Welcome to my Website

Name: {{firstName + " " + lastName}}
Date of Birth: April 6th 1994
GitHub Devpost LInkedIn
Education

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, May 2015. Kent State University. Kent, Ohio, USA. Cumulative GPA: 3.30
Master of Science in Computer Science, December 2017. Kent State University. Kent, Ohio, USA, Cumulative GPA: 3.51
PhD in Computer Science, ongoing. Kent State University. Kent, Ohio, USA, Cumulative GPA: 3.52

Special Skills:

Programming Languages: C++, C#, Java, PHP, C, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, Python, Swift
Game Engines: Unreal Engine 4 & 5, Unity3D, Ogre
Drones/Robotics/IoT: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, ROS, Simulation
Computer Graphics and GPU Programming: OpenGL, NVIDIA-CUDA
Web Frameworks: ASP.NET, Laravel, Bootstrap, Angular.js
Virtual/Augmented Reality: Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Leap Motion, Zed-Mini, Magic Leap
Foreign Language Skills: Fluently read, write, and speak Arabic and English

Professional Experience

Instructor

Kent State University February 2022-May 2022
Part-Time Instructor. iOS Mobile App Development
Kent State University January 2022-May 2022
Part-Time Instructor. Game Engine Concepts
Kent State University January 2022-May 2022
Part-Time Instructor. Game Development Practicum
Kent State University August 2021-December 2021
Part-Time Instructor. Computer Graphics
Kent State University August 2021-December 2021
Part-Time Instructor. Introduction to Game Programming
Kent State University August 2019-December 2019
Part-Time Instructor. Introduction to Game Programming
Kent State University July 2021-August 2021
Lab Instructor. Summer Boost CS2
Kent State University January 2021-May2021
Lab Instructor. Computer Science 3
Kent State University August 2020-December 2020
Lab Instructor. Computer Science 3
Kent State University January 2020-May 2020
Lab Instructor. Computer Science 3
Kent State University January 2019-May 2019
Lab Instructor. Game Engine Concepts
Kent State University January 2019-May 2019
Lab Instructor. Computer Science 3
Kent State University at Stark January 2018-May 2018
Lab Instructor. Computer Science 3
Kent State University August 2012-December 2012
Lab Instructor. Introduction to Computer Science

Professional Development and Experience (6 years)

Advanced Telerobotics Research Lab at Kent State University May 2018-Present

Software Engineer, Mentor and VR Researcher. Design and create software for various applications like dynamic web-based VR Tours and VR telepresence robot interfaces in Unity3D, mentor undergraduate and graduate students, research and produce published work in various fields.
VR Tour (Desktop): Designed and created a desktop static VR tour with pre-loaded assets, 360 photos based on a real location, and a 3D generated tutorial stage.
Tools: Unity3D, 360 Camera, HTC Vive Pro, C#
VR Telepresence Robot Interface: Designed and created various iterations of a VR interface for operators using VR HMDs to immerse themselves in a remote robot’s environment and use data gathered from the robot and issue commands using specially designed control interfaces over ROS websocket and TCP communication protocols.
Tools: Unity3D, ROS, Websocket, TCP, C#, C++, Python, HTC Vive Pro, Oculus Quest 2, Arduino
Dynamic Web-Based VR Tour: Designed and created a dynamic web-based VR tour, based on a real location with 360 photos, where the client side is a skeleton that gets populated using data from a MySQL database and an Apache 2 server through a secure ASP.NET API, where the idea is that content managers update the content without taking down the client app for changes.
Tools: Unity3D, MySQL, ASP.NET, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, WebGL, Apache 2, 360 Camera

F&E Payment Pros. November 2015-May 2017

Kiosk Software Engineer. Building and designing new software for payment kiosks using ASP.NET 5 and working with third party hardware and software components.
Tools: ASP.NET, IIS Web Services, MySQL Database, C#, HTML, JavaScript, Cash Dispenser, Credit Card Reader

Paragon Software, LLC. June 2015-August 2015

Software Engineer. Build ASP.NET web application hosted on Microsoft Azure cloud services.
Tools: Microsoft Azure cloud services, ASP.NET, C#, HTML, JavaScript

Grader and Teaching Assistant

Kent State University August 2019-December 2019
Teaching Assistant. Game Development Practicum
Kent State University August 2018-December 2018
Teaching Assistant. Game Development Practicum
Kent State University August 2018-December 2018
Teaching Assistant. Computer Graphics
Kent State University January 2018-May 2018
Teaching Assistant. Drone Programming
Kent State University August 2017-December 2017
Grader. Parallel and Distributed Algorithms
Kent State University January 2017-May 2017
Grader. Parallel and Distributed Programming

Awards, Honors, Publications and Hack-A-Thons

Achievements

Participated in World Robot Summit 2018 and 2021 as the VR and Telepresence Specialist: Advanced Tele-Robotics Research Lab
Founded the Kent Fighting Game Community student organization, organized several tournaments and events: KSU, Spring 2019
Grand Prize Winner: Fashion/Tech Hackathon at Kent State University, 2015
Top 10 Team out of over 240: MHacks IV 2014
Top 5 and best Leap Motion Hack: Kent Hack Enough at Kent State University 2014
Best Mobile App: HackCWRU at Case Western Reserve University 2015
Top 10 and Best Real World Application: OH/IO 2015 at Ohio State University
Participating in NASA SUITS Challenge as the VR and Telepresence Specialist: Advanced Tele-Robotics Research Lab
Best Game Award: Kent Hack Enough at KSU 2020
First Place Winner: NASA SpaceApps Challenge 2016
Top 5 teams: Kent Hack Enough at KSU 2014
Leap Motion Sponsor Award: Kent Hack Enough at KSU 2014
Represented KSU at Entrepreneurship Immersion Week: University of Akron 2014
Multiple Dean’s List and Honors College Student, member of HacKSU and Peer Success Specialist: Kent State University

Publications

Design of a VR-Based Campus Tour Platform with a User-Friendly Scene Asset Management System: Springer 2022
A Novel Metric of Continuous Situational Awareness Monitoring (CSAM) for Multi-telepresence Coordination System: Springer 2022
Design of A Novel Transformable Centaur Robot with Multilateral Control Interface for Search and Rescue Missions: IEEE 2020
Design of a Virtual Reality Tour System for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: A Case Study: IEEE 2019
RoboCup Rescue 2019 TDP Virtual Robot Simulation ATR ( US ): RoboCup 2019
An Automated Toll Collection System for Bangladesh: An Experimental Approach: FCRAR 2019
Design of a Safe, Low Cost, Open-source, and Open-hardware Educational Drone: FCRAR 2019
Performance Comparison of NVIDIA accelerators with SIMD, Associative, and Multi-core Processors for Air Traffic Management: ICPP 2018
COMPARISON OF THE PERFORMANCE OF NVIDIA ACCELERATORS WITH SIMD AND ASSOCIATIVE PROCESSORS ON REAL-TIME APPLICATIONS: OhioLink 2017

Hack-A-Thons Attended

What else do I do?

Major League Hacker

I am a Major League Hacker!
I have attended and competed in over 20 Hackathons since my years as an undergraduate student. I have won multiple awards, including the grand prize at KSU's Fashion/Tech Hackathon, placed in the top 10 and winning Best Real World Application at OH/IO 2015, placing in the top 10 at MHacks IV, Top 5 and winning Best Leap Hack at KHE 2014 and best game award in 2020, winning Best Mobile Hack at HackCWRU 2015, and winning NASA SpaceApps in 2016, amongst many other accolades. I was also personally invited to participate in the first annual Hack The Planet in Mountain View, California.

Competitve Gaming!

President of Kent FGC!
I got into competitive fighting games and started a local fighting game club at Kent State University called Kent Fighting Game Community during Spring of 2019. The intent was to foster a community of like-minded people who are interested in playing fighting games competitively and casually, and make everyone feel welcome and comfortable no matter their background. We thankfully succeeded and continued to host events and tournaments since then, and have fostered some of the best players in the region in multiple fighting games, like Dragon Ball FighterZ, Guilty Gear Strive, and Tekken 7, amongst many more. We hope to continue supporting the local scene and bring these events to many more people in the future!

Performer

I'm a Rockstar!
I started playing guitar during August of 2009, and since then I have been in multiple bands, performed countless times as a lead guitarist in bands in addition to playing solo shows with me improvising over my own created backing tracks and covering songs I like. I love performing and playing music and somehow I want to incorporate it into what I do for a living. Or at least keep on playing as long as I can.

Projects and Activities

Telebot-3R, Advanced Telerobotics Research Lab

I was a part of the Advanced Telerobotics Lab team for World Robot Summit for the 2018 and 2021 competitions. This is the lab where I work for my PhD with Dr. Jong-Hoon Kim. My role was the Virtual Reality telepresence between the operator and the remote robot(s), building an interface to allow for immersive dynamic control. The goal is to allow the operator the freedom to do what they need to during the mission, while making sure they are getting the appropriate amount of information in a timely fashion from the robot and other operators. Here you can see some demonstrations and the roles performed by my colleagues as well.

Kent Fighting Game Community

This short documentary was done by the talented Zaria Johnson as a project for her studies. She was able to masterfully highlight the beginnings of the Kent Fighting Game community through various clips and interviews that were very well edited together. The Kent Fighting Game community was a club that I founded with others at KSU in Spring of 2019, along with my co-president Lonché Thrash, who was instrumental in the success of the organization as well. We started Kent FGC as a way to bring people together to play fighting games in an environment that allowed both competitive and casual players to thrive and be comfortable amongst their peers. We wanted to foster a community that helped each other grow and always stood for what was best for our fellow players.

Capsule Man! My very first game project!

During the third year of my undergraduate studies, I took an Intro to Video Game Programming class that focused on Microsoft XNA and Unity3D. The final project was a Unity3D project, and due to some creative differences with my group, I ended up having to do a whole project alone in a week to get this in on time, and I couldn't have been more proud of what I have accomplished for that short amount of time and for this being my first ever game. It has two stages, a topdown/ first person shooter level and a 2-d side-scroller level. The game features AI that patrol and attack you when you're close, pickups that let you upgrade your weapon, health pickups, checkpoints, music, particle effects, and much more. Check out the video!

Star Wars VR Pod Racer!

During BitCamp 2015, Matthew Allen and I really wanted to make something in the Unreal Engine, as we wanted to grow our portfolio of games made using it as well as our skills using the actual engine. So, we decided to have fun with it and make a Star Wars VR Pod Racing game. We even streamed our development live on twitch.tv and ended up on a VR news website with an article written about our little game, which made us feel awesome! I programmed the game using Unreal Engine's visual scripting tool called blueprints, as it allowed for us to be able to prototype the game quicker and iterate faster for the short amount of time we had during the hackathon. We had a lot of fun making it, and we had features that included laps, best lap time, best total time, checkpoints, speed boosts, and hover mechanics. Check out the video, I hope you like it, and may the Force be with you!

LeapVR DJ! Be a Virtual DJ!

MHacks IV was a big hackathon for me. This was the first time that I used the Oculus Rift, and I actually met the CEO of Oculus at that hackathon. It was during the rise of popularity for the oculus, during the time of the DK2. The Oculus still was not that popular with the hackathon scene but it was starting to grow so we decided to hop on early and see what it's all about. It was amazing, and I loved developing with the oculus rift. I created the game using Unity3D and the game put you in the shoes of a DJ at a busy club featuring smoke machines, strobe lights, balls that shoot fire particles when you look at it, a minigame where you do certain gestures using the leap motion to get a score, and of course, the DJ part, which at this point was a button that altered the music and made it seem like you were a DJ applying effects to music. It was completely virtual as the use of the Leap motion controller meant you used your actual hands and saw them in the game, making it more immersive.

DressYou, the virtual dressing room!

This is a different kind of game. It's more of a "simulator". It was made with Unity3D, and the idea was to give women a model to look at and see how the clothes would look on them. For the purpose of the demo, we used a bodyscan of our team mate who was the person who came up with the idea, and we used models made of clothes that she designed fitted onto the model when the buttons are pressed. It's pretty simple, but the purpose was to have a proof of concept demo to present.

LeapShooter, shoot em up!

This was the first game that I made using the Leap Motion controller. This was the first time I delved into the realm of virtual reality. Using hand gestures as input instead of a controller or a keyboard and mouse is the coolest thing I've experienced in a while and only because it actually worked really well. The leap motion uses IR sensors that accurately capture each finger individually and each hand seperately and each gesture you do is easily recognized and turned into code using their brilliant API. So using this cool tech, I decided to make a fun western style shooter game with classic moving targets. Check out the video!

SurfVR, surf's up, in VR!

In the spirit of being in California for the first time and being personally invited to attend and take part in the first annual Hack the Planet, Matt Allen and I decided to make a Virtual Reality Surfing Experience, which came out of the thought that this is a sport that barely has any games on the market, and we could start something fresh. We used the Unreal Engine and made a game where you are a surfer on a surf board in the water going in the direction you look and collecting things out in the ocean that increase your score. It's a fun and immersive experience due to the brilliant buoyancy effect of the water and the amazing visuals and lighting effects of the Unreal Engine. Unfortunately I do not have a video of it, but here is a photo with a nice scene from the game!