Shirley Cohen

Shirley Cohen is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Department of Computer Science at The University of Texas at Austin. She joined the full-time teaching faculty in 2026, having taught in the department since 2015, and brings more than two decades of industry experience in data engineering and cloud architecture. Most recently, she led data and AI solution architecture at Google Cloud, where she managed a global team building large-scale, repeatable data solutions for enterprise customers. She remains active in industry, advising organizations on data strategy, technical architecture, and the integration of modern AI systems. In the classroom, she draws on this experience to teach databases, data warehousing, and data visualization through hands-on, project-based courses that give students direct exposure to the tools and practices used in production data systems.