What is the Applied Computing Institute?
The Applied Computing Institute (ACI), at Grand Valley State University's College of Computing, connects students and faculty with industry partners to address real-world computing challenges. ACI provides an avenue for collaboration, applied research, and professional experience that benefits students, employers, and the broader community.
Through industry-sponsored projects, internships, and research opportunities, students gain practical skills and experience that complement classroom learning. In turn, partner organizations gain access to GVSU expertise in areas such as software development, data science, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies.
Partner with us to explore innovative solutions and prepare the next generation of computing professionals.
Our Team
Jonathan Engelsma, Ph.D. - Director
Jonathan Engelsma is the founding director of GVSU's Applied Computing Institute (ACI). ACI provides applied computing services and collaboration opportunities in cybersecurity, apps, data science, health informatics, high-performance computing, and beyond to industry partners In addition to his leadership of ACI, Jonathan serves as a professor of computer science in the GVSU School of Computing and Information Systems, where he teaches courses in distributed systems, mobile computing, and web development. Prior to joining the faculty at GVSU, Jonathan spent almost two decades working in the tech industry and has numerous publications and patents in mobile computing-related areas. Jonathan earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Michigan State University in 1993.
Zach DeBruine, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor
Dr. Zachary DeBruine is an Assistant Professor of Computing at Grand Valley State University within the Applied Computing Institute. Dr. DeBruine is leading research in collaboration with academic and industry partners to develop high-performance machine learning algorithms to analyze big biological data.
Hans Dulimarta, Ph.D. - Professor
Dr. Dulimarta is currently an associate professor at GVSU's School of Computing and Information System. His research interests are in computer graphics and mobile applications. In recent years, Hans has served as a consultant on a number of industry-sponsored software development projects. He earned his PhD in Computer Science at Michigan State University, thanks to a scholarship provided by the Indonesian government. As a scholarship awardee, he was required to return and work for the Indonesian government after finishing his doctoral studies. After completing the employment requirement as a university professor in Indonesia, he decided to come back to return to USA and chose West Michigan as the home for his family.
Rajvardhan Patil, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor
Rajvardhan Patil is currently an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing. His research areas include Natural Language Processing, Generative AI, and Applied Machine Learning.
Rahat Ibn Rafiq, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor
Dr. Rafiq is currently an assistant professor in the School of Computing. His research interests mainly concentrate on social computing, data mining, cyber safety, ubiquitous computing, and distributed systems. Before joining GVSU, Rahat worked at ThoughtSpot, a startup based in Palo Alto, California, for 14 months. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado Boulder, where he was one of the co-founding members of CUCyberSafety Lab. His Ph.D. dissertation is titled “Scalable and Timely Detection of Cyberbullying in Online Social Networks.”
Roland Heusser - ACI Mentor
Roland Heusser is a full-stack software engineer, who also serves as a mentor to students at the ACI. He obtained a Master of Science degree in Computer Information Systems from Grand Valley State University in 2016. Throughout his career, Roland has gained extensive experience in technology transfer, working at organizations such as SRI International, and has recently been involved in improving developer productivity for mobile engineers at Twitter. He is passionate about UI/UX design, mobile application development, and DevOps.
Brock Thane - Office Coordinator
Brock is the Office Coordinator for ACI, Blue Nucleus, the School of Computing Graduate Programs, and the Regional Math and Science Center. He completed his BS in Business Administration, from Central Michigan University, in 2019, majoring in both Marketing and Logistics. Brock has 10 years of administrative experience ranging from billion dollar companies, to universities, to businesses with less than 10 employees.
Current Students
Former Students
Portrait
Name
Designation
ACI Unit
Social Link
