Dr. Frank Jones has found that a degree in computer science can apply to any field of study, and he’s helping others discover that, too.
After teaching mathematics and computer science at the College of Idaho, Jones decided to join the Naval Air Systems Command in California. He was planning on spending the rest of his life there when the Lord urged him to take a job as an assistant professor with the BYU Department of Computer Science.
“I really enjoy the process of learning things . . . Seeing other people kind of have that light come on and understand a new concept or achieve a new task or new capability—that’s just fun,” he said.
Jones received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science from the University of Idaho and his PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder. There he developed an interest in developing assistive devices for the blind.
Jones focused on using already-available computing power to create a user-friendly interface for navigation aids for the blind. While many navigation aids use sound to present a user with information about their surroundings, most of these systems do so outside of the user’s direct influence. Often this means that the user is inundated with extra data, distracting from information that is relevant. Jones’ paradigm focused on quality over quantity – presenting targeted information about the user’s surroundings based on where the user focused their attention (i.e. head position and gaze).
For example, if the user were facing a wall, the aid might present pulses or sounds representing the distance to the region the user is “looking” at, allowing them to manually scan the wall for windows, doors, or other features that are important to them. The approach would intentionally deemphasize information about terrain and architecture outside of a typical human’s field of view.
Alternate paradigms tend to take the approach of presenting detailed information across the computing system’s entire field of view, often including areas behind the user. This latter model tends to overwhelm or confuse the user, whereas Jones’ approach focuses just on what the user is interested in.
“I find I’m still very interested in how computing technology can be used to, in a sense, augment persons with disabilities,” he said.
Part of Jones’ enthusiasm for computer science stems from the interdisciplinary nature of the field.
“People sometimes have a narrow view of computer science . . . one of the mistakes that people make is [thinking] that computer science is just sitting in a dark cubicle somewhere writing code,” Jones said.
Though writing code is certainly part of being a computer scientist, Jones argues the field is so much more than that one activity.
“It’s been said that computer science is a solution looking for a problem, and so you can be solving problems as a computer scientist in any field that interests you, and that’s exciting; that’s fun,” Jones said.
Though Jones is passionate about computer science, he understands that not everyone is—and that’s ok.
“We need to have [students] pursue what they are interested in,” he said.
For Jones, computer science has offered a way to pursue multiple interests, and he is enthusiastic to get back to teaching and helping students realize the potential of the computer science major.