Joseph S. Szakas

I approach teaching by trying to present material and information in a manner that will help the student grasp it. When teaching, I ask myself, “If I were sitting on the other side of the desk, would I understand the material that I just presented?” I continually ask and answer “why”. I want to give students a basis for determining and validating the facts presented. If the student gets a reason and context for a fact along with the fact, I believe retention will be higher and understanding improved. I believe in supplying many examples of a topic from many different perspectives, in the hope that a student will embrace one as their key for understanding the presented material. I also try to relate current events to classroom topics, to demonstrate that the students are very close to the cutting edge of this discipline.

Research Interests 

• Java Programming
• Systems Analysis
• Database
• Geographical Information Systems
• Crime Mapping
• Parallel Processing
• Computational Geometry
• Computer Graphics
• Management of IT

Publications

“Voronoi-Diagram based Heuristics for the Location of Mobile and Unreliable Service Providers”, International Association of Science and Technology for Development (IASTED). Conference on “Advances in Computer Science and Technology”(ACST 2006), Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Jan 2006
Management of IT Professionals by IT Professionals for IT Professionals. October 2005 ISECON (Information Systems Education Conference) National Conference in Columbus, OH (Co-author McAleer) (Peer Reviewed) (Selected for journal publication) Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ). Volume 3 (2006)

Moving Past Gantt and PERT ? Reinforcing Metrics as a Management Tool for CIS Students. November 2004 ISECON (Information Systems Education Conference) National Conference in Newport, RI. (Co-author McAleer) (Peer Reviewed) (Selected for journal publication) Information Systems Education Journal (ISEDJ). Volume 3 (2004-2005)

Two Computational Geometry Algorithms: A Discrete Voronoi Diagram with Disappearing Seeds and Convex Hull. April 2004 International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. (Co-author Trefftz) (Peer Reviewed)

Approximate Parallel Algorithms to Solve the Voronoi Diagram and the Order-k Voronoi Diagram, April 2003 International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium. (Co-author Trefftz) (Peer Reviewed)

Auto Theft and Detecting Chop Shop Locations. The Atlas of Crime.

Oryx Press 2000. (Co-authors, La Vigne and Fleury). (available in College office)

An Automatic Method for Georeferencing Scanned 1:24000 USGS Topographic Maps. 1996 GIS-LIS. (Co-authors, Githuku and Ramirez)

A Parallel Algorithm for Approximating Graphically Voronoi Diagrams. Michigan State University Tech Report, ACS-81 of 1993. (Co-author Trefftz)

The Development of a Cartographic Database: The Center for Mapping Database Format. 1992 ISPRS. (Co-authors, Ramirez, Schmidley, Falcon)

Development of an Optimal Road Matching Algorithm (RMA), 1992

CFM Report-R-92-100. (Co-authors, Ramirez and Bossler)