Charlotte’s Manuel Pérez-Quiñones Receives Computer Science Education Award
Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, professor of software and information systems in the UNC Charlotte College of Computing and Informatics, recently received the 2025 Special Interest Group Computer Science Education Award for distinguished service to the computer science education community.
“I have devoted my professional career to providing service to computing education through mentorship and advocacy for all people. It’s such an honor to have been recognized for this service,” said Pérez Quiñones. “I am the first Latino to get this recognition — I hope that this will create greater visibility for the importance of mentorship and advocacy to our Hispanic and Latinx communities.”
Established by the Association of Computing Machinery, the Special Interest Group Computer Science Education Award honors an individual with “a long history of volunteer service to the computer science education community.” Pérez-Quiñones will receive the award in February during the Special Interest Group’s technical symposium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Pérez Quiñones, who joined the University in 2015, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Computing Research Association in March 2024. He recently completed a rotation as program officer at the National Science Foundation in the Education and Workforce Cluster, which is part of the Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering Directorate. Prior to Charlotte, he was on the faculty of Virginia Tech and the University of Puerto Rico-Mayaquez and was a visiting professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and Northeastern University.