Jeffrey Alan Turkstra

...but what about THE FOAM?!

The man behind the electronics, saxophone, motorcycle, and quite possibly that explosion that happened down the street...

Jeffrey Alan Turkstra grew up in Grand Haven, MI. He received the B.S. degree in Computer Engineering from Purdue University in 2004. He received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2007 and 2013, respectively, also from Purdue University.

From August 2005 through July 2006, Dr. Turkstra was a Charles C. Chappelle Fellow at Purdue. For the three academic years spanning 2005-2008, he served as an Instructor for the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. For seven years beginning June 2009, he was a full time Software Engineer with the HUBzero group in the Rosen Center for Advanced Computing. In January 2017, Dr. Turkstra began serving as one of the first two Professors of Practice of Computer Science at Purdue. He was promoted to the rank of Associate in August 2023. In 2024, the faculty voted to change titles from Professor of Practice to Teaching Professor.

Dr. Turkstra is currently a Teaching Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Purdue University. He serves on the Board of Directors for the not-for-profit Purdue Student Publishing Foundation (PSPF). He also enjoys occasionally dabbling in digital system design, serving as a consultant for a number of start-ups including Microfluidic Innovations, LLC.

Dr. Turkstra's research interests revolve around pedagogical tools and support of Computer Science curriculum with a focus on large enrollment classes. His expertise lies primarily in the areas of operating systems and distributed systems as well as, to a lesser degree, security. Current research activities include PeerVal, a peer evaluation system; C-Lab, a test module framework for C; Eastwood, a code style linter for C; EnCourse, a system for real-time class project analytics and tracking; and LewisStructures.net, an educational chemistry resource. All of these systems have been used by thousands of students in dozens of offerings for various courses here at Purdue and, in some cases, elsewhere around the world.

Previous research activities include a prototype thin client EDA environment based on Sun Microsystem's GridEngine and Sun Ray Server software as well as a multi-petabyte storage area network (SAN) research project operated by the Engineering Computer Network. Dr. Turkstra also created Metachory, the first virtual, distributed operating system.

Dr. Turkstra was awarded the ACM Faculty Award for “best faculty member” by vote of Computer Science’s undergraduates in 2022. He received the College of Science Team Award in 2019. He was a teaching academy Nominee in 2023. He has been nominated for the Favorite Faculty Award in 2021 and 2024. He was the recipient of the Graduate Student Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2006 and the Magoon Award for Outstanding Teaching Assistant in 2005.

In addition to tinkering with electronics and computers, Jeff maintains a great passion for other activities including skiing, backpacking, and playing the alto saxophone. He is an avid traveler, having covered over 18,000 miles in two months on his motorcycle in 2006. He also enjoys flying airplanes and obtained his Private Pilot License (PPL) in 2010.

Jeff has two wonderful children - Jefferson E. Turkstra and Alice J. Turkstra. The fourth member of his family, Thor Turkstra, is a Black Lab Mix adopted in 2023 Almost Home Humane Society. Jeff also maintains a 35 gallon fish aquarium with a variety of tropical fish.

More information is available at Jeff's website, https://turkeyland.net/.