Paul Cerkez
Visiting Assistant Professor
Student/Office Hours
See syllabus.
Biography
Paul Cerkez, Ph.D., Cerkez completed his doctoral research focusing on artificial intelligence technologies in 2012 and is a member (inducted in 2007) of the UPE (Upsilon Pi Epsilon), the International Honor Society for Computing and Information Disciplines. His dissertation research area focused on detecting hidden messages in the visual content of images and graphics (Automated Detection of Semagram Laden Images). He presented papers at the SPIe Defense, Security and Sensing 2010 and 2012 conferences and the IEEE Applied Imagery and Pattern Recognition workshop (AIPR) 2013 on his research. He has been a committee member of the AIPR since 2013 in the role chairman of Student Best Paper/Poster Awards. He was awarded the Innovative Application of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) by the American Association of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) on two occasions.
He is a retired United States Marine, serving from 1975 to 1997. He was a software developer and manager for DCS Corporation. His experience includes more than 28 years of direct computer experience in the development of custom software, more than 22 years of Naval Aviation avionics experience in the areas of general aviation electronics support and automated test equipment, as well as project manager/developer for multiple artificial intelligence logistics planning and configuration management software packages. Some of his past work included an Army Research Lab (ARL) project to develop the cognitive decision process model for a roll-based modeling and simulation environment. From 2005 to 2012, he was the lead logistics Subject Matter Expert (SME) supporting the software development for on-board diagnostics and off-board analysis systems for the new CH-53K helicopter. He later worked with the Navy’s H-60 helicopter program as a contracted software SME for NAVAIR. Most recently he has been active on the software engineering team for two programs. In one case, he led the logistics team in developing a plan for software development and software licensing of a wide variety of aircraft related software products. The other project, classified, involved developing an entire system, including the web front end and database back end, which allows analysis of sensitive data. Concurrently, over the last three year period, he was an adjunct professor of computer science for Florida Institute of Technology. Additionally, since the award of his Ph.D. in 2012, he had been a dissertation committee member for multiple students at Nova Southeastern University. His future research goals are an extension of his dissertation work with a hybrid neural network (HNN). While Convolution Neural Networks (CNN) offer great promise in image object detection, they appear to lack the capability to support the goal to improve readability of an environmentally compromised document.
Whether distance learning or in the classroom with students, his teaching philosophy is quite simple: hold all students to the highest standard. He teaches students so that they can understand and apply subject material, not simply pass a test; assignments, and assignment complexity, are appropriate to the education level being taught. Students are held accountable for their success and failure. The three core tenants guide his teaching philosophy are:
- Prompt feedback: Grade work as rapidly as possible.
- Constructive criticism: Identify where students may have made an error, why it was an error, and provide suggestions on how to correct it.
- Encouragement and accountability: Demand that students own their work, embrace and improve it, and then reward them for that.
United States Marine Corps
1975–1997, Aircraft Electronics
DCS Corporation
1997- April 2023, Software Engineer
2013-Present, Operations Manager
Education
Bachelor of Science: Electronics Management, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.
Master of Science: Computer Information Systems, Florida Institute of Technology. Concentration: Artificial Intelligence.
Doctor of Philosophy: Computer Information Systems, Nova Southeastern University. Concentration: Artificial Intelligence.