Sources & Experts

Todd Neller

Department: Computer Science 

Expertise:

Computer game play, design, and history of board and card games. As a Ph.D. student in computer science at Stanford University, Neller was reintroduced to the world of board gaming via the internationally award-winning game "The Settlers of Catan." Now as a faculty member at Gettysburg, where he is also chair of the computer science department, one of his main lines of research is computer game play, a subfield of artificial intelligence (A.I.). Neller pursuies A.I. challenges, computing optimal play for jeopardy dice games such as "Pass the Pigs," new reasoning algorithms for "Clue/Cluedo," and optimal "Risk" attack and defense policies. In his spare time, he studies game history and game design; he owns about 200 games and has rules to more than 1,000.

Professional Achievements:

Neller joined Gettysburg College faculty in 2000. He has been a co-principal investigator for a NSF grant on "Machine Learning Laboratory Experiences for Introducing Undergraduates to Artificial Intelligence." He received a second place honor for Best Paper at the conference for the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges - Northeastern Region on the topic of "Pedagogical Possibilities for the Dice Game Pig."

Educational Background:

A Cornell Merrill Presidential Scholar, Neller received his bachelor's degree with distinction in computer science in 1993, In 2000, he received his Ph.D. with distinction in teaching at Stanford University, where he was awarded a Stanford University Lieberman Fellowship and the George E. Forsythe Memorial award for excellence in teaching.

Contact Information:

tneller@gettysburg.edu

717.337.6643

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