Dr Jake Renzella

Welcome!

Narrowing the Gap: Supervised Fine-Tuning of Open-Source LLMs as a Viable Alternative to Proprietary Models for Pedagogical Tools Frontier Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini can decipher cryptic compiler errors for novice programmers, but their computational scale, cost, and tendency to over-assist make them pr...

New pre-print alert: arxiv.org/abs/2507.05305

Day of AI Australia selected for Google.org Accelerator: Generative AI cohort Day of AI Australia, together with UNSW, has been selected to join the prestigious Google.org Accelerator: Generative AI cohort for 2025.Day of AI Australia is one of 20…

I’ll be working with Day of AI Australia and Google to build interactive GenAI experiences for Aussie school kids! Read more: blog.google/intl/en-au/f...

Another year, another SIGCSE TS.

Our paper on conversational generative AI for programming debugging: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

A BoF session delivering a session on AI Literacy for K-12, presenting our lessons learned running Day of AI.

Capping it off with a visit to MIT RAISE and MIT Solve.

Is it managed by an employer?

Could be so many reasons, but on a fresh install it’s very snappy on an M1. Few years since a factory system reset, antivirus, SIP (I believe Apple hits their server on every app open!!), or if it’s a managed machine that can slow them down a lot.

A new approach to an old language | Engineering - UNSW Sydney UNSW's Debugging C Compiler (DCC) uses AI to help students learn C programming by explaining errors without fostering reliance on AI, aiming to prevent future software issues.

Really we’re just going to extreme lengths to ensure we can keep teaching C as our students’ first language: www.unsw.edu.au/engineering/...

@cyberhammond.com @litoria.bsky.social

(Not quite) end of term drinks @florasalim.bsky.social

Street full of parked cars in Bordeaux France, Google photo from 2008.

Same location in Bordeaux photo taken by me in 2023.

Before & After: I don’t think people realize the extent to which parked cars degrade public space.

Some mid-conference hacking to pull in real-time numbers into the Debugging C Compiler website, 14 million compilations! dcc.cse.unsw.edu.au

Putting together a starter pack of CS academics in Australia (+NZ), hit me up to be added.
go.bsky.app/N5x6GLQ

👋

CSE, UNSW Sydney is hiring multiple Associate Professors (Level D, tenured) on:
- Algorithms
- Computer Graphics
- Embedded Systems
- Formal Methods
- NLP
- Theoretical Machine Learning
- Robotics
Closing 27 Jan 2025. Those wanting to know about working in Sydney and Australia do reach out 🦘🎓
URL👇

Fine-Tuning Large Language Models for Better Programming Error Explanations | Proceedings of the 24th Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research

At Koli Calling in Finland presenting our very early work on fine-tuning Large Language Models to align them with pedagogical behaviour.

These models power our compiler error explanation system: dcc.cse.unsw.edu.au

Read the paper: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

@cyberhammond.com, @litoria.bsky.social

The Debugging C Compiler (DCC) - A novice-friendly C/C++ compiler The Debugging C Compiler (DCC) - A novice-focused C compiler.

Stoked to finally share that Google have funded our DCC + LLM research (research.google/outreach/air...) as Sasha Vassar, @litoria.bsky.social and I will design and develop pedagogically-minded LLMs to making programming more accessible. We are also launching our new homepage: dcc.cse.unsw.edu.au

Happy SIGCSE notification day! Celebrating the acceptance of our paper "dcc --help: Transforming the Role of the Compiler by Generating Context-Aware Error Explanations with Large Language Models". @litoria.bsky.social @cyberhammond.com