Mats, Maps, And Apps: Greg Vaughan's Career At Trinity
Hartford, Conn. - How many people have visited the site addictinggames.com? Or shockwave.com? How about miniclip.com? Don't worry, nobody is judging you… least of all Trinity College senior Greg Vaughan. In fact, Vaughan loves internet flash games so much that he is attempting to create a multi-player Bomberman game for his senior project.
One would not think of calling Vaughan a nerd or geek, however, since calling a 6-foot-3, two-time All-New England heavyweight wrestler who also holds the Trinity College record for pins seems like a bad idea. Not many wrestlers are as nimble on a computer keyboard as they are on a wrestling mat, but Vaughan does not fit the mold of either your prototypical heavyweight or your normal computer science major.
Vaughan finds it hard to believe that he holds the all-time pins record at Trinity, shaking his head when the fact is mentioned. "Somebody told me I had the pins record (45 and counting), but there is no way I have more than Blair (referencing Michael Blair who graduated in 2006 and was an All-American Football player in addition to an All-American wrestler for the Bantams), but if they say it, it must be true." Indeed Vaughan broke Blair's record of 40 wins by fall last season.
Trinity Head Coach Steve Makein explains Vaughan's success by saying, "Greg stays within himself and does a great job from the top position. He is a big kid and uses his body well, especially from up top."
In 2010-11, Vaughan's season unfortunately ended prematurely due to a knee injury prior to the New England Wrestling Association (NEWA) Championships, but almost two months of wrestling over the summer with the current top-ranked heavyweight in NCAA Division I, Ryan Flores of American University, has helped Greg bring his game back up to as high a level as ever.
Vaughan, the team's only captain this winter, recently won the heavyweight flight at the Ted Reese Invitational, winning all three bouts by fall. Coach Makein is not the least bit surprised by Vaughan's success this year, saying "Greg is a good kid, a big and strong athlete who trains hard. His work ethic has rubbed off on the rest of the team."
Vaughan's work ethic extends well beyond the wrestling mats. Some of his most impressive work has come in connection with Trinity's Humanitarian FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) Project. Humanitarian-FOSS (or H-FOSS) has the goal of using free and open-source software in support of disaster relief efforts and was inspired by the Sahana FOSS Disaster Management System following the 2004 Asian Tsunami.
Trinity really delved into H-FOSS when Prasanna Gautam'11, developed POSIT (Portable Open Search and Identification Tool) in the spring of 2008 during his undergraduate research internship. Theoretically, POSIT (which is available on the Android market) uses the Google Android platform and Android phone as a search/tracking devise in disaster areas in order to map locations.
As Vaughan describes it, "If there is a disaster area and you are sending out search teams, with POSIT you can all go out with your phones and if you happen to find something you map that spot with your phone. At the same time, you have other search teams doing the same thing and the goal is that once these finds are all plotted on a main system, everyone with a phone would connect to it and have all of the information on their phones so they can easily to share the vital information."
POSIT and other H-FOSS applications are still a work-in progress and Vaughan is not sure whether the work he did for the app is still there or if it has been re-written (a common practice for an evolving program). Vaughan does know that he wants to attend graduate school for statistics after collecting his bachelor's degree in May.
When his wrestling career is complete, Vaughan has no intention of entering the growing field of analyzing and implementing statistical analysis for sports teams. Also scheduled to complete a degree as a President's Fellow in mathematics, Vaughan may look into providing economic analysis in the business world among other options.
Greg Vaughan's name will be long remembered his name in the halls of Ferris Athletic Center for his yeoman's work on the wrestling mat, while many others will point to his significant contributions with POSIT regardless of the make-up of the current application. Having made his mark on the Trinity campus, Vaughan has a bright future wherever his talents take him. Still, with the majority of the wrestling season still ahead and the attainable goal of an NCAA Division III Wrestling Championships bid, his work for the Bantams is not quite done.
written by Jacob Donnelly'09
