Find Laney

• laneys @ northeastern.edu
• Meserve Hall 051
• Office hours (Fall '25): M 1-2:30pm, W 9:30-11am.
• Remote meetings/OH: Zoom
• LinkedIn
• Instagram

Inclusive teaching, equity, and leadership in computer science education

Everyone is welcome in my classroom, in our discipline -- and anywhere you choose to be. (Through Women's Community of Code and other initiatives, I remain committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion within and beyond the field of computer science.)

Recent and upcoming courses

  CS1800 Discrete Structures ( Fall 2025 )

  CS3000 Algorithms ( Summer 2025 )

  DS2500 Intermediate Programming with Data ( Spring 2025 )

  INMI 2700 Transformative Justice with Computing Technology ( Fall 2024 )

Teaching Highlights

• I believe in Khoury's mission of CS for Everyone and am committed to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion within and beyond computing.
• Along with Prof. Jonathan Bell, I am one of Khoury's AI Faculty Fellows.
• In Fall 2024 I co-developed and co-taught with Prof. Darcelle Lahr a new interdisciplinary Humanics course. We're applying transformative justice approaches to support communities of recently incarcerated women of color, through a partnership with The National Council.
• I co-organize the teaching-faculty Birds of a Feather session at the SIGCSE conference most years.
• In Spring 2023, I co-taught with Profs. Keith Bagley and Sami Rollins a seminar for Align students around professional identity and development.
• Northeastern University Excellence in Teaching Award, 2021
• Khoury College Excellence in Teaching Award, 2021.
• Technical Advisor for the Center for Inclusive Computing.
• In 2022-2023, I co-led with Profs. Vance Ricks and Meica Magnani a research program for graduate and undergraduate students in ethics within computer science.
• Presentations on inclusive teaching and equitable grading at UIUC's CS Summer Teaching Workshop, NE GWise's Annual Conference, and others.
• Align Program pre-Align math course with Prof. Alden Jackson
, developed 2020.

Links

• Khoury News article about Women's Community of Code (2024)
• News @ Northeastern article about SMASH and the amazing Align students teaching! (2022)
• Khoury News article about SMASH x Northeastern (2022)
• Khoury News article about Summer 2021 courses.
• News @ Northeastern article about 2021 teaching awards.
• Huntington News article about Women's Community of Code.
• The Huntington News interviewed me one time and some of my origin story is in there.

Videos

• Random teaching video from post-Covid times (no dogs in this one :(
• Random teaching video from Covid times (featuring my dog Tugboat!)
• From Megan Rapinoe to Grace Hopper
• I once had a food truck
• I really don't fit in in Silicon Valley

Since 2023, I have been Khoury's Director of Teaching Faculty (Boston). We have over 40 fantastic teaching faculty here on the Boston campus, and I try to be their advocate and biggest cheerleader. Khoury's teaching faculty are exemplary teachers, engage with our local communities, and conduct world-class research.

Leadership Highlights

• Senate Committees - Faculty Handbook 2023-2024, 2025-2026. UUCC 2021-2022.
• Chair, Khoury Teaching Faculty Hiring Committee (Boston) since 2022. We have made several fantastic hires and overhauled the entire process to ensure equity and inclusion at all steps of outreach, interview, and offer.
• Northeastern Faculty Senate 2021-2025, and Senate Agenda Commitee 2024-2025.
• Northeastern Provost Search Committee, 2025.
• I started Khoury College's annual Broadening Participation in CS Award, given to Carla Brodley (2022), Keith Bagley (2022), Kimberly McKimmon (2023), Bethany Edmunds (2023), Jonathan Mwaura (2024), and Tyré Richards (2024). (Prof. Mwaura went on to receive the prestigious SIGCE BPCE Award!)
• Khoury College Area Chair: Broadening Participation (2022-2023). We don't have departments here, but we have Impact Areas as of Fall 2022, and I led the one related to diversity & inclusion in its first year.
• STRIDE Member since 2022.

I care a lot about diversity and inclusion in computer science. As Director of Broadening Participation, I work on making our classrooms inclusive and welcoming for students who have been historically underrepresented in computer science. (Lots more I want to do, too. The list below is a work in progress.)

Current/Recent Work Related to Broadening Participation

• Women's Community of Code
• Field trips to Khoury for Boston Public School students, in collaboration with Kayla McLaughlin (email me if you know a class that wants to come for a visit, or if you're a student at NEU who wants to help out!). We host mulitple schools per semester to learn a little about CS, about college, and have lunch together -- since 2022.
• SMASH x Northeastern Academic Champion (2020-2023).
• Member of Northeastern's Presidential Concil on Belonging
• Break Into Tech events for the Align program, my favorite thing at Khoury. BiT and other Align/Khoury stuff is always posted on the events calendar.
• Faculty advisor for student groups FirstByte, Grad Women Coders, and Code4Community
• Member of Northeastern's Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Executive Committee since 2021
• MAGIC Mentor program (mentor) since 2016
• Girls Who Code (SIP instructor in Chicago @ Groupon 2015

Download CV

I've been a full-time faculty member at Khoury College of Computer Science since 2018 and have added leadership roles alongside my promotion to Full Teaching Professor in 2023.

My mission in life is to dismantle computer science's reputation as an intimidating and inaccessible field. This happens through teaching, community engagement, and leadership within and beyond Khoury College. I focus a lot on supporting the success of women and people of color in computer science. As a field, we have a long way to go with diversity and inclusion, and I want to contribute as much as I can to ensuring the success of everyone along the way.

 

I've been lucky to have incredible teachers -- my first comp sci professor at Simmons College as an undergrad and my PhD advisor at Dartmouth College cared so much about teaching (and about their students) that it really inspired me to do more in computer science. I try to live up to their examples every day.

I didn't write a line of code until college, and to this day I don't write code for fun. But I love it as my job, and the fact that I haven't done it my whole life doesn't make me any less of a computer scientist. No matter when in your life you've tried some programming, or made a career of it -- doesn't matter. We all belong here.

With my husband Tom in Montana, 2024. I ran the Missoula Marathon (had a great time but did NOT see a moose, which was one of my goals for that trip!)

I run with two local running groups, the PIONEERS Run Crew and the Heartbreakers. In my experience, runners are about the most friendly and welcoming group of people you'll find in any community.


With the PIONEERS at 26.TRUE Marathon

Tom and I have two dogs and I will talk about them incessantly if you let me. They're both from Great Dog Rescue New England, and they look cute as hell but let me tell you they are a handful.


Carol & Grizz Strange

We also used to have a sweet, mellow bulldog called Tugboat. You might have caught a glimpse of Tugs if you've watched my older lecture videos. He died in 2020 after many naps on our comfy couch.


Tugboat Strange (2019)