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About:

Jacob Gillenwater got his start making flash games for himself and his friends, then self-publishing them around various websites. During that same time period, he developed enough of a reputation that he began skipping classes to instead work for Sullivan North High School, handling basic IT operations. This experience led him to pursue Computer & Information Sciences at Northeast State Community College in 2014. He continuously did contract work until he finished his undergraduate degree from East Tennessee State University in 2019. Mr. Gillenwater continued onward to complete his master's degree in 2022. Throughout his studies he researched cybersecurity, human-computer interaction, especially within the context of virtual reality. His master's research involved combining two different AI techniques to teach an agent how to strategize and win the board game RISK.

Education: 

M.S. Computer and Information Science - ETSU, 2022

B.S. Computing - ETSU, 2019

A.A.S. Computer and Information Sciences - NesCC, 2016

Research & Interests:

Mr. Gillenwater's research area primarily focuses on Human-Computer Interaction, particularly for layout optimization, and virtual environments. Other areas of interest have included feature extraction for artificially intelligent systems, and malware analysis.

Courses Taught:

CSCI-1100 - Using Information Technology

CSCI-1250 - Introduction to Computer Science I (Introduction to Programming & Computer Science)

CSCI-1260 - Introduction to Computer Science II (Object-Oriented Programming)

CSCI-1260 - Object-Oriented Programming

CSCI-1900 - Math for Computer Science

CSCI-2210 - Data Structures (Data Structures & Algorithms)

Outreach:

Mr. Gillenwater is the Faculty Adviser for the ETSU Chapter of the Association of Computing Machinery. Mr. Gillenwater supports community outreach into the local school systems to teach K-12 students the fundamentals of computer science, programming, and how the application of mathematics shapes our daily lives.