Eager for a change and short on funds, she decided to join the United States Navy and use the education benefits to earn a graduate degree in the field of information technology. This spring, after five years of taking classes while being an active duty service member (then a member of the Navy reserves) and working full time in a new career, she earned a master’s of science in computer science from the J.B. Speed School of Engineering.

“I knew I wanted something in the IT field,” she said. She was also laser-focused on avoiding student debt: “I did not want to spend money out of my own pocket to go back to school.” In addition, she wanted to attend a well-known, accredited public university that matched the military tuition assistance rate for graduate-level students, a rarity even today.

UofL met all her criteria.

In the Navy, Petty Officer McCormick worked in information warfare. After returning from a deployment to the Middle East aboard the U.S.S. Mesa Verde (LPD19), where she had the chance to travel to countries such as Israel and the United Arab Emirates, she began taking UofL online classes in 2014.��

She is graduating debt-free, and never once set foot in Louisville — even taking classes while stationed in Seoul, South Korea. She landed a job with Oracle last year, before she graduated.

“This program helped me get a job,” she said. “When I got out of the military in July 2018, I had no professional experience working for an IT company. All I had was this education.”

While in school, she attended all her classes virtually, viewing her lectures from a camera set up in the back of the classroom. “I felt like I was taking on-campus courses,” she said, adding that she wanted the kind of rigorous coursework that is not always found in all-online degrees. “The workload was exactly the same as somebody who was sitting in the classroom.”

While stationed in Seoul, she said her professors graciously made accommodations for the 12- to 13-hour time difference. Professors were equally accommodating when a family emergency threatened to interrupt her education last fall, and the COVID-19 shift to all online classes that began in March was barely a blip on her radar screen.

Petty Officer McCormick said she hopes to participate in the December commencement exercises — the timing actually works out better for her — and hopes her family in Pittsburgh can join her in Louisville for the event. But if it doesn’t work out, that doesn’t change her feeling of accomplishment.

“At the end of the day, I’m proud of the degree that I hold,” she said.

Not surprisingly, she’s already looking into the possibility of taking more online UofL classes in the future, with an eye toward getting a cybersecurity certificate.

Professors Stephanie Philipp from the College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development and Olfa Nasraoui from the earlier this year won a three-year,��$600,000 Research Experience for Teachers (RET) grant from the National Science Foundation to train the educators.

Ten teachers from Jefferson, Carroll and Bullitt counties are on Belknap Campus through the end of July learning about big data and data science, plus getting��practical help developing lesson plans to teach the concepts to their students.��

“The teachers in our cohort are a diverse group with a diverse population of students,” said Philipp, who teaches in CEHD’s Department of Middle and Secondary ����ֱ��.

Philipp and Nasraoui are also focused on introducing computer science to groups historically underrepresented in the field: women, people of color and those with disabilities.

“This is a form of professional development that Kentucky teachers seek out but, in a time of limited resources, have trouble finding,” said CEHD Dean Ann Larson. “With this grant, the university continues its longstanding tradition of supporting local educators through science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) partnerships and career and workforce readiness opportunities in STEM fields for high school students, including underrepresented groups.”

The project will have an impact beyond STEM teachers, said Nasraoui, who is professor and endowed chair of e-commerce in the Department of Computer Engineering and Computer Science and director of the .

“Its impact will be significant as these teachers go back to their classrooms and pass on the knowledge to their students. Thousands of students will be exposed to these concepts,” she said.

Kevin Walsh, associate dean of research and facilities in the Speed School, said the grant was “a huge win” for UofL and local high school students.

“NSF only awarded nine such grants throughout the entire country.” Walsh said. “Big data science is such an important field these days, as it is being used to solve real-world problems in numerous fields.”

Philipp added the project will support “active, long-term collaborative partnerships between teachers and university faculty and students to enhance the knowledge and capacity of teachers through participation in authentic research experiences. We also predict that the university faculty will learn more about how high school teachers support students to think computationally and prepare students for college and career.”

What does the city of the future look like?

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Well, it’s smart. Really smart — sort of like the students who participated in the DerbyHacks hackathon this past weekend.��

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More than 100 hackers spent 36 straight hours at the University of Louisville Engineering Garage, 1960 Arthur St., developing creative software and hardware along the smart cities theme. ����

Some hacks were practical, some whimsical. One team taught Amazon’s Alexa smart assistant to play chess, while others used open data to create grocery lists or map the best places to buy a home, accounting for crime rates and other factors.����

“We saw lots of great people making lots of great projects,” said DerbyHacks director, Shayne Hemminger. “My personal favorite hack involved trying to emulate old vector display video games.”��

There’s a full list of projects and winners��, on the DerbyHacks website.��

The second annual hackathon was organized by University of Louisville students, with help from outside organizations.��

“Derbyhacks was a great success, it took a lot of effort from a lot of people to pull of this event,” said Sam Nwosu, a computer science and computer engineering graduate student and president of��,��the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) student chapter.��“I really enjoyed the smartdollhouse project and the newsforme project. Both were very creative and had a lot of work put in it.”��

The����sponsored the event, along with Humana Inc., KFC, the city’s Office of Performance Improvement and Innovation and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The UofL����was a partner, as were Major League Hacking, ACM and Linode.