Jonathan Whetzel

About Jonathan Whetzel

Howdy!I am a software engineer, AI researcher, game designer, and part-time professor. I started my career with the sole focus in becoming a video game programmer, and took a detour into the research world. After graduating college with a focus in artificial intelligence and statistical machine learning, I joined the Cognitive Systems organization of Sandia National Laboratories applying my knowledge to variety of game applications: building NPCs for training games, player modeling for behavior analysis and adaptive environments, and mining data from massively multi-player online games for understanding emergent social phenomena. I presently lead an internal organization called the Sandia Serious Gaming Consortium that brings together laboratory staff interested in applied research for game development. I also served as a staff member in the Interactive Simulation & Analysis group, building game-based environments for training and performing simulated \"what-if\" scenarios for national security applications.In my spare time I concentrate on improving my knowledge of game design and teaching others about this medium. I co-organized local game development groups (IGDA chapter, NM Game Jam) and published titles with local developers in Albuquerque. From my experiences, I have obtained an adjunct professorship within the Film & Digital Arts department at the University of New Mexico, where I teach game design courses and mentor students working on semester to year long projects. I love meeting folks who share interests in game design and applications of AI, within and outside of games. Follow me on Twitter (@JonWhetzel) or send me a message to connect.I\'m currently hopping between Berkeley, CA, Albuquerque, NM, and San Antonio, TX for my various positions.

Experience

1. Principal Member of Technical Staff

   Sandia National Laboratories

   May 2019 — Present · Livermore, CA, US

   Serve as technical lead on experimental wargaming: creating multiplayer, online wargames to study issues at strategic and tactical levels of conflict. This research involves combining elements of game design, data science, and AI development.I also partner with the University of California, Berkeley to assist with research on applying data science to nuclear proliferation detection. Our work is available at http://complexity.berkeley.edu.

Education

• Texas A&M University

  MS, Computer Science

  2002 — 2005

• Texas A&M University

  BS, Computer Science

  1998 — 2002

Skills

• Object Oriented Design
• Machine Learning
• Unrealscript
• Testing
• Visual Studio
• Ogre
• Ogre3d
• Xna
• Subversion
• Mysql
• Distributed Systems
• Git
• Game Development
• Java
• C#
• .net
• Software Development
• Python
• Opengl
• Unity3d
• Software Design
• Data Mining
• Mac Os
• Algorithms
• Eclipse
• Artificial Intelligence
• Sql
• Linux
• Php
• Perl
• C++
• C
• Programming
• Simulations
• Html
• Computer Science
• Software Engineering