HOUGHTON - He has recently been named a Fulbright Scholar.
Now, Charles Wallace, associate professor of computer science at Michigan Technological University, will be leaving in January to spend the next six months to teach and conduct research in the computer science department at the Pontificia Universidad Catlica in Santiago, the capitol of Chile, he said.
"My area is software engineering and it deals with the practice of developing software," he said.
A large part of that practice, according to Wallace, is communication. Some of Wallace's work deals with developing skills for communication and taking that to the classroom, which is precisely what he plans to accomplish.
The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government. It is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries.
Wallace said there are vast challenges of communicating about software and in Chile, he plans to help the university develop a software engineering curriculum, much like he did at Michigan Tech.
At Tech, Wallace helped develop the undergraduate degree in the program, bringing his extensive knowledge to the university leaving a lasting impression.
"Some of my work has been on trying to develop better skills in students," he said.
In Chile, being so far away from the U.S., Europe and Asia, he hopes to develop communication involving technology.
"I think it's an interesting challenge to look at how they communicate with the northern hemisphere," Wallace said.
Packing up with his wife and kids, the Wallace family will leave after the holidays, where in Chile, it is summertime.
"The semester starts in March and runs through July, so I'll be teaching and doing research," he said.
According to a release from Michigan Tech, Wallace earned a bachelor's degree in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, a master's in linguistics at the University of California Santa Cruz and his Ph.D. in computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan.
The Council for International Exchange of Scholars Web site said the Fulbright Program has "provided almost 300,000 participants - chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential - with the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns."
Stacey Kukkonen can be reached at skukkonen@mininggazette.com.