I am thoroughly enjoying my experiences here, from challenging and rewarding courses, to interesting and friendly peers, to career changing work as a TA in cse101. My first two semesters have confirmed my desire to change career paths and enter academia as a researcher, teacher and public servant. Service is important to me and I am an active member of the CSE Graduate Student Association and the Council of Graduate Students. Teaching is just as natural, exciting and difficult as I imagined it would be. I have a long way to go in developing my pedagogical skills, but I now realize teaching is one of the things I need to be doing for the rest of my life. Not only am I pretty good at helping students develop their skills and nurture their drive for exploration and discovery, but I have a real passion for it. Last but not least, research is also an important part of my present and future. I believe Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science are in the middle of a major paradigm shift, from top-down symbol and programmer driven systems, to bottom-up sensor, developmental and connectionist driven systems. It will take some time and a lot of work, but I look forward to making my contributions to the effort.
Information about my undergraduate work at Madonna University can be found here. Most of these pages are old and out of date, but provide some biographical and professional background.