectrum. Like, I’m like “I’ve got nothing to hide!” But people deserve their privacy.
We at Khoury are looking at this, and our lead on the Cyber Security undergraduate side, Christo (Professor Christo Wilson), is working with a whole host of other faculty to try to educate our students on how to manage people’s data. It means writing algorithms that don’t have a bias in them. There’s a responsibility we have as software writers to make sure that we protect people as well. Bugs really end up being things that people could leverage that lead to people losing their privacy, or their credit cards, or their money.
Arjun: I totally agree with you there. There’s a lot of buzz going around, and it has been for about 30 years at this point, about “free software”, based not on price but on freedom and privacy. I’ve been watching way too many videos about Richard Stallman so, the idea that you can see the code, see the way it’s written, interact and modify it, and with the focus on freedom. But there’s also open source, which is focused on writing the best software possible while allowing everyone to see it. What do you think about both of these movements and do you think that we should switch to more of these alternatives in the future? Right now, we recorded this interview using Skype, Northeastern uses Outlook and the rest of the Microsoft Office 365 Suite, but how would you feel if that infrastructure was instead migrated to Open Source or free software?
Ben: This is a great question. In my personal experience with it, growing up during this time, and when you grab a professor that’s been around for a long time, certainly one of the first things that happened when I got into Computer Science and when I decided to back and do my Ph.D. was switching over to Linux pretty quickly, even though I started on Windows 95. And it was more learning the machine, and I was getting back to that core roots. While I was first starting my Ph.D. a while ago, it was very much still fresh, in some sense. It was in the 80’s and 90’s, where, people would just share software. With that said, I’ve got nothing against Microsoft, it’s a wonderful company, you know, there’s my Microsoft Surface Hub, and I’ve got my AirPods Pro, so I’ve definitely got love for Apple products and Microsoft as well. I think they can live together, in a great way. And I think you can see that in companies, where, I need my Surface Hub to teach and things and I want it to work, so Microsoft can give me a product for that. But I also love that there’s Open Source software where people have the opportunity to build new tools and use some of the devices and Computer Science in a different way, so I’m kind of going to go down the middle and say that I think that they are important and I’ll do it for all the students that are listening too, contributing to Open Source projects is a great way to learn about the community, about programming in general, and really kind of being part of that community is a great opportunity for students.
Arjun: I know Google and Red Hat are contributing to Open Source projects like the Linux kernel, and Google has their own Open Source projects like TensorFlow, which is a really big Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence API. I wanted to pivot a little bit and ask you about your experience teaching at other colleges. I know that you taught at Tufts University, and I wanted to know about why the change to Northeastern? What drew you here and what do you think so far?
Ben: What drew me here is Carla Brodley, so that’s a pretty easy answer. Carla was my boss, actually, at Tufts. When she left Tufts to become the dean of the Khoury College here, it was interesting to me. We were very close, we actually had offices next to each other, we were good friends and colleagues, she was my boss and mentor there, and really carved out a path where I could be myself and be student-focused. There were a lot of undergraduate opportunities, to teach there at Tufts University. Some of the work we did there was actually looking at the demographics of women in our introductory courses and we made some major progress on that front. I miss my Tufts friends, but Carla promised not to poach for a year. So a year after she left, she was like “You should come for a visit” and it was Carla so instead of a normal interview or visit day she put me to work, because she knew that I liked to work. I had booked meetings all day, with brainstorming sessions with people at Khoury working on getting a more diverse population. We also talked about getting more influence of Khoury College at the Boston Public School System. I met people at every level, which was meant to show me all the work I could do. I turned her down, we actually had a morning coffee the day of where I told her I wasn’t ready to leave yet. But, we did another round. When I was up for tenure at Tufts, we scheduled another visit. And I realized then that if I was ever going to leave Tufts, in order to find that creativity, that passion, there was no other real choice other than Northeastern. One of the main things was about how we do innovative ideas here. If you have an innovative idea, it’s not about testing out a pilot, or any other thing. Just go do it. If it doesn’t work, tell me what you learned, and then do something else. And so, there was this kind of amazing, innovative spirit, which doesn’t often happen, especially at established institutions. But here at Northeastern, it was all about innovation. That’s who we are. And I was just blown away, so I said yes. And I remember my first day of work, because of something that the contract had, I wasn’t actually at Northeastern that day. So I emailed Carla, saying that technically today was my first day of work at Northeastern, and all she emailed back was “You’re off leash. Go.” And so, for me, it’s been these wonderful 3 years of innovating and doing neat things.
Arjun: Wonderful answer. I do have a final question for you: Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?
Ben: Ah, you got me because I always ask this of students when we do an advising meeting. I’m like “Where do you want to be in 10 years?” And you’re the first one to ask me where do I want to be in 10 years. I’m a really goal driven person, right now there’s so much work to do at Northeastern in this and in my undergrad role as Associate Dean. But probably in 10 years, I’d like to make an impact, working with students. Northeastern seems to be a really good fit, so maybe in another role here in Northeastern. But I don’t ever really see myself not working with undergraduate students. I’m pretty addicted to this experiential learning thing here, so I’ll probably be here for a while.