Ash Black is a creative technologist specializing in web applications development, data visualization and virtual reality in the context of teaching and student engagement. As a technologist who began programming at an early age, Ash has worked as a professional and entrepreneur in tech since the early 1990s, establishing a web design studio in Santa Fe, a first-generation coding bootcamp in Indonesia and a big data engine in Phoenix. Since 2013 he has worked in higher education and is at home in the social sciences with an advanced degree in archaeology, comfortably blending futurist thinking with an anthropological perspective emphasizing the profound relationship between humankind and our propensity for solving problems through tool creation and use. Today he pilots and directs the innovative Tech Core student engagement experience, eagerly working to mentor next-generation technologists in the art of bringing about first-of-its-kind creations, hopefully in a way that inflects a sense of humanity, humor and grit into their work. Since joining Eller, Ash has worked as a member of the Faculty Technology Innovation Team to bring productive change in how technology is encountered in the classroom and is a mentor-in-residence teaching in the McGuire Center for Entrepreneurship.