Neil Christopher Charles Brown

Neil Christopher Charles Brown is an Associate Professor in the School of Computing at the University of Kent, where he has been actively contributing to computing education research since completing his PhD in 2011. His work bridges theoretical computer science concepts with practical educational applications, focusing on how novices learn to program and how educational tools can better support this process.

Dr. Brown's research interests center on programming education, with specific expertise in novice programming behavior, educational tool development, and computing education research methodologies. His early work focused on programming language theory and concurrency models, but he has increasingly specialized in computing education research, particularly examining how students interact with programming languages and environments. He has made significant contributions to understanding novice Java programming mistakes through large-scale data analysis and has developed frame-based programming environments to ease the transition from block-based to text-based programming.

His recent publications (2023-2025) show a strong focus on AI applications in programming education, registered reports methodology in computing education research, and the development of tools like Strype that support novice programmers. Brown has published extensively in top venues including SIGCSE, ICER, and ACM Transactions on Computing Education, often collaborating with Michael Kölling on projects related to BlueJ and educational programming environments.

Among his notable contributions is the Blackbox data repository project, which has collected millions of student programming attempts to analyze learning patterns. His 2018 paper 'Ten quick tips for teaching programming' in PLoS Computational Biology has been widely influential in the computing education community.

Dr. Brown has served in leadership roles for major computing education conferences, including co-organizing ICER 2025 and contributing to SIGCSE workshops on research methodologies. His work demonstrates a commitment to improving both the science and practice of computing education through rigorous research and practical tool development.