Research

UT Tyler Department of Computer Science

Leonard L. Brown
Interim Chair and Associate Professor of Computer Science
PhD, The University of Oklahoma

Areas of teaching and research interest: Database Management Systems, Multimedia Systems, Content-Based Image Retrieval, Information Retrieval.

Dr. Leonard Brown is the Interim Chair and an Associate Professor in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Tyler. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from The University of Oklahoma in 2003. Prior to that, he was a Member of Technical Staff-I at AT&T in Oklahoma City. His research interests include multimedia database management systems and information retrieval. He has published over a dozen technical articles in journals and conference proceedings, and he was awarded a NASA Summer Faculty Fellowship in 2004 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA. He is a member of ACM and IEEE.

Lidan Fan
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
PhD. The University of Texas at Dallas

Areas of teaching and research interest: Data Communications and networking, Database Management, Data Mining and Security in Network Environments, especially in Social Networks, Algorithms and Theory of Computing.

Dr. Lidan Fan is the Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Tyler. She received her Ph.D. degree at the Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Dallas in 2014. Her research interests include data mining and security in network environments, especially in social networks, algorithms and theory of computing.

Arun Kulkarni
Professor of Computer Science
PhD, Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay)
Post-doctoral fellowship: Virginia Tech.

Areas of teaching and research interest: Soft Computing, Remote Sensing and GIS, Data Mining, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Data Base Systems.

Dr. Arun Kulkarni, Professor of Computer Science, has been with The University of Texas at Tyler since 1986 and currently serves as interim chair of the department. He has more than sixty refereed papers to his credit, and he has authored two books. His awards include the 2005-2006 President's Scholarly Achievement Award, 2001-2002 Chancellor's Council Outstanding Teaching award, 1999-2000 Alpha Chi Outstanding Faculty Member, 1997 NASA/ASEE Summer Faculty Fellowship award, 1997 Piper award nominee for The University of Texas at Tyler, and the 1984 Fulbright Fellowship award. He has successfully completed eight research grants during the past ten years.

Kay Pleasant
Senior Lecturer of Computer Science
MS, The University of Texas at Tyler

Areas of teaching and research interest: Computer Science Education, C/C++, Java/Object-Oriented Design and Programming.

Ms. Pleasant serves as lead advisor for all entering computer science and computer information systems students. She was co-PI for U.T. Tyler's involvement in the Infinity Project and most recently served as student contests coordinator for the Texas Computer Education Association. Kay holds Texas teaching certification in computer science 8-12.

Stephen B. Rainwater
Associate Professor of Computer Science
EdD, Texas A&M University-Commerce

Areas of teaching and research interest: Computer Science Education, Programming Languages, Algorithm Analysis.

Dr. Stephen Rainwater is Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Tyler. His professional career spans thirty-six years as a teacher of computer science and mathematics at the high school, community college, and university levels...the last thirty-two years as a faculty member at U.T. Tyler. Over the course of this time, he has taught more than twenty-five undergraduate and fifteen graduate courses. His research interest has primarily focused on the effectiveness of using low/no-cost software tools and techniques for teaching concepts in computer science.

Dr. Rainwater's professional leadership has included service as President of the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA), Computer Science Representative on the governing board of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), President of the East Texas Council of Teachers of Mathematics, program co-chair of the 1988 NCTM Southwestern Regional Conference, and mathematics section chair of the Texas Academy of Science. As an officer of TCEA, Dr. Rainwater on numerous occasions gave expert testimony re: computer science to the Texas State Board of Education and the State Board for Educator Certification. At U.T. Tyler, he has served as President of the Faculty Senate and director of an NSF-funded undergraduate research program which endeavors to increase the number of underrepresented minority students pursuing careers in STEM fields. In 2006, Dr. Rainwater was recognized with the UT-System Chancellor's Council Outstanding Teaching Award. In 2008, he was awarded the Lecil and Barbara Chandler Endowed Professorship in Computer Science. His doctoral dissertation researched the predictive effects of community college student characteristics on academic achievement in computer science at the university level.

Nary Subramanian
Associate Professor of Computer Science
PhD., The University of Texas at Dallas

Areas of teaching and research interest: Software Engineering, Systems Engineering, and Security Engineering.

Dr. Subramanian is the Faculty Fellow for Service Learning at the Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation at UT Tyler. For the past ten years he has been the lead instructor for the Capstone Project course which incorporates a strong collaboration with the industry. He participated in the Visiting Faculty Research Program with the US Air Force in 2011 and 2012. He co-founded the workshop series International Workshop on System/Software Architectures in 2002 and co-chaired ten editions of this workshop. He was voted the Outstanding Professor of the Year in the Department of Computer Science in 2008 by students. He is also a trained cyber-forensic instructor for the first responders in law enforcement.

Lidong Wu
Assistant Professor of Computer Science
PhD. The University of Texas at Dallas

Areas of teaching and research interest: Data Analysis and Communications, Databases Management, Computer Networks, Sensor Systems, Information Systems, Compiler Construction, Software Engineering, Information Security.

Dr. Wu joined the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Tyler August, 2014. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Computer Science from The University of Texas at Dallas in 2012 and 2014, respectively. She was a Research Assistant in the Data Communication and Data Management Lab and a Teaching Assistant at the Erik Jonsson School during 2010-2014. In addition, she has 5 years of industry experience in software development and web, mobile communication. She has finished 24 peer-reviewed research papers published in or accepted by reputable journals and international conferences. Her research has been supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, and partly by the Natural Science Foundation of China.