About Me

Associate Professor & Researcher

I am an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer and Information Science (opens in a new tab) at Allegheny College. I'm passionate about designing autonomous systems that improve quality of life and mentoring the next generation of computer scientists.

If you're a student, the best places to start are Teaching for current courses, Research to see what my students and I are working on, and Office Hours to book a time to talk about a course, a project, or getting involved in research.

Education

Ph.D. in Information Technology

University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2013

Master of Science in Mathematics

University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2007

Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems

Peru State College, 2004 (Summa Cum Laude)

Awards & Honors

Research Funding Awards

  • NSF CC* Network-Region: PA Science DMZ (2025)
  • Watershed Conservation Research Center mini-grants (2024–2025)
  • Responsible Computer Science Challenge Grant, Stage II (Mozilla Foundation, 2021)
  • IEEE RAS SIGHT: Robotics for Humanitarian Technology (2019)
  • CARE Fund for Undergraduate Research (2019)

Best Paper Award

13th International Conference on E-Commerce, 2011

For "Distributed Decision Making in a Multi-agent Prediction Market using a Partially Observable Stochastic Game"

Best Dissertation Award

University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2012

Professional Service

Institutional Service

  • Chair of the Department of Computer and Information Science (opens in a new tab) (2020–present)
  • Member and Co-chair of the Faculty Review Committee (2023–2025)
  • Member of the Art, Science and Innovation Steering Committee (2018–2020)
  • Chair of the Search Committee for Computer and Information Science tenure-track positions (2018–2019, 2022–2023, 2025–2026, 2026–2027)
  • Chair of the Search Committee for the Computer and Information Science Professor of Practice position (2024–2025)
  • Member of the Study Away and Campus Internationalization Committee (SACIC) (2015–2016, 2017–2018)
  • Co-chair of the Study Away and Campus Internationalization Committee (SACIC) (2016–2017)

Conference & Journal Service

  • Reviewer for IEEE Access, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, and Journal of Computer Networks
  • Reviewer for multiple international conferences (AAMAS, IAT, AMEC, EAIT)
  • Associate Editor for European Conference on Information Systems (2014)
  • Registration Chair for Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing (OCWiC) Conference (2016)

Community Engagement

  • Robotics Outreach: Run community events and workshops for Crawford Central students and families (2015–present)
  • Code with Chompers (opens in a new tab): K-6 computing outreach program (2024–present)
  • Robotics Workshop: OCWiC Conference workshops and academic panel presentations
  • Food Hub Web Service: Developed French Creek Food Hub web platform for local farmers (2017)

Professional Memberships

ACM

Association for Computing Machinery

IEEE

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers

AAAI

Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence