Travis Doom (Senior Member IEEE, ’03) is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Wright State University (WSU). Dr. Doom joined the faculty at Wright State University (Dayton, OH) in 1998 after receiving his Ph.D. from Michigan State University (1998).
Professor Doom currently serves as the Faculty President of Wright State University, and has served as a member of the Wright State University Faculty Senate since 2009. During that time, he has held leadership roles on several University-level committees including service as Vice President (2016-2017), on the Faculty Senate Executive Committee (2011-2015, 2016+), as chair of the ad-hoc Faculty Senate Committee on Student Success (2011-2012), as chair of the ad-hoc Faculty Senate committee on Information Technology Integration and Effectiveness (2012-2013), as chair or the Executive Steering Committee for Information Technology (2013), as chair of the University Academic Policies Committee (2013-2014, co-chair 2016-2017), and as co-chair of the ad hoc Faculty Senate General Education core review committee (2014-2015). Prior to his service on the Faculty Senate, Dr. Doom served the Faculty through leadership roles on the Executive Committee of the Wright State Chapter of the American Associate of University Professors (2005-2010), and as chair of the University Academic Integrity Hearing Panel (2006-2008).
Professor Doom is a co-director of WSU’s bioinformatics research group and pursues research in the fields of undergraduate engineering education, data science, bioinformatics, and digital/computer systems. His education research focuses on the impact of active learning and culturally relevant teaching on student success in STEM. He applies computational and statistical techniques to identify, retrieve, classify, simulate, characterize, and analyze data from a variety of domains. Much of his research involves the analysis of biological data, including raw instrumentation data, as well as processed DNA sequence, protein sequence, metabolite, or population data. Notable research includes techniques for forensic DNA analysis (cited by the Supreme Court), improved quantification techniques and Kernal-based binning methods for NMR spectroscopic data, isolation and visualization of translational efficiency biases, characterization and synthesis of 1H NMR spectroscopic data, and knowledge discovery in large biological data sets. He served as chair for the IEEE Task Force (Technical Committee) on Bioinformatics 2007-2009. Dr. Doom has advised graduate research in the Computer Science (Ph.D. and M.S.), Computer Engineering (Ph.D. and M.S.), Electrical Engineering (M.S.), and Biomedical Sciences (Ph.D.) programs at WSU.
Dr. Doom would not mind being remembered as someone who spent “too much effort” on his teaching. Dr. Doom is highly regarded as an educator and educational researcher. He was internationally recognized by the IEEE Computer Society “for tremendous contributions to Computer Science and Engineering through a balanced career incorporating research, mentoring of students, curriculum and pedagogy development, and service” and was awarded the IEEE-CS 2018 Computer Science and Engineering Undergraduate Teaching Award. He was awarded the position of WSU’s Robert J. Kegerris Distinguished Professor of Teaching (2014-2017), was awarded an Outstanding Engineers’ and Scientists’ Award (Education) by the Affiliate Societies Council of Dayton (2015), and was Southern Ohio Council for Higher Education’s (SOCHE) awardee for Excellence in Teaching (2014). Dr. Doom served on the Faculty Advisory Board for WSU’s Center for Teaching and Learning (2014-2016). Dr. Doom was the 2000 and 2005 recipient of the WSU College of Engineering Excellence in Teaching award, a 2001 invitee to the Ohio Teacher’s Excellence Program (OTEP), and a 2002 sponsored attendee of the National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI). Dr. Doom has disseminated his educational work through venues including the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), the ACM special interest group on computer science education (SIGCSE), and IEEE Transactions on Education. Teaching interests include both undergraduate and graduate computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering courses.
In the field of data science, Dr. Doom has served as an expert witness in depositions and in person for courts ranging from the local to Federal level. The results of his studies on forensic DNA data have been used to promote justice in courts throughout the world. His work/opinions in bioinformatics have been disseminated in a variety of archival venues ranging from those for engineers (IEEE/ACM Transactions on Bioinformatics and Computational Biology), for forensic and data scientists (Journal of Forensic Science, Jurimetrics), for legal advocates (The Champion), and for scientists in general (Science). Dr. Doom is a founding partner of Forensic Bioinformatics Services, Inc. – a company devoted to promoting social justice through the automated and objective evaluation of forensic data.
