Computer Information Science Department at Clarion University

02/06/2023

11/29/2022

TechFloor has a new room in Becker Hall! It's open nearly every day, so if you see the door open feel free to check it out between classes, play some games, do homework, or just hang out!

For updates on when exactly the room is open, join the Discord!
https://discord.gg/JNBY92F

10/25/2022

October's CIS student of the month is Christopher Pozgay!

Chris has been nominated by Dr. Jody Strausser.

- Chris is a Computer Science major with a concentration in Cybersecurity and a minor in Leadership!

- He is active in Army ROTC and choir, and he is an IT associate.

- Chris says: "My favorite part of the CIS department is the passion that each professor has for their field. Each of them have spent so much time and energy in mentoring students and preparing course materials in a field that is ever evolving (some of which have to be changed mid-semester due to new technologies).”

- Chris’ future goals are to commission this spring as an Active Duty officer in the US Army in the role of Cyber Operations. He intends to earn his Masters in Cybersecurity while in the Army and hope to eventually become a military instructor in cybersecurity.

- He would like to shout out Dr. Jody Strausser, Dr. Brandon Packard, and Dr. Jeffrey Childs, who each have proven to be absolutely amazing instructors for him in the realm of computers. All of them are easy to learn from, and each of them cares deeply for each of their students. LTC Martin, SFC Devries, and MSG Rittersdorf have also been key in his development as a leader.

Fun facts:

- Chris may have graduated from Clarion Area Jr./Sr. High school, but he’s also lived in Washington and North Dakota!

- He is the youngest of eleven, and his oldest brother is over twice his age!

- He is engaged and expects to be married soon!

Congratulations Chris!

05/04/2022

Our final student of the month for the Spring 2022 semester is Grace Lipscomb!

Grace has been nominated by three of our CIS professors for her strong academic prowess and involvement in other activities. She is majoring in Physics with an Astrophysics concentration and Computer Science with a Cybersecurity concentration, and she has a minor in Mathematics! She works on campus in the Becker Lab, is the president of Math Club, and also enjoys hiking the trails and kayaking on the Clarion River.

Grace's future goals are to go to grad school or to hopefully find a job out of college where she can utilize both of her majors.

Grace's favorite parts about being involved in the CIS Department: "I really enjoy learning coding and the logic that goes behind programming languages, but the thing that makes Clarion's CIS department so awesome are the professors. Dr. Packard, an amazing person, taught my first ever coding class which inspired me to add the CS major. Him and Dr. Strausser are who made me love being in this major. They are always supportive and willing to help with anything no matter how long it may take to figure out. I wouldn't have been able to pass some of my classes without their help and understanding."

A fun fact about Grace is that she has a cat named Ruby who plays fetch like a dog! Congratulations Grace and keep up the good work!

04/06/2022

Our next Student of the Month is Camden Hankey!

Camden has been nominated for his great work in class, involvement in activities, and helping other students. He is a Computer Science major and Data Analytics and Mathematics minor. He works on campus in the File Server Room in Becker Hall, and some of his hobbies include traveling, longboarding, and hanging out with his friends.

Camden’s future goals are to get a good job after graduation as a software engineer, and he hopes to be able to move around the country a bit before settling down. His favorite parts about the CIS department are the professors because they all care very much about the students and, being at Clarion, it is easier for them to have more personal relationships due to the class size. He also says that he enjoys the students, as everyone is always willing to help each other and it makes for a great atmosphere.

Congratulations Camden!

03/04/2022

February’s CIS Student of the Month is Justin Anh Ta!

Justin has been nominated for Student of the Month for all the hard work he has put into his classes at Clarion over the past few years. He is an Information Systems major and he is involved with CINTA (Clarion International Association) and CU Asia on campus. Justin’s favorite part about the Department of CIS is the extremely supportive professors and resources available to further his research/study. His future goals include continuing his study with a focus on Bioinformatics to use technology to help more people.

Justin says: “I know the last two years were not the easiest for most of us but if you're struggling, please know that I wholeheartedly wish you all the best and please don't lose hope! There are still very supportive and loving people out there to help you. Together we can get through all of this! P.S.: Let's be friends and find me on my LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nhutbon/

Congratulations Justin!

02/11/2022

Attention: Becker Hall's new robotics lab is now open! The lab will provide students in the new Robotics Programming concentration with the tools they need to be prepared for a career in the robotics industry. Classes in the concentration will begin being offered during the 2022-2023 academic year. Be sure to check it out in room 142!

11/05/2021

Dr. Brandon Packard is in the process of creating an Academic Institute called Clarion University Gaming Academics, Makers, and Enthusiasts (aka CU-GAME)! The goal is to create a space to share academic papers and projects on video games.

"Anyone from any discipline who wishes to talk about video games in a serious light or create academic papers about video games and submit them to conferences and journals is welcome to do so here – whether they be computer science, art, philosophy, psychology, sociology, or any other field. Anyone interested in writing about or creating video games is welcome to participate."

For the full announcement, view our previous post! Dr. Packard's contact information can be found here:

© Clarion University of Pennsylvania GPS Address: 909 E Wood St. Clarion PA, 16214 Mailing Address: 840 Wood St. Clarion PA, 16214 +1 800 672 7171 or +1 814 393 2000

11/05/2021

"Video games have always been a primary hobby of mine. In grad school, I worked on getting various AIs and Machine Learners to play video games. Since I started at Clarion, I have been writing papers on different topics related to video games, from solving them to the ethicality of various game development trends. One of my core goals in these writings is to bring video games into a more academic light.
Video games have evolved past meaningless pastimes. Video games are used for training, propaganda, education, advertisement, and many other purposes in addition to entertainment. There are many aspects of video games that are academically interesting, from examining the code behind famous glitches, to social commentary based on the interactions of online games, to whether or not the reuse of art assets is an acceptable technique for video game development.
As such, I am starting an Academic Institute called Clarion University Gaming Academics, Makers, and Enthusiasts (or CU-GAME for short). There are many people in many disciplines, from undergraduates to faculty, who are ready to talk about video games in a more serious light. The goal of CU-GAME is to give a (metaphorical) place for them to do so. Anyone from any discipline who wishes to talk about video games in a serious light or create academic papers about video games and submit them to conferences and journals is welcome to do so here – whether they be computer science, art, philosophy, psychology, sociology, or any other field. Anyone interested in writing about or creating video games is welcome to participate. For now, collaborating with the center means collaborating directly with me, since I am the founder and only participant at the moment. However, the goal is to collaborate with other universities and entities, and one day grow CU-GAME into a hub of academic video game discussions -- and perhaps even spawn a conference on video games to be hosted at Clarion each year. I am also hoping to have a website for CU-GAME up and running relatively quickly, which will include a blog and space for projects which don’t become conference papers or journal articles.
If any of the above interests you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me and we can collaborate on something or find others who wish to do something similar. Thank you for reading and remember: We want to C U think academically about video games!"

~Dr. Brandon Packard

09/24/2021

Finally, our newest professor, Dr. Alawami!

Undergraduate School: King Saud University -Saudi Arabia
Graduate School: University of Pittsburgh

What made you choose to study DA? For me it was a love for technology and desire to understand it deeper. In middle school, I learned about PCs and how to put them together just by playing with my brothers who were in college at that time and studying CE and MIS. I think that got me hooked and fascinated about how they work and the most interesting part for me was the problem solving skills. In high school, we had a dialup internet connection and I was spending a lot of time with PCs at home. When I finished high school, I got accepted in to the CS department and a medical school in two other universities. I was torn between both just because it’s totally unusual for students with high GPA to go into CS department let alone a female! Almost all students with high GPAs will get into medical school. I had a lot of negative comments about not being able to find a job after graduating, how can a girl survive in this field but my parents were supportive of my decision. I made up my mind at that point and successfully completed 3 internships before I graduated and here I am now!

Why Clarion? I was applying for full time positions all over the north east. When I was interviewed at Clarion, I truly loved the family feel of our department. Everyone was nice, supportive and helpful. Clarion has its own charm! I think that’s how I think of it!

Favorite thing about programming and Data Analytics?
Most of it is the problem-solving aspect of both. I love the challenge of being able to figure out what is wrong (Looking for that sneaky little bugs in code!). Spending hours debugging only to find out that is a tiny silly mistake. In the DA field, I love the insights that you can get just by passing your data through an algorithm! Especially in business, It is amazing how much knowledge we can get from their daily business transactions.

Advice for students at Clarion in CS/IS/DA? Practice/Practice/Practice!

Any fun facts you want students to know? I am addicted to Coffee! Whenever you are near my office and smell coffee, most probably it is not me!

09/24/2021

Happy Friday! It's Meet our DA Professors day! First up, our DA Master's Program's Professor, Dr. Annadatha!

Undergraduate School: University of Pune, India – MS in Mechanical Engineering
Madras University, India – Bachelor of Engineering (Honors), Mechanical Engineering

Graduate School: Robert Morris University, PA – Doctor of Science

What made you choose to study CS/DA: Professional work involved extensive computational tasks and data-driven decision making. Accordingly, computers and data analysis were integral part of my professional journey.

What made you choose to teach at Clarion: Clarion University gave importance to teaching with applied oriented format. So, it was a natural choice for me to bring my years of professional experience to academics and engage with students while also learning from the students their expectations. At clarion, we want our students to be hands-on and apply their creative and learning talents to use.

What is your favorite thing about programming/Data Analytics? – Empowering people with data and allowing them to use tools of their choice to democratize and explore data, derive insights, and present actionable intelligence motivates me. Students are excited about making predictions using data mining, machine learning as well as data visualization as part of data discovery and analysis. Finally, exploring big data to derive value and handling capstone projects to take up a dataset of their choice and showing their analytics competency is what is the best part of teaching Data Analytics courses.

Advice for students at Clarion in CS/IS/DA: Never stop learning. Computers, data analytics and information are critical to any modern-day enterprise and a career in these areas are a great opportunity for students to contribute to a better future by solving complex problems.

Any fun facts you want the students/public to know:

· I like mentoring as a volunteering opportunity. Knowledge sharing is my hobby. By which I mean, share what I know from experience while also learn from others the good things.

· I like to be ever active and engaged with productive tasks. Never a dull moment is what I prefer.

· I like to engage with students in planning their academic journey based on their interests; career planning; college planning and career development.