Computer science teacher Sharon Harrison will be leaving Lab and returning to Australia Jan. 29. 

Ms. Harrison first came to Lab during a teacher exchange trip. She had come to teach Computer Architecture and other classes at Lab while computer science teacher Marty Billingsley taught at her school in Australia. 

During her time at Lab, Ms. Harrison taught ninth grade Introduction to Computer Science and seventh grade computer science. She also created the Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning electives, which have become increasingly popular over the past few years.

“She was able to take over old courses and bring in new, innovative ideas,” computer science teacher Jeremy Schwartz said. 

Ms. Harrison’s impact in the Lab community extended past the classroom. She was a high school adviser, and served as an assistant coach to the middle school squash team. She also worked in the makerspace on computational design with some students.

“She is a dedicated teacher and hard worker,” Mr. Schwartz said. “She has done a lot to cultivate the computer science department even further.” 

Other computer science teachers will be taking over her classes. Ms. Billingsley and Mr. Schwartz will run the second semester of her Intro to Computer Science classes, while a long-term substitute, Tamasin Ford, has been hired to teach her AT Web Application Development for the rest of the year.

This story was updated on Feb. 1 at 10:20 a.m. to correct the names of the classes that Ms. Harrison taught.