Brian VanVoorst 91 '93

What is your fondest memory of your time in the CS department?

One of my fondest memories is due to Linda Ott. I was very surprised and delighted years ago to be nominated by Linda and awarded a Young Alumni Award (back when I was young). That was a great, great honor. Linda has always been a wonderful supporter. She also strongly suggested I should not be able to graduate college without learning how to drive a stick shift, and she also invited me to try skydiving - which was being offered one of the summers I was on campus.  

I am left with a very strong memory that the department, campus, and Houghton always felt like “home.”  I chose to stay for my master’s and even returned to MTU to teach for a few years. By my junior year, I chose to spend my summers on campus, which were wonderful. Because our department was small, I felt like the faculty knew me personally, and I knew them. It was a great time and it gave me a lot of confidence, personally and professionally. My greatest thanks go to all the faculty who taught me, and others I have gotten to know over the years.

When I started writing my master’s thesis I grew a beard, saying I wouldn’t shave it off until the thesis was done.  After I finished my defense, I decided to keep the beard and haven’t shaved it since. I defended my thesis in a flannel shirt (nice, clean, tucked in), which was a shock and irritation to a recent addition to the department, who told me that at his school people defended in suits, but Dr. Seidel thought it was in perfect form for a UP master’s thesis.

How has your education impacted your career?

Perhaps the way my education shaped my career the most was to steer me in the direction of research, for which I thank Steve Seidel. Steve strongly advocated for students to consider graduate school. Grad school led to a job at NASA (with Steve’s help), which has led to an entire career in research. I have really enjoyed this and found it rewarding. I have gotten to work on many “cutting edge” things (self-driving cars, AI, augmented reality, supercomputers …), published papers, presented at conferences, and patented a few things along the way. I have helped hire several MTU alumni, some of whom I still work with closely with today.