John Hostetter Email & Phone Number

Raleigh, Nc, Us

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

I work in Dr. Min Chi's lab to help Improve Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) by applying offline (fuzzy) reinforcement learning. The offline reinforcement learning algorithms I create and employ in my research use a more interpretable neural network that has a rule-based decision making system. As a result, we are able to explain the model's decision making process by associating its output with rules that were activated and see how strongly they were activated. This type of neural network… Show more I work in Dr. Min Chi's lab to help Improve Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) by applying offline (fuzzy) reinforcement learning. The offline reinforcement learning algorithms I create and employ in my research use a more interpretable neural network that has a rule-based decision making system. As a result, we are able to explain the model's decision making process by associating its output with rules that were activated and see how strongly they were activated. This type of neural network is called a neuro-fuzzy network. Furthermore, the research I conduct using these neuro-fuzzy networks make them *self-organizing*. This means that the neuro-fuzzy network constructs itself automatically in accordance to the provided data - no need for manual input or design to determine the number of layers or "neurons". We then apply these models to help teach students about probability principles in our Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) called Pyrenees. Show less

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

I taught approximately ~1,000 students that are currently working in industry about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at NC State's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Academy. The AI Academy is subsidized with a five-year $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor and was designed in collaboration with partners such as IBM, Citrix, Microsoft, Hazardous Software, etc. This certificate program allows students to work alongside a mentor to learn about various subjects related to AI… Show more I taught approximately ~1,000 students that are currently working in industry about Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at NC State's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Academy. The AI Academy is subsidized with a five-year $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor and was designed in collaboration with partners such as IBM, Citrix, Microsoft, Hazardous Software, etc. This certificate program allows students to work alongside a mentor to learn about various subjects related to AI such as Data Science and Machine Learning. Specifically, in my role I helped lead virtual workshops with my peer, Travis Martin, to explain both theory and Python code regarding AI and Machine Learning. Example topics that we cover are semi-supervised learning (making use of unlabeled data for predictions), frequent pattern analysis (unsupervised learning for transactional data), convolutional neural networks (how to handle images in prediction tasks), and more. Lastly, I held office hours and helped prepare course material. Show less

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

Assisted student(s) with their exams for two different graduate-level courses by providing a scribe service.

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

Fall 2020 semester: Assisted with the delivery of CSC 422/522 Automated Learning and Data Analysis (68 students enrolled in CSC 422 & 150 students enrolled in CSC 522); this course is an introduction to concepts and methods for extracting knowledge or useful forms of information from data. In this role, I would design homework, prepare teacher solutions, and create grading rubrics. Additionally, I would hold office hours on a triweekly basis (rotated with 2 other teaching assistants)… Show more Fall 2020 semester: Assisted with the delivery of CSC 422/522 Automated Learning and Data Analysis (68 students enrolled in CSC 422 & 150 students enrolled in CSC 522); this course is an introduction to concepts and methods for extracting knowledge or useful forms of information from data. In this role, I would design homework, prepare teacher solutions, and create grading rubrics. Additionally, I would hold office hours on a triweekly basis (rotated with 2 other teaching assistants) and answer students' questions on Piazza as well as through email. Show less

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

Developed and executed an experiment study that leveraged knowledge distillation between neural architectures to gain insight into their decision-making logic. After distillation, the simpler model was mathematically translated to a rule-based logic model called a fuzzy logic controller (via the all-permutations fuzzy rule base property) where neuron activation could be further investigated. This study was applied to an e-learning scenario using an Intelligent Tutoring System and outperformed… Show more Developed and executed an experiment study that leveraged knowledge distillation between neural architectures to gain insight into their decision-making logic. After distillation, the simpler model was mathematically translated to a rule-based logic model called a fuzzy logic controller (via the all-permutations fuzzy rule base property) where neuron activation could be further investigated. This study was applied to an e-learning scenario using an Intelligent Tutoring System and outperformed the controls/baselines in improving student learning. Led to a publication at FUZZ IEEE 2023. Show less

Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

Fall 2020 semester: Assisted with the delivery of CSC 422/522 Automated Learning and Data Analysis (45 students enrolled in CSC 422 & 107 students enrolled in CSC 522); this course is an introduction to concepts and methods for extracting knowledge or useful forms of information from data. In this role, I would design homework, prepare teacher solutions, and create grading rubrics. Additionally, I would hold office hours on a triweekly basis (rotated with 2 other teaching assistants)… Show more Fall 2020 semester: Assisted with the delivery of CSC 422/522 Automated Learning and Data Analysis (45 students enrolled in CSC 422 & 107 students enrolled in CSC 522); this course is an introduction to concepts and methods for extracting knowledge or useful forms of information from data. In this role, I would design homework, prepare teacher solutions, and create grading rubrics. Additionally, I would hold office hours on a triweekly basis (rotated with 2 other teaching assistants) and answer students' questions on Piazza as well as through email. Show less

North Carolina, United States

Summer of 2020: Tasked with the development of coursework and workshop material for the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Academy's Data Mining course offered by NCSU. The AI Academy program is subsidized by a $6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor and designed in collaboration with partners such as IBM, Citrix, Microsoft, and Hazardous Software.

Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina Area

Fall 2019 semester: Supervised and taught two programming lab sessions (23 students in each) of CSC 216 Programming Concepts - Java. Held office hours to help answer students' questions, graded coursework/projects, and proctored exams.Spring 2020 semester: Assigned to an introductory course for the theory of computation called CSC 333 Automata, Grammars, and Computability with 69 enrolled students. I reviewed homeworks/exams for correctness, created grading rubrics and teacher… Show more Fall 2019 semester: Supervised and taught two programming lab sessions (23 students in each) of CSC 216 Programming Concepts - Java. Held office hours to help answer students' questions, graded coursework/projects, and proctored exams.Spring 2020 semester: Assigned to an introductory course for the theory of computation called CSC 333 Automata, Grammars, and Computability with 69 enrolled students. I reviewed homeworks/exams for correctness, created grading rubrics and teacher solutions, graded student submissions, and proctored exams. I also held weekly office hours to assist students' learning and answered students' questions on Piazza as well. Show less

Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

Built a cross-platform mobile application using Xamarin for clients to approve contractors’ timesheets.

Doctor Of Philosophy - Phd, Computer Science, 3.83

Research Interest: Fuzzy Logic Control, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

Master Of Science - Ms, Computer Science, 3.83

Bachelor’S Degree, Computer Science, 3.66

Activities and Societies: Secretary of Association for Computing Machinery at Penn State Harrisburg

Education record

Coursework in Engineering Physics