A Calling Emerges: My Scholarship Narrative
I have a very active scholarly life that I believe merits an evaluation of excellent. The majority of my research boils down to three main areas:
- Innovations to pedagogy and course evaluation, frequently supported by technology, e.g. in the area of STEM to STEAM (STEM + Arts)
- Social implications of new technologies such as IoT (Internet of Things), VR/AR (virtual reality/augmented reality), machine learning and AI (artificial intelligence), blockchain
- Student-led collaborations, usually in the form of capstone projects
I am passionate about these things, and have enjoyed the increasing ability to discover new things and have new impacts that comes with the maturation of an academic career.
My Scholarship By the Numbers
I joined the New Jersey Institute of Technology faculty as a graduate student in 2001, joined the JMU ISAT department in 2006, and earned my Ph.D. officially in 2008. Depending on how you count it, I've had an academic career that has lasted between 10 (since earning PHD) and 17 (since first publication) years. During the course of that time I have authored or co-authored:
- 14 refereed journal articles,
- 11 conference papers or presentations,
- 7 book reviews,
- 1 published book chapter,
- 2 unpublished book chapters, and
- numerous blog posts (over 30 at present count)
I have been PI, Co-PI, or the recipient of:
- 12 funded projects or grants totaling over $645,000
- 8 unsuccessful funding proposals that, if awarded, would have totaled over $2.2 million.
I have a total of roughly 107 citations of my work. So on average, I have published 2-3 refereed publications per year, been cited 10 times per year, and have 1-2 funding requests per year, with a success rate of $640K out of a total possible $2.8 million, or about 22% success rate by dollar amount. My STEM to STEAM publication (co-authored with Nicole Radziwill and one of our capstone students) is one of the most popular papers downloaded from the STEAM Journal, the top journal in this area (even more than the paper by John Maeda, the "father" of this field!).
Non-Traditional Scholarship
I was the first runner-up in the international coding competition, The Weather Channel Samsung Developers Conference 2017 Innovation Challenge. Becoming a finalist came with a $3000 prize, a new Samsung smartphone, and travel and accommodations to the SDC in October 2017. In addition to professional development and scholarship, I'm also using the entire app development process as a case study in my software development courses.
I also mentored and participated in the development with the 1st place team at the 2016 Lindsay Institute Care for the Caregiver Hack-a-Thon in Richmond, VA. This earned press attention from the Richmond Times Dispatch, the regional AARP newsletter, and earned $5000 for the students on the team. I helped the team to go on to win the second round which came with $10,000 in seed money to continue developing their app: My Time for Caregivers. I continue to work with this team.
Summary
In short, I believe I have a very active and successful track record as a scholar, and a very bright and promising future that I believe merits an evaluation of excellent.