Teaching

• Introduction to Programming.  
• Course for people who have little or no programming experience.   Taught to students from any major on campus.  Currently taught in Java.
• Introduction to Data Structures
• Basic data structures (stacks, queues, linked lists, binary trees, lists, sets, maps).  Currently taught in Java.
• Freshman Immigration Course I and II
• A course to introduce cs majors to computer science as a field and some of the projects at Carnegie Mellon.   Co-taught with Rich Pattis or Jacobo Carrasquel.
• Fundamental Data Structures and Algorithms
• Sophomore core course that teaches students details of mathematical algorithm analysis and core algorithms from the field, such as graph theory, binary search tree balancing, heaps, priority queues, compression, and game tree searching.  Co taught with Danny Sleator, Klaus Sutner, and Margaret Reid-Miller.
• Technology Consulting in the Community.
• A course that engages students in a project with a non-profit client in the community.  Students are engaged in intellectual inquiry and communication throughout the course in a rigrorous environment.    Program run with Joe Mertz.
• Program web site.
• "Teaching Communication, Leadership, and the Social Context of Computing via a Consulting Course", Joe Mertz and Scott McElfresh, Proceedings of the SIGCSE Technical Symposium.. Digital library.
• SAMS - CS.
• A summer program for high school students, the Summer Academy for Math and Science.  From 2002-2004, I worked with Ananda Gunawardena and Neema Moraveji  on computer science projects with  students in this program.

Research

I received my PhD in Computer Science from Dartmouth College's Department of Computer Science in June 2002.
My thesis:  Locally Minimal Triangulations
Advisor:  Robert L. "Scot" Drysdale
 

Papers: 

• "A Triangle-based LMT-Skeleton of the Minimum Weight Triangulation", Scott McElfresh (in preparation).
• "On Exclusion Regions for Optimal Triangulations", Scot Drysdale, Scott McElfresh, Jack Scott Snoeyink.  Discrete Applied Mathematics 109 (2001) 49--65. [Preliminary version at CG98, 14th European Workshop on Computational Geometry.]
• "Fast Greedy Triangulation Algorithms", Matt Dickerson, Scot Drysdale, Scott McElfresh, Emo Welzl. Computational Geometry: Theory and Applications, 8 (1997) 67--86.  [Preliminary version at SoCG94, ACM Symposium on Computational Geometry.]
• Tech Report link.
• "New Algorithms and Empirical Findings on Minimum Weight Triangulation Heuristics", Matt Dickerson, Scott McElfresh, Mark Montague. Proceedings of the 11th Annual Symposium on Computational Geometry (1995) 238--247.

Some recent work in computational geometry includes:

Affiliations

• Association for Computing Machinery
• Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education
• Referee/reviewer for several of their symposia.  Have reviewed papers, special sessions, and workshops. (1995-present)
  
• Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges
• Northeastern Region
• Board member
• Past Treasurer
• Reviewer/conference committee member in various years.
• Advanced Placement Program
• Reader, for evaluating student reponses to the free-response questions on the AP Computer Science exam. (1995-present)
• Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
• Member.