ESP Biography



BENJAMIN NEWMAN, ESP Teacher




Major: Not available.

College/Employer: Stanford

Year of Graduation: 2021

Picture of Benjamin Newman

Brief Biographical Sketch:

Not Available.



Past Classes

  (Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

M7392: Computing (Fun)damentals in Splash Fall 2019 (Nov. 16 - 17, 2019)
Ever suspected that computer science was more than just programming? Ever been excited by this suspicion? Ever wonder about the basic, fundamental building blocks that go into computer science, from graph theory to bit-shifting to recursion to logic gates? Never heard of these concepts before, but think they sound cool? Come join us to dive into these intriguing computing fundamentals! Inspired by the Written computer theory questions on the American Computer Science League tournament questions, we're going to be exploring some of these fundamental concepts that will no doubt show up again if you plan to pursue computer science as a field of study (in more places than you'd expect). These concepts might sound daunting and complicated on the surface, but they can actually be really fun and accessible when you look at them from the right angle. That's what this class is for! We're assuming no background in these concepts at all, and only ask that you bring a curiosity to learn. :)


M6967: Computing (Fun)damentals in Splash Spring 2019 (May. 04 - 05, 2019)
Ever suspected that computer science was more than just programming? Ever been excited by this suspicion? Ever wonder about the basic, fundamental building blocks that go into computer science, from graph theory to bit-shifting to recursion to logic gates? Never heard of these concepts before, but think they sound cool? Come join us to dive into these intriguing computing fundamentals! Inspired by the Written computer theory questions on the American Computer Science League tournament questions, we're going to be exploring some of these fundamental concepts that will no doubt show up again if you plan to pursue computer science as a field of study (in more places than you'd expect). These concepts might sound daunting and complicated on the surface, but they can actually be really fun and accessible when you look at them from the right angle. That's what this class is for! We're assuming no background in these concepts at all, and only ask that you bring a curiosity to learn. :)


H7075: In a Manner of Speaking: An Intro to Linguistics in Splash Spring 2019 (May. 04 - 05, 2019)
Are you curious about language? Have you ever wondered about what we say and why we say it the way we do? Do you want to learn more about headlines like “Gator attacks puzzle experts”, whether a “stone lion” is really a lion and a “fake gun” is really a gun, and why “get well soon” isn’t a command? In this course, we’ll take a look at fun and humorous case studies of different kinds of linguistic occurrences. Through in-class experiments and group discussions, we’ll dive into the science (and art) of linguistics together. This class is about you and what you’re interested in, so bring your opinions to the table. We hope you’ll walk out of here excited about language and its quirks and amazed at the intricacies of the way we communicate regardless of the language we speak!


H6778: In a Manner of Speaking: An Intro to Linguistics in Splash Fall 2018 (Dec. 01 - 02, 2018)
Are you curious about language? Have you ever wondered about what we say and why we say it the way we do? Do you want to learn more about headlines like “Gator attacks puzzle experts”, whether a “stone lion” is really a lion and a “fake gun” is really a gun, and why “get well soon” isn’t a command? In this course, we’ll take a look at fun and humorous case studies of different kinds of linguistic occurrences. Through in-class experiments and group discussions, we’ll dive into the science (and art) of linguistics together. This class is about you and what you’re interested in, so bring your opinions to the table. We hope you’ll walk out of here excited about language and its quirks and amazed at the intricacies of the way we communicate regardless of the language we speak!


M6846: Computing (Fun)damentals in Splash Fall 2018 (Dec. 01 - 02, 2018)
Ever suspected that computer science was more than just programming? Ever been excited by this suspicion? Ever wonder about the basic, fundamental building blocks that go into computer science, from graph theory to bit-shifting to recursion to logic gates? Never heard of these concepts before, but think they sound cool? Come join us to dive into these intriguing computing fundamentals! Inspired by the Written computer theory questions on the American Computer Science League tournament questions, we're going to be exploring some of these fundamental concepts that will no doubt show up again if you plan to pursue computer science as a field of study (in more places than you'd expect). These concepts might sound daunting and complicated on the surface, but they can actually be really fun and accessible when you look at them from the right angle. That's what this class is for! We're assuming no background in these concepts at all, and only ask that you bring a curiosity to learn. :)


H6305: In a Manner of Speaking: An Intro to Linguistics in Splash Spring 2018 (May. 05 - 06, 2018)
Are you curious about language? Have you ever wondered about what we say and why we say it the way we do? Do you want to learn more about headlines like “Gator attacks puzzle experts”, whether a “stone lion” is really a lion and a “fake gun” is really a gun, and why “get well soon” isn’t a command? In this course, we’ll take a look at fun and humorous case studies of different kinds of linguistic occurrences. Through in-class experiments and group discussions, we’ll dive into the science (and art) of linguistics together. This class is about you and what you’re interested in, so bring your opinions to the table. We hope you’ll walk out of here excited about language and its quirks and amazed at the intricacies of the way we communicate regardless of the language we speak!


M6428: Sentient Sentiment Sentences: An Intro to Natural Language Processing in Splash Spring 2018 (May. 05 - 06, 2018)
Imagine a world in which machines can read, speak, write, and listen. Could they extract important meaning from all sorts of texts, from novels to online reviews to song lyrics? Could they translate languages real-time? Could they make judgments about sentiments of tweets or generate captions for images? Could they intelligently hold a conversation with you? In some ways, that world is already here. Come with us to learn about many different applications of natural language processing, and analyze the sentiment of your own piece of text through our workshop! Please bring your own laptop if you have one!


M6017: How to draw an infinite tree in Splash Fall 2017 (Nov. 11 - 12, 2017)
Join us as we use computers to draw Stanford's unofficial mascot: the tree! We'll learn to use a blocks-based programming language to make pretty pictures that you couldn't possibly draw by hand. Along the way, we'll explore the big ideas that relate fractals, fugues, and flying horses.