Randy Pausch author page

Randy Pausch biography

Randy Pausch (1960–2008) was an American computer science professor whose work bridged human–computer interaction, virtual reality and design. He taught at the University of Virginia before joining Carnegie Mellon University, where he held appointments in the School of Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction Institute and the School of Design. He earned a BS in computer science from Brown University and a PhD from Carnegie Mellon.

Pausch co-founded the Alice project, a 3D programming environment that helps beginners learn to code through storytelling and animation. He co-authored the textbook Learning to Program with Alice, supporting classroom use of the software for introductory computing.

In September 2007 he delivered the lecture “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” at Carnegie Mellon – widely known as “The Last Lecture”. Its themes of purposeful learning and collaboration reached a global audience and led to the bestselling book The Last Lecture, co-authored with Jeffrey Zaslow and published in 2008.

Alongside academic work, Pausch completed sabbaticals at Walt Disney Imagineering, contributing his expertise in virtual reality to industry projects. He was named to the Time 100 list of the world’s most influential people in 2008.