Dr. Leitner is Associate Dean of Information Technology and Chief Innovation Officer for the Division of Continuing Education at Harvard University; in this role he provides vision and leadership in the development of technology-based initiatives, particularly in the area of online teaching and learning. He oversees a team of software developers and course developers and is building an applied R&D capacity to measure and improve learning outcomes through “learning engineering.” He created and now oversees the Master’s of Liberal Arts in Information Technology program, in which adult learners are exposed to modern software engineering methodologies, theoretical and formal areas of computer science, advanced topics in cryptography, nanoscale science, digital media arts and sciences and enterprise computing, as well as the latest trends in IT management.
As Senior Lecturer on Computer Science, for more than two decades Dr. Leitner has taught a number of large computer science courses for Harvard Extension and Summer Schools, as well as Harvard College. In 1999, he received the Petra T. Shattuck Excellence in Teaching Award, and in 2006 he was honored for 25 years of teaching at the Extension School.
Dr. Leitner co-founded Articulate Systems, Inc., a company that pioneered the use of voice recognition technology on the Apple Macintosh computer. He earned the Ph.D and A.M. degrees in applied mathematics from Harvard, where his field of specialization was artificial intelligence.
