Computer Science Alumni Spotlight: Ben Eckart, Class of 2008
Part 7 of a 40th anniversary series celebrating Tennessee Tech computer science alumni
and the advancement of the Department of Computer Science, established in 1986.
Computer science didn’t click for Ben Eckart at first — until suddenly, it did.
Then he couldn’t get enough.
The turning point came in a data structures course taught by Mark Boshart, Ph.D., that reshaped how he approached problems and set him on a path from struggling programmer to AI researcher.
“What I learned in that class changed my life,” he said.
A comment from his algorithms professor, Martha Kosa, Ph.D., stuck with him: “She said it might be more accurate to rename the computer science major to something like ‘structured problem solving,’” Eckart recalled. “I think that’s exactly right. Studying data structures and algorithms completely transformed how I think.”
Between 2008 and 2010, Eckart earned three degrees and received Tech’s prestigious Derryberry Award in 2008. His experience reflected computing in the 2000s: object-oriented programming dominated coursework, with Java, C and C++ forming the foundation while Python quickly became his preferred language. Even so, he wrote most of his code in a simple text editor.
“For some reason I only coded in raw Notepad for the entirety of my CS degree,” he said. “Yikes.”
Now a senior research scientist at NVIDIA, Eckart credits Tennessee Tech with giving him the education to thrive in a rapidly evolving field.
“Being able to really think ‘algorithmically’ is such a foundational skill,” he said.
"Once you learn to problem solve in the abstract, you can adapt to anything new.”
Professional Highlights
Ben Eckart earned three degrees from Tennessee Tech: B.S. in computer science and computer engineering and M.S. in electrical engineering. He also holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, where his research on GPU-accelerated AI for 3D perception earned him an NVIDIA Graduate Fellowship in 2014. Now a senior research scientist, Eckart works on 3D world models, perception, inverse rendering and generative AI. He remains connected to Tech on the Machine Intelligence and Data Science (MInDS) Center advisory board.
Computer Science in the 2000s
- 2002 – Martha Kosa, Ph.D., teaches Tennessee Tech’s first master’s course in computer science.
- 2004 – Tennessee Tech awards first M.S. in computer science to April Crockett.
- 2005 – Software & Scientific Applications concentration achieves ABET accreditation.
- 2005 – Doug Talbert, Ph.D., becomes department chair (2005-2015), succeeding Srini Ramaswamy (2000-2005).