John C. Mitchell

John Clifford Mitchell is professor of computer science and (by courtesy) electrical engineer at Stanford University. He has published in the area of programming language theory and computer security.

John C. Mitchell is the Vice Provost for Online Learning at Stanford University, the Mary and Gordon Crary Family Professor in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University, co-director of the Stanford Computer Security Lab, and Professor (by courtesy) of Education. Under Mitchell's direction, the Office of the Vice Provost for Online Learning (VPOL) is advancing teaching and learning through faculty driven online learning initiatives and research, transforming education in Stanford’s classrooms and beyond.

Mitchell’s first research project in online learning started in 2009 when he and six undergraduate students built Stanford CourseWare, an innovative platform that expanded to support interactive video and discussion. CourseWare served as the foundation for initial flipped classroom experiments at Stanford and helped inspire the first massive open online courses (MOOCs) from Stanford that captured worldwide attention in 2011.