Robert R. Gotwals, Jr.

He received his Bachelor's of Science in Chemistry from East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. The majority of this degree was accomplished at night school while serving as a US Navy medical corpsman attached to the US Marine Corps stationed at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Upon completion of active duty, Bob2 moved to Greenville for his junior year on campus. While on campus, he had the opportunity to continue his long involvement with braille transcribing, a skill developed as a young child. He also took classes in American Sign Language, and upon completion was offered a position at ECU as an educational sign interpreter. This new interest took him to a summer program for interpreters at the National Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, NY. While in Rochester, he was recruited to participate in a new federally-funded program to prepare content specialists to teach mixed classes of deaf and hearing children. He completed his senior year of chemistry in Rochester while in graduate school, where he received a double-Master's in Education in Education of the Hearing-Impaired and in Science Education.

Upon completion of graduate school, he spent one year teaching chemistry and computer science at the New York State School for the Deaf in Rome, NY. He then spent four years teaching general science, chemistry, and computers at Gallaudet University in Washington, DC. Eventually, he accepted an offer to teach analytical chemistry at the Montgomery Blair Magnet Program. At Blair, he received his introduction to computational science while serving as a coach for Blair teams participating in the NSF-funded SuperQuest Supercomputing Competition. His success in that program and his incorporation of skills into the program at Blair led to his being offered a position as a computational science educator at the North Carolina Supercomputing Center in Research Triangle Park, NC. During his tenure there, he developed the course "Computational Chemistry for Chemistry Educators," a completely Web-based course in quantum chemistry for educators. This course is now being offered through a partnership between the Foundation and the North Carolina Supercomputing Center. He also developed and offered a SuperQuest program in conjunction with NCSA in Illinois. After four years at NCSC, he received an offer to do computational science education at the Shodor Foundation, where he continues his interests in computational chemistry, computational environmental science, braille, and sign language.

Bob has also continued his military involvement, recently retiring from the Naval Reserve, where he served for a number of years as a medical corpsman before accepting a commission in the Naval Intelligence Program. His intelligence work took him to the Pentagon, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the USS Eisenhower and the Atlantic Intelligence Command, from which he retired at the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He continues to serve as a Blue and Gold Information officer for the US Naval Academy.

Bob's wife Kim works as an environmental consultant in air quality and landfill issues, while daughter Emily learns new things everyday at Forest View Elementary School and son Drew continues to keep his day care teachers on the ball. In his spare time, Bob enjoys woodworking, playing the hammered dulcimer, participating in the activities of the Durham Lions Club, and being active in various church groups at the Church of the Holy Family in Chapel Hill. In a former life, Bob was a licensed pilot, scuba diver, and played lacrosse and ice hockey.