Maryam Hedayati ’18 joins computer science teaching faculty at Princeton
Hedayati studied computer science and psychology at Carleton.
Maryam Hedayati joined Princeton University in August 2025 as a teaching faculty member in computer science, bringing expertise in human-computer interaction.
Hedayati never had plans to study computer science. She entered Carleton College as an undergraduate without any background in programming, she said, and ended up in a computer science class because she registered late and it was one of the few classes that still had space.
“I just fell in love with it,” she said. The faculty and the teaching assistants were welcoming and encouraging. “They made me feel like computer science was something I could do,” she said, “and they also made me feel like it was okay to struggle.”
Now she wants to pass on that experience to her own students. Encountering computer science for the first time can be difficult, she said, particularly because you get feedback right away — either the program you’re writing works or it doesn’t. “Students are learning how to think in this new way, and I really enjoy helping them through that.”