10/23/2024
Our newest Computer Science professor, Dr. Sanish Rai, was recently featured on the Longwood page.
I graduated from my PhD program at Georgia State University in 2017. After graduation, I taught at another institution for a bit but wanted to find a better opportunity closer to Washington, D.C., where a lot of my friends and family live. As I searched, I looked for somewhere quaint, within driving distance of the beach without living at the beach, and a place that would value me and my love for teaching. In that search, I found Longwood. I love the ambiance and feeling of both Longwood and the surrounding community. In short, I felt a connection to this place, and I could see myself working here.
The best part of Longwood is the small class sizes and the focus we, as faculty, can place on having one-on-one relationships with our students. I did my advanced academic work at Georgia State, which is massive. At Longwood, I know my students individually, and I can watch them grow in their knowledge and mature during their journey. Here, we get to work directly with students and connect on a deeper level. I’ve never had more than 25 students in one of my classes, and I’ve had as few as 12 students in an elective class—that isn’t something you find at many other higher education institutions.
My area of study is computer science, but my specialty is machine learning, a part of artificial intelligence (AI), which is now everywhere. AI is an extremely broad topic, but my research is focused on the data that helps us predict trends or endpoints. Specifically, I use AI to study building occupancy. We place small devices inside or outside of spaces, where they collect several data points like sound, temperature, or pressure, and that allows us to understand and predict a building’s occupancy without needing to count people one by one. This practice saves time, resources, and money while accurately allowing people to draft emergency plans, understand an audience, or simply know how many people are filling a specific space.
I came to the United States in 2011 after finishing my undergraduate studies in my home country, Nepal. I didn’t plan to go into academia then because I thought I wanted to enter the industry. However, as I went through my studies, I got to serve in multiple advising, tutoring, and teaching capacities, and I liked the experience and found a new passion in teaching. As I became more and more involved in the classroom, I became interested in how to teach better and how different students learn differently. Computer science is logical and practical but also a tough subject to understand. It is a challenge to help my students understand and comprehend the things I have studied—a challenge that I love working through with them.
There is a balance at liberal studies institutions like Longwood. I attended research and technology-heavy institutions, where the emphasis is on studying all the time; alternatively, liberal studies institutions care more deeply about students, their overall development, and how they can integrate their academic passions into their everyday lives to impact the world as good citizen leaders.
Working at Longwood is also special because there is a focus on developing faculty from the upper levels of leadership down through the department chairs and even from colleagues. There are many opportunities to learn from more senior faculty who invest time and energy into people like me who are newer to courses and programs that focus on how we can best serve our students. My colleagues in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science have been such a supportive network, both in developing courses and honing my teaching skills and in the everyday life of faculty members; they have become friends and colleagues. I have always felt supported here.
Dr. Sanish Rai, Assistant Professor of Computer Science
More 👉 go.longwood.edu/HoL
