Marco Papa
AI & Computer Science
Senior Lecturer at USC Viterbi School of Engineering with 22+ years teaching computer science. Pioneer of AI-assisted development in CS education. Teaching 1,000+ students annually across software development, web technologies, and agentic AI.
About
Background
Marco Papa is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California. His expertise spans web technologies, programming languages, and AI-assisted software development.
Before USC, Marco held leadership roles as CTO at CareerBuilder and Luckman Interactive, VP of Technology at US Interactive, and Director of Technology at Xceed — building websites for CBS, Hilton, and Universal Studios. He also served as Chief Technologist at the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles — the largest court system in the world.
Education
Ph.D. in Computer Science from USC, specializing in Computer Graphics (1988). B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy — Summa Cum Laude.
AI in Education
Marco is a pioneer of "vibe coding" — AI-assisted development methodology integrated across his courses. He publicly advocates that teaching AI-assisted coding is an obligation for CS educators: "resistance is futile." His upcoming CSCI 599 course on Agentic AI covers LangGraph, OpenAI Agents SDK, Google ADK, MCP, and the A2A protocol.
Personal
Originally from Bologna, Italy, Marco has lived in the Los Angeles area for more than four decades. He lives in the South Bay with his wife, Kerry, and their two cats, Franco and Luca. He's an active stock investor with interests in AI infrastructure plays and enjoys home automation projects.
Links
USC Homepage · Viterbi Directory · X / Twitter · papa@usc.edu
🤖 AI Briefings
Daily AI news with opinionated hot takes. Curated from X and the web, posted to @marcopapa99.