I'm currently an Assistant Engineer (faculty member) at the University of Florida in the Engineering Education Department, where I am researching computer science education. I'm also an affiliate in the Computer & Information Science & Engineering Department. Previously, I served as Program Director over Game Development at Full Sail University in Winter Park, Florida (in the greater Orlando area), where I'd worked for 10 years and taught game development courses before moving into administration. I have worked as a teacher and contract game developer. I've also lived, worked, and studied in the Osaka region of Japan. I speak fluent conversational Japanese. I graduated from the University of Florida with my PhD in Computer Engineering.
I have a passion for computer science education and educational accessibility, and I am particularly interested in the nexus of these important topics (and game development as it relates to them.) For several years my work has focused on dual-modality environments that allow new programmers to go back and forth between blocks and text representations of program - and how we can use these in instruction in early CS coursework. More recently, I have been working with students to study how we can improve CS education accessibility, especially via online programs and remote work and assessments.
Previously, I have worked on educational and serious games. This includes work with the National Flight Academy in Pensacola, Florida, with whom I worked to develop flight simulator scenarios to help teach at-risk middle and high school students mathematics, physics, and history. I've also worked with Design Interactive on CogGauge, a game-based cognitive battery system developed on grant funding from NASA with the intention of testing brain injuries in space.
On a personal note, I spend my weeks in Gainesville and my weekends in Orlando and have a wonderful wife and three little monsters whom I absolutely adore. They keep me on my toes and motivate me to address the (usually unintentional!) bias in technical fields as it impacts young children, women, and people of color. I also love to develop games and, as time permits, play them from time to time!
