BW Alum is a "Big Hero" after the 87th Academy Awards

BW alumnus Bill Kastak '86 (middle) with Big Hero 6 directors Don Hall (left) and Chris Williams

One Baldwin Wallace alumnus contributed to a "heroic" win at the Oscars this year. William D. Kastak '86 was a part of the Walt Disney Animation Studios team that brought home the Academy Award for "Best Animated Feature Film of the Year," Big Hero 6. Kastak, who studied mathematics and computer science during his time at BW, was a Character Technical Director on the project, specializing in cloth and hair simulation for the award-winning film.

Prior to Big Hero 6, Kastak had a hand in character work on Bolt (2008), Tangled (2010) and another Oscar-winner and smash hit, Frozen (2013), for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Frozen, Kastak said, is his favorite Disney project, because it harkened back to the feeling of the old, hand-drawn animation that he knew and fell in love with growing up.

After graduating from BW, Kastak went on to study Operations Research at The University of Texas at Austin and worked for G.E Transportation before breaking into computer-generated animation. Although he took an unusual academic path into the field, he says he still leans on the critical thinking and problem solving skills his math and computer science courses helped to develop.

The Brunswick, Ohio native says said he had never touched a computer until he came to BW and although the current digital media & design major didn't exist back then, the BW program now features courses in Maya, the software Kastak uses in his work making on-screen Disney magic.

BW Alumnus Touts the Benefits of 3/2 IT MBA Program

From Baldwin Wallace to a Big Apple media company, that’s the path that Ben Meadors took after graduating from BW in 2012. Meadors lives in Brooklyn, New York and works as the IT Manager and Post Production Engineer for ArkMedia, an award-winning production company that creates and produces television shows for PBS.

While at BW, Meadors participated in the 3/2 program, which allows students to receive both their Bachelor and Master of Business Administration degrees with one additional year of study. Meadors focused his MBA on IT and says that the 3/2 program was what attracted him to BW.

Meadors has found that his degrees are especially beneficial in small business settings where a broad set of IT skills are needed to help run a company.Meadors is the sole IT person at Ark Media and describes his position as a “one man IT department.” This means doing a variety of jobs such as: day-to-day tech support, designing and maintaining the network and writing tech policies for the company. It all gives Meadors “a great starting place into the corporate IT world.”

Meadors reports that Ark Media, has been doing quite well with recent projects. One television project, “African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross,” was aired on PBS and won two Emmy’s and a Peabody award. Another show produced by the company, “Cancer: The Emperor of all Maladies,” airs on PBS next month (March 2015).

Student Cyber Defense Team Wins Ohio Competition

The BW Cyber Defense Team, a collection of tech-savvy BW students who fight off strikes from nefarious hackers, took first place in the 2015 Ohio State Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC)!

Placed in command of a "realistic computer network," the team was tasked with maintaining uptime, completing business tasks, and defending the network from hackers. Winning teams were able to do all of these tasks effectively, and BW was among the most effective, placing first among 5 teams from Ohio and second overall with teams from six states entered in the showdown.

"We've worked many hours preparing for this competition," says Kenneth Atchinson, a BW computer science faculty member and advisor for the BW Cyber Defense Team. "This is as close to being in a 'real life' scenario as one can get. The experience of working as a team to secure the network, getting tasks from judges, then having hackers attack your system in ways you may not have expected - you just can't get this from a classroom."

The team will now go on to participate in the Mid-West Regional CCDC competition in Chicago on March 27-28, where the stakes are higher, the hackers "more fierce," and the judges more involved.

BW Computer Science Professor Fights Ebola in Liberia

Randy and Marcy Molmen

Randy Molmen, a professor in BW's Computer Science Department, his wife, Marcy, and his adopted son, Roosevelt Dolo, are working to stem the Ebola virus outbreak in Liberia. Their work was the focus of a an article in the Sun News and on Cleveland.com.

Roosevelt Dolo

Molmen and his family have had a personal connection to Liberia since their ten month long mission trip to the country in 2006-07. While in Liberia, Molmen and his wife taught at Cuttington University, where they met and adopted Dolo, a nursing student at the time. Fast forward and Dolo is now leading a movement in Liberia that provides families with health information about the Ebola virus to help eliminate common myths and misconceptions.


The Community Action Against Ebola team was created to educate the public and spread awareness. In addition to the information campaign, the Molmens are collecting donations to support Dolo and his team as they provide food to Ebola victims and basic necessities for survivors whose possessions have been burned following their diagnoses.

Donations can be made to the St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Berea. Funds are sent to Liberia weekly. 

Students Tackle Real-World Technology Challenges for OEC

Tyiler George ’15,  DeShawn Franklin ’15 and Cameron Cordes ’16 are ready to take on a project for EOConnection

Three BW students will be developing solutions for real-world technology challenges under an expanded BW partnership with technology employer OEConnection LLC, the parts e-commerce technology leader for OEM distribution networks.

Computer Science majors Cameron Cordes ’16, from Litchfield, Ohio, Tyiler George ’15, from Medina, Ohio and DeShawn Franklin ’15 from Maple Heights, Ohio are the first BW students to take part in the unique collaboration that will bolster OEC’s commitment to the development of technology talent and create an employment pipeline for students in BW's computer science and newly established software engineering major.
   
“OEC has been a tremendous advocate for technology education and has been working closely with BW to identify ways to prepare our students for the growing field of software development,” said Jodi Tims, chair of Math and Computer Science at BW.

Cordes, George and Franklin are taking on the inaugural project this fall, working as paid interns in BW’s Center for Innovation & Growth (CIG), under the supervision of computer science faculty, and in partnership with developers from OEC. Plans are to expand the partnership in 2015, to include semester and full academic year ‘capstone’ projects.

"It is a privilege to work with brilliant students such as DeShawn and Cameron, and gain valuable real-life experience," said George, expressing the students' appreciation for the internship. "We are honored and very thankful for the opportunity to work with OEConnection."

Read more on this technology partnership on the OEConnection website or at PRWeb.

BW Recognized as One of the Top Network Security Schools in US

Education Portal has recognized BW as one of the "Top Network Computing and Information Security Schools" in the country. Just 22 schools made the list!

Education Portal describes the in-demand field of network security as "the area of computer science tasked with planning and maintaining security for an organization's computer network. Those who work in network security can install security software, monitor networks for security issues, and gather data for prosecuting cyber crimes."

BW's Computer Science Department offers a comprehensive computer science major that utilizes a generalist approach combining theoretical study in computer science and mathematics with applications in software development, database systems, and systems design.

Cyber Defense Team Places Third in Regional Competition

At the 2014 Mid-West Regional Cyber Defense Competition, the Baldwin Wallace Cyber Defense Team took on 10 teams from nine different states and placed third. The competition, held at Moraine Valley Community College, featured some of the most difficult tasks in recent challenge history, and that made for an intense two-day contest according to faculty adviser and BW computer science professor Ken Atchinson.

BW advanced to the regionals by taking first place at the the Ohio Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition in February.

The competition involves building and defending a network of computers from professional hackers and completing network upgrades. This is the third time in four trips that BW has placed in the regional competition.

Computer Science Prof Advises Free Alternate to Windows XP

As Microsoft ended all support for the Windows XP operating, Newsradio WTAM 1100 turned to BW Math & Computer Science professor Kenneth Atchinson for advice on how users can cope and adapt.

Atchinson recommends that XP holdouts use a free download of the Linux operating system that comes packed with free software and usually includes free support and security updates. The radio report with Atchinson's recommendations also aired and is posted on the website of sister station Magic-WMJI.

Cyber Defense Team Wins First Place in Ohio

BW's Cyber Defense Team, advised by BW computer science professor Kenneth Atchinson, was tops in Ohio at the Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition (CCDC) State Qualifier for Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky and Ohio.

With the win at the state level, the team moves on to the Midwest Regional Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition to compete for the Midwest CCDC Champion title March 28 and 29 in Chicago.

Digital Design Major Lands Disney Dream Job

Walt Disney said, "If you can dream it, you can do it." Nick Snyder ’13 dreamed it & did it!

Read how the BW digitial design major found the opening to his dream job and hear Nick describe, in his own words, the path he took to land the internship that made it happen.

BW Programming Team Takes Another 1st Place

The BW Programming Team continues their winning streak following an outstanding competition season last year! During the 2012-2013 academic year, BW competed in 4 programming competitions and placed in the top third in each competition.

It seems that the team's success is carrying on into this competition year, as they recently claimed 1st place in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Regional Programming Contest at Muskingum University on September 28. In fact, the BW Programming Team was the only team of the 15 participating colleges to solve all four problems. Our team consisted of Computer Science majors Ben Adelson '14, Chris Moore '15 and Collin Simpson '15.

Computing Props

Hayleigh Sanders '16 won the Undergrad Poster Competition at the Ohio Celebration of Women in Computing (OCWiC 2013) this month. Hayleigh's work is a mouthful, entitled: TF-IDF Document Similarity Comparison Applied to Artificial Intelligence Decision Making. She is a member of professor Adam Anthony's undergraduate research group and he mentored her work.

Another of Professor Anthony's students, Anna Marchuk '13 presented a refereed paper at OCWiC... one of only eight papers accepted! Her work was entitled Holland Group Personality Based Collaborative Filtering.

BW's OCWIC conference contingent