Direct Supply is fortunate enough to have several excellent relationships with universities around the nation. For years, we’ve partnered with these select universities on several internship opportunities, innovation projects and STEM-related activities and programs. One of our most successful partnerships that Direct Supply sponsors is our Summer Visiting Researchers program. This unique program invites university professors to join Direct Supply’s staff as expert researchers and facilitators for various projects throughout our businesses.
This Visiting Researchers Program concept is truly a win-win for both Direct Supply and our guest participants. The professors gain a new and powerful perspective on business, which they can take back to the classroom and incorporate into countless lectures and lessons over time.
The Direct Supply benefits are primarily two-fold. First of all, younger talent doesn’t often consider Senior Living as an industry to pursue for a career. That makes it incredibly powerful when our visiting professors return to the classroom and talk about Direct Supply, our mission and the customers we serve. This experience opens students’ eyes to a whole new field that is currently underserved when it comes to technology. Our industry will inevitably benefit as these promising talents join our mission to develop solutions to enhance the future of senior care.
Secondly, the business receives the incredible benefit of having outside perspectives. We find that our researchers’ individual approaches are often different than the Direct Supply teams they’re working with, giving us newfound strategies to help solve the most challenging problems facing Senior Living.
Below is a list of our esteemed partners and the projects they are helping with this summer.
Dr. Derek Riley
Program Director, Computer Science CS Associate Professor at MSOE
Demand Aggregation – DSSI Food
Derek Riley, Ph.D., joined the Milwaukee School of Engineering faculty in 2016 and is an associate professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department. He recently was named program director of MSOE’s new Bachelor of Science in computer science. In addition to teaching at MSOE, Riley provides consulting services for companies regarding big data, and helps them find ways to turn the information they are collecting into insight to enhance their bottom line. He is a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). His areas of expertise include big data, algorithms, process modeling and simulation, scrum and agile processes, and mobile computing/programming.
Dr. Chris Taylor
Program Director, Software Engineering, SE Professor at MSOE
Demand Aggregation – DSSI Food
Chris is a professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, where he serves as the program director for the software engineering program. Chris has taught computer science, computer engineering and software engineering courses at MSOE for the past twenty years. When he’s not teaching, Chris has had significant consulting engagements with local industry, including Mitra Corp., Johnson Controls, Inc. and Direct Supply, Inc. He has served as an expert in multiple patent disputes and is currently serving as a commissioner on the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, Inc. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Purdue University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from South Dakota State University.
Dr. Adam Livingston
CE Assistant Professor at MSOE
Cloud IoT Framework Retrofitting Devices
Adam is an assistant professor of computer engineering entering his seventh year teaching in the electrical engineering and computer science department at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. His teaching interests include digital logic, computer architecture, digital design, embedded systems, computer graphics and image processing. Prior to coming to MSOE, he was a middleware software engineering consultant for Red Hat. He holds a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in computer engineering from Old Dominion University in his home state of Virginia. When not teaching or consulting, he spends his time biking, camping and chasing his children around.
Dr. Josiah Yoder
SE/CS Assistant Professor at MSOE
TELS Asset Warranty Estimation AI
Josiah is an assistant professor in the electrical engineering and computer science department at Milwaukee School of Engineering. His research interests include deep learning, computer vision and machine learning. He holds a Ph.D. in computer engineering from Purdue University and a B.S. in computer engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Josiah’s professional interests have gradually shifted from computer engineering into software engineering and computer science.
Dr. Robert (Rob) Hasker
SE/CS Professor at MSOE
Feature Engineering Models for Personalization Engines
Rob is a professor in the software engineering and computer science programs at Milwaukee School of Engineering, where he teaches courses in design, software process, artificial intelligence, programming languages and projects. He has been teaching for over 25 years. Rob has worked on a number of projects in the industry, ranging from cellular billing to medical case review to avionics. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Wheaton College in Illinois. He is actively involved in the Software Engineering Division at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), currently serving as program chair for the national annual conference. His research interests are in software engineering education, programming languages and artificial intelligence.
Dr. Sohum Sohoni
SE/CS Professor at MSOE
VMWare Cloud Disaster Recovery
Dr. Sohoni is a professor of computer science at the Milwaukee School of Engineering. Prior to his role at MSOE, he served as faculty at Arizona State University and Oklahoma State University. He received his Ph.D. in computer engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2004, and his B.E. in electrical engineering from the Govt. College of Engineering Pune (COEP) in 1998. His research is in computer engineering and engineering education. A computer architecture visualization platform that he and his students designed has been used by over 2,000 students at three universities in the USA. He has published over 40 peer-reviewed papers and has received several best paper awards. He has received many teaching awards, including the Regents Distinguished Teaching Award in 2010 at Oklahoma State University. He is a member of ACM and ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education), and a senior member of IEEE.
Dr. Mark Hays
CS/SE Assistant Professor at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Improving Mutation Testing Performance Using Concolic Program Execution
Mark has been a professor of computer science and software engineering at the Rose Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana for the past six years. Since earning a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Kentucky, Mark has focused his attention to the specialization of software testing and quality. Prior to coming to Direct Supply, Mark gained eight years of industry experience in software quality and automated testing at IBM. Since beginning his teaching career, Mark has joined visiting professor programs with BP3 Global and Indigo BioAutomation.
