{"id":3149,"date":"2016-11-17T07:30:38","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T12:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/?p=3149"},"modified":"2016-11-17T07:30:38","modified_gmt":"2016-11-17T12:30:38","slug":"from-ministry-to-computer-science-dr-tom-allens-journey-to-centre-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2016\/11\/17\/from-ministry-to-computer-science-dr-tom-allens-journey-to-centre-college\/","title":{"rendered":"From Ministry to Computer Science: Dr. Tom Allen\u2019s Journey to Centre College"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY GABRIELA CIPOLLA – ARTS & LEISURE EDITOR\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The path to academia is not always filled with professorial tweed and elbow patches from the beginning. At least, not for Tom Allen–Centre\u2019s newest Computer Science professor. Dr. Allen recently completed his doctoral studies this past spring at the University of Kentucky, but his journey to Centre College was not that of a typical computer scientist. <\/span><\/p>\n

Before <\/span>Dr.<\/span><\/i> was part of his signature, Tom Allen worked as a minister. After completing his undergraduate degree in computer science at Georgia Tech, he attended the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Dr. Allen felt that ministry was a very good fit for him for the first ten years of his adult life, but soon he began to notice some intractable problems that arose in his work. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI began asking questions that interested me,\u201d he explained, \u201cI worked with a lot of older people and saw the problems that their families had trying to take care of them.\u201d Dr. Allen expressed the difficulty that many adults face in caring for their older relatives. The pressure, time, and expense to aid the ones they love with boundless attention is too arduous a task for many working families. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes they just want to go to the grocery for a minute without worrying,\u201d he expressed, \u201cso I started to think about what kinds of computer systems could be developed to watch over someone…or help them live in their home a little longer.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Even someone who has trouble figuring out how to convert docx to pdfs, let alone consider developing complex code, can at least understand the human desire to take care of the people you love. Dr. Allen\u2019s inspiration came from observing that desire within his church and moving towards a solution that could truly improve the quality of life for caretakers and the people they care for. The removal of agency that comes with diseases such as Alzheimer’s or ALS makes miniscule decisions and actions extremely taxing–but with Artificial Intelligence, these daily stressors can be reduced significantly. <\/span><\/p>\n

The exploration of these questions all occurred during Dr. Allen\u2019s years as a minister, but he soon realized that he was heavily relying on the things that he learned from his time as an undergraduate computer science major. \u201cThis is an AI question,\u201d he thought, \u201cit\u2019s the kind of thing that is intuitive for a human being but difficult for a machine.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Questions such as, \u201cHow can we write a program to set the temperature of someone\u2019s house to a comfortable, but variable, level?\u201d and \u201cHow can we write a program to make sure a Dementia patient doesn\u2019t leave his house without wearing pants?\u201d guided Dr. Allen’s journey back to computer science.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a human being, deciding what to eat for dinner is fairly easy–unless you\u2019re a Centre student and the pickings in Cowan are slim. Our decisions are based on preference and alter according to our setting, temperament, and a myriad other factors. It would be very easy to construct a program that helps you decide what to eat for dinner every night–\u201cassuming you want to eat the same thing each day,\u201d Dr. Allen explained, \u201cand that is where it gets difficult.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are really bad about consistency,\u201d he noted. \u201cYou can ask someone to rank their top ten movies from \u2018worst\u2019 to \u2018best ever,\u2019 and within five minutes, that ranking may change.\u201d Accordingly, much of the research that Dr. Allen is primarily interested in is studying conditional preference. \u201cHumans are really messy,\u201d he concluded, \u201cthere is a lot of noise in our decision making, which makes it harder to sift through the data.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Although complex computer science guides the solution to these issues, at the core of the problem is something we can all relate to: freedom. How can we assure that even from the confines of a wheelchair or the confines of one\u2019s own brain that freedom is still available? How can we retain the agency of those who have lost core bodily functions? <\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Allen\u2019s unique path to professorial life is encouraging for those who are undecided about their future. Sometimes it takes years to find what you are truly passionate about. But when you find it, as Dr. Allen has, you are more well rounded and prepared to seize your life\u00a0and affect real change.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY GABRIELA CIPOLLA – ARTS & LEISURE EDITOR\u00a0 The path to academia is not always filled with professorial tweed and elbow patches from the beginning. At least, not for Tom Allen–Centre\u2019s newest Computer Science professor. Dr. Allen recently completed his doctoral studies this past spring at the University of Kentucky, but his journey to Centre […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-leisure"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}