curriculum vitae

Robert W. Songer

Workplace International College of Technology, Kanazawa
Address 2-270 Hisayasu, Kanazawa, Ishikawa 921-8601 JAPAN
Telephone +81-76-248-2592
Languages English (native), Japanese (working proficiency)

Education

  • 2023
    PhD (Information and Computer Engineering)
    Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Kanazawa, Japan
    • Researching applications of recommender systems in education.
    • Developing a GitHub topics recommender system in Python using NLP techniques and Django to experiment on accuracy-based versus diversity-based recommendation algorithms and their effects on the user's divergent and convergent thinking.
    • Keywords:
      • Recommender Systems
      • Natural Language Processing
      • Machine Learning
      • Self-Directed Learning Contexts
  • 2015
    Master of Science (Knowledge Science)
    Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Nomi, Japan
    • Researched gamification and play in educational contexts for a thesis titled "Finding the Fun: Gameful Design of Classroom Goal Structures for Motivating Student Performance".
    • Analyzed user experience survey data for correlations between elements of a theoretical model and statistical differences between cohorts.
  • 2008
    Bachelor of Science (Software Engineering)
    Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA
    • Nominated and selected by faculty to be Undergraduate College Delegate.
    • Acquired communication & leadership skills through the Global Leadership Certificate Program and LEAD Program Public Speaking Series.
    • Planned mentoring sessions as an officer in the Society of Software Engineers and meet-ups as head of Japanese Conversation Table.

Experience

  • 2009 - now
    Associate Professor
    International College of Technology, Kanazawa, Japan
    • Facilitating educational courses for full-stack development including SQL and NoSQL data storage, application layer business logic and front-end web technology with domain-specific subjects including software engineering object-oriented design, and computer graphics.
    • 8 years of leading the ideation, design, planning, execution and documentation of up to 5 concurrent senior projects annually as Faculty Advisor.
    • Representing the school organization as a member of the CDIO Initiative for engineering education reform since 2010 with 6 years on international conference program committees including 3 years in a leading role.
    • Operating and maintaining an open-source learning management system on Linux as part of core learning and teaching technology infrastructure.
  • 2008 - 2009
    Software Engineer
    Language Intelligence, Ltd., Rochester, NY, USA
    • Incrementally developed, tested, and deployed a document translation review web application in JavaScript with XML/XSLT.
    • Developed custom features for enterprise resource planning software in PHP.
  • 2007
    Software Development Engineer in Test Intern
    Microsoft, Redmond, WA, USA
    • Developed automated regression and build verification tests in C++ for game engine animation and rendering components of the XNA Game Studio toolset.

Skills

  • Programming Languages
    • Python, JavaScript, Java, C#, PHP, SQL, HTML/CSS, MarkDown
  • Libraries
    • NLTK, NumPy, pandas, PyOpenGL, scikit-learn
  • Frameworks
    • Django, Express
  • Tools
    • VSCode, Git/GitHub, Jupyter, Node.js, MySQL, MongoDB, Eclipse, Redmine
  • Other
    • Full-stack development, Data mining, Object-oriented analysis and design, Technical writing and documentation, Agile development