Will Briggs
Lynchburg College, Dept. CS
1501 Lakeside Drive
Lynchburg, VA 24501 /
ph: (434) 544-8157


Education:

  • Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Texas at Arlington, in December 1996, with a GPA of 4.0.
  • M.S. in computer science from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, in June 1989, with a GPA of 3.2.
  • B.S. in mathematics and physics from Mercer University in Macon, GA, in June 1984, with a GPA of 3.87.

Teaching experience:

2011-present: Full professorat Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, VA. Classes taught: Introduction to Programming; Programming I & II (in C++); Sophomore Project; Computer Languages; Games Programming; Internet Programming; Senior Project.

2005-2011: Associate professor at Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, VA. Classes taught: Programming I & II (in C++); Computer Languages; Games Programming; Senior Project; Web Design for e-Commerce; Discrete Mathematics.

1998-2005:Assistant professor at Lynchburg College, Lynchburg, VA. Classes taught: Programming I II (in C++); Computer Languages; Parallel Processing; Games Programming; Artificial Intelligence; Senior Project; Senior Symposium; Introduction to Computing.

1996-1998: Visiting professor at the University of North Texas, Denton, TX. Classes taught: Programming I and II (in C++), Artificial Intelligence, Computer Languages.

1992-1993: Undergraduate instructor at Fort Valley State College, Fort Valley, GA. Classes taught: Operating Systems, COBOL, File Structures, Digital Logic I and II, Algorithm Analysis.

1989-1994: Undergraduate instructor at Mercer University, Macon, GA. Classes taught: Programming I (Pascal), Introduction to Computing, Computer Graphics, Compiler Construction, Computer Languages, C, Ada.

Current technical interests:

Machine planning and learning; multiagent systems; game development; web development. Current work is on learning rules for reactive planning and on development of C++ for Lazy Programmers, an introductory text.

Consulting:

Created (with students Marcus Wright and Cliff Dunford) the UniGeez package for Ethiopian input in MSWindows, which the client Robert Van Buskirk of the Eritrea Technical Exchange estimated "will create hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars of net benefit to the Eritrean and Ethiopian economies over the next 5-10 years."

Grants and proposals:

  • PI for the National Science Foundation Scholars Program grant for $288,748 of scholarships in computer science and mathematics.
  • Acquired an internal grant for, and established, a cluster of 6 Unix machines at LC.
  • Acquired a grant for time on the NCSA Origin2000I, for the parallel processing class.

Presentations and workshops:

  • Four-week class for the Virginia Governor's School in Science and Technology: "Games Programming." Summer 2003, 2008, and 2010.
  • Lynchburg Governor's School, "Making a project class work for Governor’s School: Games Programming," July 2010. Presented to the Pusan Metropolitan School delegation.
  • Exploration for the 2010 Governor's School: "Writing Short Fiction."
  • Short course at Holy Cross Catholic School: "Programming in Logo," Oct. 2009.
  • Lynchburg Pulmonary Associates, "Keeping Your Business Safe on the Internet," Nov. 2007.
  • LC Teaching Idea Exchange, "The Biscuit Algorithm," January 2005.
  • Exploration for the 2003 Virginia Governor's School: "How to Build an Alien!"
  • Talk for the LC Science Gang in Spring 2003: "How to Build an Alien!"
  • Workshop for LC's School of Sciences Day, a recruiting event for high-school seniors, November 2000.
  • Workshop for the National Consortium for Specialized Secondary Schools of Mathematics, Science and Technology's 7th Annual Research Symposium, June 2000.
  • Interdisciplinary exploration for the 2000 Virginia Governor's School: "How to Build a Planet."
  • Lecture for the LC Science Gang in November 1999: "Why Can't Robots Just Get Along? Social Conventions for Rational Agents."

Committee work and service:

  • Developer of CS@LC, our department's blog for promoting itself to prospective majors.
  • Chair of Information Technology Resources Policy Committee, 2008-2009.
  • Chair of Lynchburg College's Computer Science Program, 2005-2006.
  • Chair of the LC Student Scholar Showcase Committee, 2003-2004; member, 2001-2004.
  • Member of the LCSR Committee, 2007-present.
  • Faculty interviewer for prospective students at LC's Annual Scholarship Competitions, 2002-2010.
  • Co-sponsor of the LC Programming Team, 2001-2007.
  • Agora Committee, for a publication of scholarly work by students, 2003-present.
  • Member, 2002 IEEE International Conference on Tools for AI Review Committee.
  • Member of the Florida AI Research Symposium Review Committee, 1998-2003.
  • Unofficial coordinator of the LC Science Gang, for talks on science targeted to undergraduates, in 2001; I ran publicity and web presence for this 1998-2004.
  • Maintainer of the Computer Science Department web page, 1998-present, and redesign of the School of Science web site, 2001.
  • Co-administrator of the Computer Science Department Unix lab, 1998-2013.
  • Reviewed the departmental curriculum for coverage of the ACM Curricula Recommendations for Computer Science, 1999.
  • Successfully proposed a curriculum revision to start the major with Visual Basic, 1999.
  • Judged projects the Virginia Junior Academy of Science 59th Annual Meeting at Radford University, May 2000.

Professional development and conferences:

  • International Conference on Tools for Artificial Intelligence, Newark, NJ, November 2009.
  • LC's Workshop on Innovative Teaching Methods, 2000 - present.
  • Consortium on Computing in Small Colleges, November 2003.
  • XTreme Games Developers Conference, September 2003.
  • NSF's Project Kaleidoscope annual meeting, October 2002.
  • The Lynchburg College Symposium Readings (LCSR) Training, May 2002.
  • International Conference on Tools for Artificial Intelligence, Dallas, November 2001.
  • Independent Eritrea: Lessons and Prospects, Asmara, Eritrea, July 2001.
  • Workshop on the Media, Lynchburg College, November 2000.
  • Personal Software Process Faculty Workshop at Southern Polytechnic, July 2000.
  • A Grant Workshop for the Sciences, Washington and Lee, April 2000.
  • Florida AI Research Symposium, May 1999.

Other qualifications:

  • Developer and instructor of our department's Games Programming class, which won LC a slot in The Princeton Review's Top 50 Game Design Programs, 2010.
  • Nominee for the Best Advisor Award, Lynchburg College, 2007.
  • Nominee for Shirley Rosser Award for Excellence in Teaching, Lynchburg College, 1999.
  • Experience in C, C++, C#, PHP, Python, LISP, Java, Ada, Pascal, FORTRAN, PROLOG, lex, yacc, and Intel and Motorola assembler.
  • Experience in Unix system administration.
  • Membership in Tau Beta Pi and ACM.
  • Eight short stories published to date, one with an award.
  • Author of the lcgl 3-D graphics wrapper library, the SSDL 2-D graphics wrapper library, and (with student Ryan Fu) the MiGroup web site package.

Publications

  • Will Briggs and Brad Dawson, Fast suboptimal planning with nexus states, International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence (ICTAI-2001), November 2001.
  • Marcus Wright,Will Briggs,Robert Van Buskirk,and Craig Harmer, "The use of international encoding standards for local language computer software, documents and data," Independent Eritrea: Lessons and Prospects, the International Conference Commemorating The 10th Anniversary Of The Independence Of Eritrea, July 2001, Asmara, Eritrea.
  • Will Briggs and Diane J. Cook, Anytime planning for optimal tradeoff between deliberative and reactive planning, Proceedings of the 1999 Florida AI Research Symposium (FLAIRS-99), May 1999.
  • Will Briggs and Diane J. Cook, An intellegent approach to flexible resource allocation in multiagent systems, Proceedings of the 1996 Florida AI Research Symposium (FLAIRS-96), May 1996.
  • Will Briggs and Diane J. Cook, Flexible social laws,Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) , Montréal, Canada, 1995.
  • Will Briggs and Diane J. Cook, Scaleable modularity to reduce communication in multiagent planning,Technical Report TR-CSE-95-004, University of Texas at Arlington, 1995.
  • Will Briggs and Diane J. Cook, Local planning and teamwork: minimizing communication in multiagent planning, Technical Report TR-CSE-95-001, University of Texas at Arlington, 1995.
  • Will Briggs and Lynn Peterson, A formal specification of output in writing systems, Proceedings of the North Texas Natural Language Processing Workshop, University of Texas at Arlington, May 23, 1994.
  • N. F. Ezquerra, E. V. Garcia, J. W. Peifer, C. D. Cooke, J. L. Klein, J. P. Skelton, and W. S. Briggs, Quantification and visualization of 3D cardiac imagery, Proceedings of the World Congress on Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, San Antonio, TX, August 6-12, 1988.
  • J. W. Peifer, C. D. Cooke, J. P. Skelton, J. L. Klein, N. F. Ezquerra, M. Weingarten, W. S. Briggs, and E. V. Garcia, 3D visualization of coronary arterial tree superimposed on myocardial perfusion distribution, Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Society of Nuclear Medicine, San Franciso, June 14-17, 1988.
  • E. V. Garcia, N. F. Ezquerra, and W. S. Briggs, An expert system for interpreting thallium-201 tomographic images, Proceedings of the 1987 IBM Academic Information Systems (ACIS) University Conference, p. 40, June 28, 1987.

Presentations by sponsored students

  • Shawn M. Cherry. "Eden's Edge: the beginning." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2016.
  • Richard Cann-Perez. "Web programming internship for Hornet Headquarters." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2015.
  • Jacob Thorne. "Project Fracture." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2015.
  • Mike A. Carey and Daniel T. Brown. "Game Engine." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2015.
  • Travis Stocker, "Lynchburg Community Calendar: a project in PHP." School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2014.
  • Ragan Rudisill, "An OpenGL game using realtime physics." School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2014.
  • Jacob E. Thorne, Daniel Thomas Brown, William Ragan Rudisill, and Matthew Lipscomb, "From Start to Finish: Development of a 3D Racing Game." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2014.
  • Anthony McBride, Russell Delancy, Nicole Mullany, Deron Turner, Joe Bailey, Michael Carey, and Linwood Stevens, "Dawn of the Living: Wake Up Dead." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2014.
  • Hannah Michelle Frank, "Hornet HQ: Web Development in PHP, MySQL, and Javascript." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2014.
  • Bernard Davis, "LCForum: a free, public domain forum software package." School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2013.
  • Adam Lampman, "LCGL-Bullet: a game engine based on 3-D physics." School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2013.
  • Jeremy Hachey, "A multiplayer turn-based strategy game for networked Android." School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2013.
  • Derick Chapman, "CollisionX: A 2D XNA Game with Realistic Physics." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2012.
  • Brandon Gannicott, "Patent Warfare in the Smartphone Industry." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2012.
  • Kristin Marstin, "Online Website Builder: A Simple Way to Create and Maintain a Website." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2012.
  • Matthew Lipscomb, "Mini-Golf Adventures." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2012.
  • David Griffith, "Computer-generated Congressional Districting." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2011.
  • Aaron Ogden. "Pattern-based Programming."Student Scholar Showcase, April 2011.
  • Justin Hoover. "Learning Rules for Planning With Nexus States." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2011.
  • Justin Hoover and Bill Andrews."Learning Rules for Nexus-State Planning." Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS), October 2010.
  • David Griffith and Jacob Wyatt."Interruptible Automated Congressional Districting to Prevent Gerrymandering." Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of Undergraduate Scholarship (MARCUS), October 2010.
  • Curtis Hancock and Matthew Pietsch. "Preventing Gerrymandering with Anytime Automated Districting." School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2009, and Student Scholar Showcase, April 2010.
  • Danny Dewey-Vogt, "Sneak Attack: A 3-D Shooter in OpenGL." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2010.
  • Melissa Elliott and Thomas Goff, "Skycroft: Grow Your Own Landscape." School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2009, and Student Scholar Showcase, April 2010.
  • Justin Hoover, Curtis Hancock, Matthew Pietsch, William Zurita, Casey Rudd, Danny Town, Brandon Johnson, and Robert Scuzzarella. "Arena Game." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2010.
  • Hunter Harlow, Jacob Andrew Wyatt, Robert Wynn Blevins, Ryan Renfro, Wade Burnett, and David Griffith. "Temporal Wormhole Mini-Golf." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2010.
  • Travis Blount-Elliott, "Technological Advances in the Music Industry: the Feasibility of Free Distribution." Westover Thesis Defense, April 2009, and Student Scholar Showcase, April 2009.
  • Brad Williams, "OpenGL Programming with Zombies." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2009.
  • Tim Willis, "Nexus State Planning." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2009.
  • Dan Hudnall, "Physics, Geometry, and Really Painful Explosions in OpenGL." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2008.
  • David Heflin, "Murder at Summerville Inn: A 3D Adventure Game in OpenGL." Student Scholar Showcase, April 2008.
  • Hyun Jordan, "The Kanji Radical Learning System," School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2007.
  • Bill Walters, Brad Williams, Michael Holt, Thomas Goff, Tyler Cookson, "3D OpenGL Programming with Zombies,"School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2007.
  • Dan Hudnall, Robert Mills, Ryan Schauss, Evan Watkins, David Heflin, "How to Blow Up a Tank in OpenGL, "School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2007.
  • Hyun Jordan, "AmeriKanji: An Online Program for Kanji Learning," Student Scholar Showcase, April 2007.
  • Bill Walters, "The OpenGLCollada Animation Editor," Student Scholar Showcase, April 2007.
  • Dan Hudnall, "Rude Awakening: a 3D First-Person Shooter," Student Scholar Showcase, April 2007.
  • Zachary Daily, "An Animation Editor for Windows," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2006.
  • Steven Ferrell, "A 3D Game Using the OGRE Engine," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2006.
  • Michael Johnston, "An Interactive Video Training System," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2006.
  • Nidhi Jaiswal, "Hindi in MS Windows," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2004.
  • Chris Tolley, "Nexus State Planning," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2004.
  • Chris Tolley and Brian Timmons, "Penguins versus Chickens," School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2003.
  • Brian Timmons, "Robo-pult," School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2003.
  • Michael Verret and Andy Convery, "Id's Creation: A 3-D Video Game in OpenGL," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2003.
  • Tim Altman and Ian Johnson, "Planning with Nexus States," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2003.
  • Jason East, "The Left-Wall Hugger Robot and Its Amaze-ing Escape," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2003.
  • Josh Henderson, "Learning Tetris," School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2002.
  • Chris Jordan, "Machine planning tools," School of Sciences Research and Internship Symposium, December 2002.
  • M. J. Wivell, "The CRS Car Rental System," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2002.
  • Melba Copeland, "A Web-Accessible Database for Elementary Schools, Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2002.
  • Brandon Hughes, "The Intelliscribe Handwritten Input System," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2002.
  • Ben Cox, "Arithmetic Reasoning in Graphplan," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2001, and Virginia Academy of Science, James Madison University, May 2001.
  • Tim Altman, "Practical General-Purpose Planning with Nexus States," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2001.
  • Mike Brown, "A Method for Anytime Decision Networks," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2001.
  • Eric Cocca, "General-purpose Translation between Data Formats," Research and Internship Symposium, School of Science, December 2000, and Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2001.
  • Satoshi Sugiura, "Incremental Improvement of Existing Plans," Research and Internship Symposium, School of Science, December 2000, and Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2001.
  • Cliff Dunford, "Arabic Input in Microsoft Windows Applications," Research and Internship Symposium, School of Science, December 2000.
  • Marcus Wright, "Ethiopian Input in Microsoft Windows Applications," Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference of Undergraduate Scholarship, October 2000.
  • Sandy Gilbert, "Modeling Atmospheric Heat Transfer," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2000.
  • Ryan Goodwin, "Eliza Gets Personal: Connotation in Natural Language Processing," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 2000.
  • Daniel Dempsey, "Easy, Real-Time 3-D Animation," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase Poster Session, April 2000.
  • Ann Pulley, "Automated Transliteration of Roman to Amharic Script for Ethiopian Input," Lynchburg College Student Scholar Showcase, April 1999.