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Assistant Professor

Ally Limke, PhD

Dr. Ally Limke is a Assistant Professor specializing in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer Science Education. Their teaching is grounded in a core belief: effective computing education requires tools and strategies that support both students and the educators who teach them.

Dr. Limke brings over five years of experience in K-12 teacher professional development to their undergraduate instruction. They have led summer workshops where teachers design computing-infused science lessons and provided data-driven feedback through classroom observations. This experience informs how Dr. Limke mentors undergraduate students in research, having guided student researchers for four years. They also volunteer to design and lead informal programming learning opportunities for K-12 students.

Dr. Limke holds a PhD from North Carolina State University, where their dissertation addressed the challenges K-12 teachers face when teaching programming without a CS background. This research led to the development of a specialized LMS designed to support teacher assessment and classroom management, translating User Experience research insights into practical educational technology.

Contact Us

limkeallison@sau.edu

Education and Training

  • PhD in Computer Science, North Carolina State University
  • MS in Computer Science, North Carolina State University
  • BA in Computer Science and Math, Wartburg College

Areas of Professional Interest

  • Computer Science Education
  • Human Computer Interaction
  • User Experience
  • Computer science foundations and programming literacy

Recent Publications

  • Limke, Ally, et al. "Participatory design with teachers for block-based learning with SnapClass." 2023 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC). IEEE, 2023.
  • Limke, Ally, et al. "A survey of K-12 teacher needs for an online programming learning system." Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2024.
  • Limke, Ally, et al. "What does it take to support problem solving in programming classrooms? A new framework from the K-12 teacher perspective." Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2025.
  • Limke, Ally, et al. "ClassEcho: A Tool for Observing, Visualizing, and Analyzing Student-Teacher Interactions in K-12 Computing Classrooms." Proceedings of the Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2026.