My name's Porter and I'm a PhD Computer Science Graduate Research Assistant at UGA. My current project focuses on creating a simulation in Unity to support machine learning for robotics in poultry farms. My biggest hobby is video game development and I always have a game that I'm working on.

About Me

I am a PhD student at UGA with both my BS and Master's in CS already completed. I'm now pursuing a Master's in Computer Science. I am working on creating a simulation for broiler houses (chickens farm) in Unity, using behavior trees and related research (like particle physics simulation). I'm also working on two other projects which involve educational tools for middle schoolers and creating a team-building tool based off my master's project.

I have a versatile all-around skillset in computer science, ranging from full-stack development, database design, developing simulations, analyzing computer vision models, and developing approximation algorithms through linear programming. While I'm content working within each of these fields, I really enjoy complex problems that involve optimization and high-performance computation. In the most recent semester, I developed a parallelized radix sort algorithm using CUDA C programming, which proved to be a really fun challenge. In a previous semester, when I was designing databases, I also really enjoyed the engineering of efficient databases and SQL queries.

Separate from academic activities, I've made several games, some of which can be seen in my portfolio. While games may seem like a silly hobby, I've found that the skills developed for creating a game are incredibly useful in several aspects of application development. I've dabbled into technical art using shaders, which is relevant to high performance computing with CUDA. I've looking into UI design, which is important for frontend development and user experience. I've explored secure data storage by even encrypting save data so that it is difficult for players to cheat. I've also had to spend a lot of time optimizing certain algorithms, such as pathfinding or enemy AI.

Aside from coding and development related activites, I love to boulder, workout, play video games and board games, prototype board games, read, write, and play dungeons and dragons. I always have a prototype board game with me that I can test with friends and family.