Four students from ÂÜÀò”șapp (UAH) have been selected to travel to Washington, D.C., next summer for the University of Alabama (UA) System’s 2026 Capitol Scholars program. UAH is a part of the UA System.

Christopher Watkins, a senior at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) majoring in computer science, has built an academic path that reflects both a technical drive and artistic curiosity. With double minors in mathematical sciences and video game design and development, he has shaped his education around understanding not only how technology works, but how it can be used creatively to build engaging digital experiences.

Watkins is currently developing a large-scale game project titled Eyes in the Woods, where he serves as both Team Lead and Programming Lead. In this role, he guides the project’s creative vision while building core features such as the Bigfoot AI, environmental event triggers, thermal and night vision systems, and the design of multiple levels. The survival horror game places players deep within a puzzling forest filled with unsettling phenomena.

“The player is tasked with helping the village that resides outside the mysterious forest after reports of strange sightings, missing persons, and damaged infrastructure linked to the elusive Bigfoot began to circulate amongst the townspeople,” Watkins explained. “The player must survive through environmental danger, traps, and psychological tension to make it through the night to help the village reveal the true story.”

Watkins says developing the game has been both challenging and rewarding. “It is most certainly a lot of work but doing this process has really taught me a lot and put into perspective how much work goes into a game.”

Beyond academics, Watkins serves as Vice-President of the UAH Fencing Club, where he helps run practices, organize demos, and supports the annual Rocket City Open, a USA Fencing–sanctioned tournament hosted on campus. He is also an Ambassador for both the College of Science, and the Computer Science Department. As an Ambassador, he assists with outreach events and departmental activities.

Along with other campus leadership roles, Watkins also serves as the VP for the UAH Fencing Club."

Through these experiences, he has learned the value of teamwork and stepping outside of his comfort zone. “All of these opportunities have strengthened my leadership skills and organizational skills that go into leading a club or working in a team,” Watkins says. “The outreach events have played a big part and made me comfortable in the social aspects. While I never had an issue talking to people, these opportunities have allowed me to continue to connect with people and put myself out there as a form of networking.”

Watkins says his interest in computer science grew naturally out of years of enjoying the logical side of learning. He was also fascinated by the creativity behind video game development, software engineering, and user interface design. In high school, he discovered how practical a degree in computer science could be. “I thought it was a very versatile knowledge base to have going forward and could be applied to many different fields no matter what,” he explains.

While video game development is his ideal career choice, Watkins recognizes the current job market of that specific pathway. “Having the Computer Science background would allow me to have more routes to explore and fall back onto,” he explains, adding that he has gained the foundation needed to suceed in a comprehensive computer science career.

Watkins, who is originally from Phenix City, Alabama, said his choice to attend ÂÜÀò”șapp came from a desire to grow independently and join a community grounded in STEM. “I saw that UAH had a good Computer Science program while keeping the same benefits that a lot of the larger in-state universities have,” he explains. “UAH had the advantage of being in a city where STEM thrived which would possibly lead to better opportunities.”

Smaller class sizes at UAH was also a deciding factor for Watkins. “I knew I did not want to go to a large university and UAH felt comfortable enough to where it had some sort of social presence but not overwhelmingly so.”

“Finally,” he adds, “UAH was one of the only in-state schools that had a Video Game Design field to study under. While only a minor at the time of my enrollment, it was enough to be a deciding factor for me.”

With Artificial Intelligence playing an increasingly large role in the world, the Computer Science major sees both opportunities and challenges ahead. “When used responsibly and in line with ethical standards, AI can be an incredibly beneficial tool in both personal and professional settings, saving time and reducing costs. It has a rightful place in modern society, and I believe adapting it accordingly is essential.”

“However, issues arise when people become overly reliant on AI or fail to verify its output. It’s important to understand and be able to defend the results AI produces, especially when they impact others or contribute to major projects,” he further explains. “While assistive AI can automate tedious tasks and relieve workloads, it also raises concerns about job displacement, data privacy, and transparency. Many companies still fail to disclose how their AI systems use or store user data, which creates ethical and trust challenges.”

Watkins also stresses the environmental impacts to consider. “The energy consumption required to train and run large AI models contributes significantly to carbon emissions. As AI becomes more integrated into daily life, developing sustainable and energy-efficient systems will be just as important.”

Looking ahead, Watkins plans to make the most of the Computer Science program and ultimately earn his master’s degree. He hopes to begin his career after graduation while continuing his education through the JUMP program, which allows undergraduate students to enroll in graduate courses. “I will still probably continue to do some game development. Should it not be a career for me, I would definitely continue to do it as a hobby,” he notes about his future career.

Throughout his time at UAH, Watkins says several professors have shaped his growth, but he adds that the friends he made have been just as influential. He explains, “A large part of it I owe to the various friends that I have made. They have helped me grow as a person and as a student. I have enjoyed being able to share my ideas with them and being able to discuss it with them. We help each other out both outside the classroom and inside the classroom.” He also credits his campus involvement and mentors for further enriching his experience, noting his work as a Computer Science Ambassador. “My supervisor, Tami Lang, has been a blast to work with. I enjoy being able to work with her and hear the many stories she has to tell. My time with the Game Design professors has also been a great experience. Dr. Vinny Argentina and Dr. Chuck O’ Brien has taught me a lot about this field and has expanded my skillset beyond being able to program. I’ve learned how to animate which was a big undertaking but a fun one.”

Staying current in the tech world can be overwhelming, but Watkins keeps up using news, social media, and professional resources like IEEE and ACM. In the future, he hopes to attend conferences and focus on the specific areas of computer science that most interest him.

For incoming students considering computer science at UAH, Watkins offers simple but meaningful advice: don’t doubt yourself, take advantage of the department’s many opportunities, and build connections early. “Coming into it, I had a little bit of imposter syndrome and thought that I was behind in my knowledge of computer science but I realized very quickly that I was more than capable of keeping up with everything,” he says.

He encourages new students to explore the many paths within computer science, and to build a supportive circle of peers. “Having a group of people you can rely on both in and outside the classroom will be very beneficial,” he says, noting that those relationships can make the journey not only easier, but far more rewarding.

Two significant construction projects at ÂÜÀò”șapp (UAH) – the renovation of the Bevill Center for the new Center for Cybersecurity Research and the new Track and Field Complex

Dr. Bramwell Brizendine, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at ÂÜÀò”șapp, is a recipient of the prestigious (YFA) from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in the amount of $500,000. The funding will support Brizendine’s work on Binary Emulation and Analysis Simulation Technology (BEAST), a cutting-edge system that helps identify and understand malware.

The objective of the YFA program is to identify and engage researchers at U.S. academic and non-profit research institutions and expose them to national security needs and DARPA’s program development process.

The DARPA YFA program is highly acclaimed and ultra-selective. The award is designed to identify and support the next generation of leading researchers. Brizendine is the first faculty member at UAH to earn this distinction. In 2025, only 26 recipients were chosen nationwide, and most from elite research universities. Brizendine was the only recipient from Alabama, making his selection a remarkable achievement for both UAH and the entire state.

YFA, which was established in 2006, provides funding, mentoring and industry and national security contacts to awardees early in their careers so they may develop their research ideas in the context of national security needs. The long-term goal of the program is to develop the next generation of academic scientists, engineers, and mathematicians who will focus a significant portion of their career on national security issues.

Per the DARPA website, "The program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior research positions in academia and equivalent positions at non-profit research institutions, particularly those without prior DARPA funding, to expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) needs and DARPA’s mission to create and prevent technological surprise for national security.” 

Through the YFA program, the DoD is investing in the innovation and vision of early-career researchers whose ideas have the potential to reshape the future of national security. The program offers critical funding to help these researchers on efforts that could lead to groundbreaking technologies and capabilities for the DoD. In doing so, YFA not only accelerates innovative scientific discovery but also helps build a strong pipeline of researchers who are deeply engaged in addressing the complex challenges that impact the nation’s safety and defense.

“The research selected for DARPA YFA is intended to be potentially transformational and high impact,” says Brizendine, noting that the program is similar to the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) awards.

At the core of Brizendine’s project is the goal of creating a more powerful framework for emulating and analyzing malware behavior, providing deeper insight into how malicious code evolves and spreads, including malicious functionality that ordinarily would not be reachable. “BEAST will be able to unlock or unravel secrets of malware that cannot be currently obtained,” he says.

Brizendine explains that many types of malware are designed with anti-debugging or anti-analysis techniques that detect when they’re being tested in a secure environment. When this happens, the malware may display decoy behavior or completely hide its malicious functions. He notes that anti-debugging techniques can make it challenging to analyze malware as it runs, particularly when using automated methods.

“Many modern malware programs are built to detect when someone is trying to study them and then hide or behave differently. That forces malware analysts to spend many long hours manually trying to analyze the malware, which slows down detection and response,” says Brizendine.

BEAST will provide novel methods to overcome anti-debugging. The real-world impact is seen with highly destructive malware such as ransomware or wipers, because traditional tools and techniques may struggle to analyze it, making it much harder to defend against.

Brizendine emphasizes that malware is a big threat, especially in medical settings where lives can be at risk. He added that hundreds of hospitals have been the target of malware attacks in recent years. In Germany, a patient was prevented from getting care after a ransomware attack at a hospital. “Even in Alabama,” he says, “there was an incident in 2019 where three hospitals had to temporarily close due to ransomware.”

Colleges and universities can also be subject to ransomware attacks, according to Brizendine. “There was even an incident of one university having to permanently shut down to a series of cascading failures that stemmed from a ransomware attack they could never recover from.”

Brizendine says malware has become a matter of national security, explaining that some attacks use a type of malware known as wipers, which are designed to destroy data rather than demand a ransom. With this kind of malware, the goal is to erase information on a computing device in a way that makes recovery extremely difficult or even impossible.

“With BEAST," Brizendine says, “We would be able to gain threat intelligence on the sample in question much more quickly, in an automated fashion, without requiring human analysis.”

“This could allow hospitals or schools that would otherwise be victimized by malware to use the threat intelligence provided by BEAST to take proactive preventative measures and avoid infection. Put simply, BEAST helps us quickly and automatically understand dangerous malware that uses tricks to hide from analysis, so hospitals, schools, and other organizations can act before they get hit,” he explains. 

The BEAST project will involve three students: Alexander Wood, Luke Bower, and William Lochte. The project also includes Dr. Kyle Murbach and Jared Sheldon from the UAH Center for Cybersecurity Research and Education (CCRE). 

ÂÜÀò”șapp (UAH) and The University of Alabama (UA) have partnered in a new initiative: Smart Manufacturing using AI-based Revolutionary Technologies (SMART).

Elijah Shannon, a senior at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) majoring in computer science, is helping define the future of artificial intelligence. As the founding president of the newly established Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Club, Shannon’s journey reflects a long-standing passion for research, sparked by an early interest in computers and coding.

Shannon is currently working on a self-designed Honors Capstone research project under the mentorship of Dr. Chaity Banerjee-Mukherjee, an Assistant Professor in the computer science department. Driven by the growing presence of misleading AI-generated content online, Shannon set out to develop a method for detecting such content - deciding that the most effective way to combat AI deception is through AI itself.

"Performing all steps of the research process myself with direction from Dr. Banerjee-Mukherjee, I conducted a thorough literature review, utilized modern state-of-the-art machine learning techniques, generated datasets for verification and validation, and am working on compiling the results into my capstone as well as a publishable conference paper,” Shannon says.

Shannon explains that the rise of AI online has led to increasingly realistic and convincing content. His research aims to ensure that data on the internet maintains integrity for all users, meaning AI generated content is labelled or filtered before arriving to an end-user. “I believe that, when used correctly, artificial intelligence can be a huge asset to expedite processes and can greatly improve efficiency. It is hard to predict how something so new with such an impressive growth rate will shape our world, but it is very exciting to be able to watch,” he adds.

When asked about the biggest challenges in his research, Shannon says it was stepping beyond established computer vision and generative techniques to explore newer, emerging methods. “This challenge has provided an excellent opportunity to learn and find footing for future research as well as advancing my current project,” he says.

Shannon’s early interest in computers led his parents to sign him up for a coding camp in middle school. After the camp, he spent time teaching himself the programming language Python at his home in rural Leoma, Tennessee. In high school, Shannon attempted to create a statistics-based chatbot for the messaging platform, Discord. “While the program was definitely flawed,” he says, “It provided a newfound appreciation and passion for artificial intelligence.”

Funded by the Airforce Research Laboratories (AFRL) Elijah Shannon worked under Dr. Mukherjee and his Ph.D. student Timothy McCorry to design and implement swarm robotics methodologies for an interactive, customizable, and scalable testbed for radio frequency (RF) research.

Coming from a high school with only around 400 students, the transition to a university was initially daunting for Shannon, who chose to attend UAH during his senior year of high school due to the advanced space and defense industry in Huntsville. Determined to “keep up” with peers from larger, more academically rigorous schools, he entered freshman year with a strong drive to succeed.

“I found myself feeling behind everyone else,” Shannon reflects. “However, this did not demotivate me.”

“When I began to take Calculus A at UAH, I felt incredibly behind the other students who had previously taken calculus and seemed to breeze through the course,” Shannon says, explaining that his high school hadn’t offered the course.

“Instead of feeling defeated, I took this as a challenge and strived to earn top marks,” they explains. Shannon ultimately excelled in the class. “I finally felt like I had ‘caught up.”

“UAH has given me the opportunity to prove to myself that I belong in advanced academic and professional spaces, regardless of my background,” he says.

Shannon’s determination didn’t stop at academics. In addition to his research, he quickly became involved in student leadership, founding the Data Science and AI Club to connect like-minded students and grow a community around cutting-edge technologies.

“The core purpose of the club is to create a student group to share resources, participate in competitions, and create a community for students interested in data science and artificial intelligence,” Shannon says. As founding president, he has recruited members, led meetings, invited guest speakers, and offered instruction to those new to the field.

“My passion for the art of artificial intelligence development has grown tremendously over the past three years at UAH, and I took on the presidency with the intent to share that passion with people who are interested,” he says.

The experience has also allowed Shannon to hone professional skills that he sees as essential to his future career. “Overall, my time as the President of the Data Science and AI Club has allowed me to share my excitement for the field of AI, and it has honed skills that will inevitably boost my performance in a workplace,” he explains.

Outside of the club, Shannon is also deeply involved in the Honors College and the computer science department, both of which have played roles in his academic and personal growth.

“I applied to the UAH Honors College shortly after being accepted to UAH, and this action has impacted my UAH journey tremendously,” he says. Through the Honors College, Shannon found a network of highly motivated peers and quickly immersed himself in opportunities on campus.

He has served as both an IT Intern and an Honors Ambassador, eventually becoming Co-Lead Ambassador. As IT Intern, he upgraded and streamlined systems for the college, while gaining exposure to valuable campus resources like undergraduate research, academic advising, and graduate school preparation. “The position provided the ideal steppingstone from my small hometown to the technologically advanced city,” he says.

As an ambassador, Shannon says he enjoys talking with new students. “Conversing with potential and incoming students enhanced my ability of public speaking and conveying information effectively,” he notes.

Shannon’s academic journey took a decisive turn at the end of his sophomore year when he joined Dr. Tathagata Mukherjee’s Data Science and Cybersecurity Lab to gain research experience. There, he helped design a swarm robotics testbed system for radio frequency research, funded by the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL).

This experience sparked a deeper interest in research that set Shannon on a new career trajectory. “I gained many fundamental skills necessary for academics to create and analyze research: conducting thorough literature reviews, applying methodologies in new and creative ways, identifying areas for improvement, and producing documentation,” he says.

Though he originally planned to pursue a career in software engineering, Shannon now has his sights set on academia. “As I have worked closely with professors on multiple research projects, I have discovered my love of research and pushing the boundaries of possible,” he says. “All in all, my research participation and design has led me to desire to pursue my Ph.D. in Computer Science and become a professor.”

Throughout his time at UAH, mentorship has played a crucial role in Shannon’s development. He credits Dr. Dr. Banerjee-Mukherjee and Dr. Mukherjee for guiding him through multiple research endeavors and offering continued encouragement. He also acknowledges the influence of Ms. Gina Battle and Ms. Jennifer Staton from the Honors College for helping him build both technical and professional skills.

“Between these academics and staff, I have found connections that offer invaluable advice for my career and research trajectory,” Shannon said.

Staying current in the fast-moving tech world is no small task, but Shannon maintains a focused approach, pointing out the many subfields in computer science. “I try to keep up to technical date with my niche subfield, and I like to have a more general overview of advancements in other Computer Science fields,” he explains. He reads daily updates from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and keeps a close eye on new publications in his research area.

For students considering the computer science program at UAH, Shannon has a clear message:

“My advice to potential Computer Science students at UAH is short
 do it! UAH has great resources, motivated professors, and awesome connections to industry,” he said. “The return on investment to UAH’s degree program, in my experience, has been incredibly worth it. With close connections to local industry and potential for flourishing as an academic, UAH’s Computer Science department has excellent conditions and potential to help a motivated individual excel.”

Nine undergraduate and graduate students at ÂÜÀò”șapp (UAH) received national scholarships and fellowships during the spring 2025 semester.

ÂÜÀò”șapp (UAH) announced awards of tenure and/or promotion for 22 faculty members and recognized eight who were granted emeritus status over the past year at the University Awards for Excellence.

The Graduate School at ÂÜÀò”șapp (UAH) hosted its annual UAH Graduate Poster Session in the Student Services Building on the ÂÜÀò”șapp campus, a part of the University of Alabama System.

ÂÜÀò”șapp (UAH) announced today the addition of several courses of study. The new offerings include two new degree programs as well as a certificate program.