Dan Garcia

Dan Garcia is a Teaching Professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) department at UC Berkeley, College of Engineering. He specializes in computer science education and computational game theory, leading the GamesCrafters research group. Garcia holds a PhD (2000) and MS (1995) from UC Berkeley and dual BS degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT (1990).

His research focuses on equitable grading policies (e.g., no curves, soft deadlines) and advancing CS education through initiatives like the Beauty and Joy of Computing course, which has reached over 1,000 high school teachers. He has advised 25 MS students and numerous undergraduates through his Research, Art, and Development (RAD) groups.

He has received prestigious awards including the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award (2025), UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award (2025), and Leon A. Henkin Citation. Garcia served on key committees such as the College Board CS Principles Development Committee and held leadership roles in ACM SIGCSE (2017–2025).

His work spans over 60 conference submissions (papers, panels, workshops) and leverages games for educational outreach. Garcia’s GamesCrafters group develops tools to solve and analyze abstract strategy games computationally.