Mario Nakazawa's journey to teaching computer science took many detours. He traveled from his home country of Japan to graduate with BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. After a brief foray into artificial intelligence, he completed his PhD is Computer Science from the University of Georgia in 2005. His dissertation was on modeling how distributing data on a distributed system impacts execution time to find the optimal distribution to minimize execution time.

He considers his path to computer system arose from asking the following questions:

• How do people think?
• How can we make computers act like people and so therefore "think"?
• Is there intelligence that exists independently of people?
• How to computers work in the first place?

Since his start at Berea College in 2005, he has taught many computer science courses including those that are considered "systems based" (Operating Systems and Parallel and Distributed Computing), "theoretical" (Theory of Computing, Computational Complexity, and Algorithm Design and Analysis), and "design" or project-based (Database Systems and Artificial Intelligence). He has also taught the core computer programming courses and theme-based introductory courses (Game Design, Web Development, Programming using VBA, and Building Apps). He also has taught special topics courses when student interests arise, such as Intermediate Game Design. Perhaps surprising many but fitting into his myriad interests, Mario teaches Ballroom Dancing and developed courses in conjunction with the Business and Economics Department as well as the English Department.

Mario organizes the internship poster celebration that highlights the work of the 40+ computer science majors who have internships during the summer semester at places ranging from Microsoft to research programs at large institutions to local non-profits.

Mario has served as Computer Science Department Chair from 2013 to 2018 and had front row seat in the ballooning of the major. He enjoys talking to his students and the tremendous diversity of the student body with their many perspectives and experiences. As a night owl, he is probably known for his evening office hours from 10:00pm to 12:00 midnight once a week at the College library to fit the schedules of the students, who tend to be very busy during business hours. He endeavours to help students of all backgrounds and origins to feel welcome and empowered in computer science.

In his spare time, he enjoys spending time with family, cooking, hiking, visiting colleagues, philosophizing, laughing, and learning new things online.