For Roman, the students always come first. He has been in the forefront of efforts to reshape the graduate student culture; he views mentoring of doctoral students as a personal calling and an opportunity to engage in the best kind of teaching one can imagine possible. He is an advocate for a radical transformation of the way core classes are taught and for the adoption of active learning techniques. Roman's reputation as an innovative, caring and demanding teacher has been shaped by his pioneering efforts in the teaching of programming languages and software engineering. His classes are known for their unifying themes and vision, interestingly conceived assignments, and individualized attention.

Roman developed one of the very early software engineering courses in the country and he continues to teach it bringing real world experiences into the classroom.  The course is project based and emphasizes team work.