Scott Barlowe joined Western Carolina as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science in 2013. Dr. Barlowe received a Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science at UNC-Charlotte in 2011. He also has a Master’s degree in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Technology, both from Appalachian State University.
Dr. Barlowe enjoys teaching a wide range of courses including introductory computer science, data structures, graphics, computer organization, computer networking, and technology ethics.
Dr. Barlowe's research interests span a variety of areas including visualization, data mining, bioinformatics, HCI, and serious game development. His primary interest is searching for visualization techniques that aid in understanding large, multidimensional datasets. Challenges include finding an automatic analysis approach which meets user goals for revealing interesting data features and then finding methods to coherently tie the features together so that visualizations are efficient and easily interpreted. Dr. Barlowe's dissertation work concentrated on integrating novel visualizations, interactions, and signal processing for revealing hidden features in a protein flexibility model.