Judah Diament is a Clinical Associate Professor and Chair of Computer Science at Yeshiva University. Professor Diament worked at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center from 2000-2014, primarily focusing on middleware and distributed systems, from which he has 13 patents as well as a number of publications. During this time he impacted multiple IBM software products, including having his code in IBM products. From 2014-2016 Professor Diament was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs (Finance Engineering), where he researched, designed, and developed a custom language and tool chain which was used in a number of applications to reduce weeks to days for updates in application business logic in production. In 2016 he was invited to return “home” to Y.U. (Judah is an alumnus of both the college as well as RIETS), to prepare the next generation of Y.U. students for the same kind of success that he has enjoyed in his career.1. What profession did you think you would hold when you were an undergrad?
I thought I would be a rebbe and do some Computer Science on the side.
2. What aspect of your job with YU do you most enjoy?
Our students, our campus culture, and our institutional mission and values are vastly superior to those of other American universities, and it’s a pleasure to teach the best students in the best yeshiva/university.
3. How has your past work experience prepared you for this position?
My years at IBM, Goldman Sachs, and other large corporations taught me what it takes to succeed in the world of tech that our students want to enter. I also got to know a number of world-class people in the industry. That perspective, and those connections, have been critical drivers in how we have reshaped the C.S. major over the last few years.
4. What are some of your goals for the YC Computer Science department?
Everything we do in the CS department is driven by one simple goal: helping the students succeed at the highest levels they can. There are all kinds of things that have happened, and will, b’ezras Hashem, happen in the future to meet that goal, and different students are looking for different kinds of success, but student success is the bottom line and ultimate goal of it all.
5. What would your colleagues be surprised to learn about you?
I have 14 patents from my R&D work at IBM.
