Dr. Josh Weese is a Teaching Assistant Professor at Kansas State University in the department of Computer Science. Dr. Weese joined K-State as faculty in the Fall of 2017. Dr. Weese received a bachelor’s degree from K-State Polytechnic in 2011. He has worked for Philips Lighting as a software engineer, Kasa Industrial Controls Inc. as an IT assistant and at the Cerner Corporation as a systems engineer intern. He then worked as a teaching and research assistant at K-State, and completed a master’s degree in 2011 and a doctorate in 2017.
Dr. Weese has expertise in data science, software engineering, web technologies, computer science education research, and primary and secondary outreach programs. He has been a lead developer for the Data Explorer, a data analytics and visualization portal hosted by PhysPort by the AAPT. The portal enables physics faculty to upload assessment data to receive instant feedback including expert recommendations and customized visualizations.
His main area of focus is computer science education, particularly creating and developing curriculum and assessments for computational thinking for K-12. He has been highly active in various outreach programs including Kansas STARBASE, Girl Scouts of the USA, USD 383 summer STEM camp, and more. Dr. Weese has also participated in research for machine learning applications including polyphonic signal detection, parody detection, and text extraction.
Currently, Dr. Weese is focusing on implementing grant projects from the NSF on broadening participation in computer science with a focus on rural Kansas students. He is also actively training in-service teachers how to teach computer science through grant support from the Kansas Department of Education in relation to K-State’s Cyber Pipeline program. Dr. Weese also co-directs the (Advancing Learning and Teaching in Computer Science Lab)[https://alt.cs.ksu.edu/] in the Department of Computer Science at Kansas State University.
Dr. Weese has published multiple refereed conference papers and book chapters, and has presented multiple invited talks and workshops. He has served as a reviewer for a number of different conferences and journals. Dr. Weese has been a highly active member in advocating for computer science education in Kansas including PK-12 model standards in 2019 and helping reestablish the Kansas Chapter of the Computer Science Teachers Association. Dr. Weese has developed, organized and led activities for several outreach programs for K-12 impacting well more than 4,000 students. These programs include GROW, EXCITE, USD 383 STEM Institute, Kansas STARBASE, Insight GK-12 and the Hour of Code. He has also developed and taught many other courses that include programming fundamentals, data structures, databases, software testing and computer science ethics. He is the current faculty mentor for the K-State Student Association for Computing Machinery chapter and serves as one of the mentors for the Diversity in Computing group in the CS department. Dr. Weese received the Teaching Excellence Award in the department of computer science starting in 2020 and was also named as a Kevin and Jacquie Elmore – Carl and Mary Ice Teaching Scholar the same year.