The Team

Damian Dechev
Associate Professor

Dr. Damian Dechev is an Associate Professor at the CS Department at the University of Central Florida and the founder of AREA 67. Damian completed his Ph.D. in 2009 from Texas A&M University under the supervision of Dr. Bjarne Stroustrup. Prior to joining UCF, Dr. Dechev worked for Sandia National Laboratories and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Dr. Dechev specializes in the design and analysis of multiprocessor data structures and algorithms. Dr. Dechev’s research in multiprocessor algorithms design has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, Sandia National Laboratories, and the Department of Energy.

Kenneth Lamar
Ph.D. Student

Kenneth Lamar received his Bachelor of Science (2017) from the University of Central Florida. He is currently pursuing his PhD in Computer Science at UCF. His research interests include concurrent data structures and distributed computing. 

Zachary Painter
Ph.D. Student

Zachary Painter is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science Degree in Computer Science at the University of Central Florida. He joined the program in Fall 2014.

Alexander Goponenko
Ph.D. Student

Alexander Goponenko received his PhD in Chemistry from Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2000 and joined the PhD program in Computer Science at UCF in Spring 2020. His research interests include performance optimization and distributed computing.

Ryan Dozier
Ph.D. Student

Ryan Dozier attended the University of Central Florida for his undergraduate degree. He is pursuing a PhD in Computer Science at UCF with a research focus on distributed data structures for high-performance computers. The current focus is on a family of data structures with relaxed semantics to fit the application.