David Janzen

Dr. David Janzen serves as Tabor College’s 14th president.

Janzen is a 1990 graduate of Tabor, majoring in mathematics and computer science. He was a full-time faculty member at California Polytechnic State University from 2006-21, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses. He served as its software engineering coordinator in the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering.

He was also adjunct faculty in computer science at Westmont College in Montecito, Calif., from August to December 2020. He previously worked in the software industry with Sprint from 1993-97, then taught at Bethel College from 1997-2006 and the University of Kansas from 1991-93 and 2004-06. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science during his stay in Lawrence, Kan.

He is the co-founder of Steadfast Innovation LLC, which created the handwriting note-taking application, Squid for Android and ChromeOS pen-based devices. Squid has over five million downloads, is a Google Play Editor’s Choice and was featured by Google as one of the top eight applications for education. The application led to strategic partnerships across the technology industry, including Microsoft and Google, among others.

He has published 38 peer-reviewed journal or conference papers and been awarded over $1M in research or outreach funding including three NSF grants. His research has spanned from empirical studies of software engineering practices to innovation and analysis of pedagogical techniques. His PhD dissertation examined Test-Driven Development, resulting in a top three placement in the Grand FInals of the ACM Student Research Competition. He served as a Faculty Fellow with Cal Poly’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and as a technology consultant with the San Luis Obispo Small Business Development Center.