{"id":30685,"date":"2022-02-21T16:01:06","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T21:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/newengineer\/?p=30685"},"modified":"2025-06-11T12:42:27","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T17:42:27","slug":"the-fall-and-rise-of-damon-woodard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eng.ufl.edu\/news\/ece\/the-fall-and-rise-of-damon-woodard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fall and Rise of Damon Woodard, ECE Associate Professor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Damon
Dr. Damon Woodard joined the faculty of the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering in 2015 and now serves as director of UF\u2019s Biometrics and Machine Learning Group, among other duties.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This story was originally published<\/a> in the Winter 2022 edition of Florida GATOR Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

High school dropout. Abusive home. Poverty. The odds were against Damon Woodard. But propelled by a fierce inner drive and a few supportive souls along the way, he would go on to become one of the nation\u2019s leading experts in biometrics and machine learning.<\/em><\/p>\n

Story by Barbara Drake (MFA \u201904)
Portrait by Aaron Daye<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

THERE\u2019S MORE TO BIOMETRICS EXPERT Dr. Damon Woodard than meets the eye \u2014 or the \u201cperiocular region,\u201d as his research specialty is known. An associate professor in UF\u2019s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Woodard is a pioneer in digitally identifying people through the features around the eye \u2013 eyebrows, wrinkles and skin folds \u2014 even if the subject is masked or the image is blurry.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n

\"Damon
Damon Woodard in the second grade, in New Orleans. As a
child, he was quiet, determined and focused, he says.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cAs I joke with my students, it\u2019s not like the bad guys want to pose for the camera, so in biometrics, you have to use what you have,\u201d Woodard said in a recent interview.<\/p>\n

Solving real-world problems is Woodard\u2019s passion, and since 2007, his efforts have been rewarded with $20 million in research funding from the intelligence community, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation and other sources. UF tapped his problem-solving bent in 2020 when he was named Director of AI Partnerships for the university\u2019s Artificial Intelligence Initiative. In that role, he reaches out in multiple directions, like Spiderman\u2019s \u201cDoctor Octopus,\u201d to arrange AI collaborations and trainings with industry, government, nonprofits, K-12 schools and universities around the state.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a role that calls for well-honed people skills, not a characteristic typically associated with engineering wizzes.<\/p>\n

But Woodard is not your typical engineer or academic.<\/p>\n

Three decades ago, he was a high school dropout \u201cjust running the streets\u201d of New Orleans, he said. How he rose from those bleak circumstances to become the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in computer engineering from Notre Dame is a testament to the people who believed in him \u2014 and to the inner fire that refused to go out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the type of person who, when you tell me I can\u2019t do something, that fuels me even more to succeed,\u201d said Woodard. \u201cYou are not going to outwork me in terms of effort, and I am not going to quit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

From Streets to Mechanic School<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Woodard grew up in the Crescent City, one of five sons born to a homemaker and a pipefitter for the Navy shipyard. The family lived in a two-bedroom home, and \u201cmoney was tight,\u201d Woodard said, noting that anger and physical abuse permeated the household. But his mother, Gwendolyn Woodard, always kept an eye on her boys\u2019 comings and goings, and urged them to aim high with their studies.
By the time Damon was in high school, his father\u2019s volatility had grown more heated.
\u201cIt was hard to concentrate on doing homework and being a student in that environment,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just too much.\u201d
At age 15, he dropped out of school and hid it from his mother for a year.
\u201cI pretended I went to school, and I was just running the streets,\u201d he said.
When he finally revealed the truth, Gwendolyn had been working outside the home for a while, holding down several low wage jobs to make ends meet. Damon\u2019s news came as a shock.
\u201cI know that really hurt her,\u201d said Woodard. \u201cBut I told her I would go back to school. I always knew I would. I even had a plan.\u201d
At age 17, he enrolled in trade school to become an auto mechanic, a skill he planned to use to put himself through college. Simultaneously, he studied to earn his high school
equivalency diploma.
\u201cI studied on the way to the trade school, on the bus,\u201d said Woodard. \u201cI studied at the bus stop. I mean, I carried my books everywhere with me.\u201d
In 1990, shortly before he turned 18, he earned his GED, and Gwendolyn \u2014 who by then was no longer living with Woodard\u2019s father \u2014 backed her son\u2019s college dreams, even if she had no money to spare for tuition or books.
\u201cMy mom said, \u2018We\u2019ll figure it out. We\u2019ll make it happen,\u2019\u201d he remembered.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI would work during the day as a mechanic, come home, take a shower, eat really quickly, and then change clothes and go to school at night.\u201d<\/p>Damon Woodard on how he put himself through night school at Tulane University<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Night-School Naysayers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Dr.
In 2005, Damon Woodard became the first African American to receive a doctorate in computer engineering from Notre Dame. He is shown here at that momentous event with his dissertation adviser and mentor, Dr. Patrick Flynn. \u201cHe taught me a lot during my time as a graduate student,\u201d says Woodard, \u201cand all these years later, I find value in his advice as a faculty member.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Woodard applied to Tulane University and in 1992 was accepted into its night program for computer information systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would work during the day as a mechanic, come home, take a shower, eat really quickly, and then change clothes and go to school at night,\u201d remembered Woodard.<\/p>\n

One evening in class, a guest speaker who taught C programming shared that he had a doctorate. Intrigued, Woodard asked if that was the highest degree a person could get, and the speaker told him yes. Later, when the speaker asked the class to share their individual career plans, Woodard confidently announced he was going to earn a doctorate, too, prompting whoops of laughter from his classmates.
\u201cThey started laughing because, understand … the general outlook then was that night school students couldn\u2019t hack it in day school with the regular students,\u201d said Woodard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was almost thirty years ago, but I remember it like yesterday,\u201d he added. \u201cIt became one of the main things that drove me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodard\u2019s strong work ethic and stellar GPA spurred a staff member at Tulane\u2019s computer lab to recommend he transfer to the regular program for computer science, a much harder course of study. The staffer introduced Woodard to the chair of the engineering department, who recognized his potential.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was really nice and offered me a partial scholarship,\u201d remembered Woodard. \u201cShe said, \u2018OK, let\u2019s see what you can do; you\u2019re going into both engineering school and day school now, so it\u2019s a different ballgame.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As any former engineering student can tell you, the first two years of school are filled with demanding courses such as Calculus I, II and III, Differential Equations and Statistics.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018The widow-makers,\u2019 \u2018the murderers,\u2019 we call them,\u201d joked Woodard. \u201cFor me, I didn\u2019t have the math foundation to tackle those courses. It\u2019s one thing to get a GED, but it\u2019s completely different to operate at that [higher] level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Worried he would fail, he turned to his mother. She told him to buck up and get a tutor, which he did.
\u201cI\u2019m not going to lie; it was a fight,\u201d he admitted. \u201cThat tutor taught me four years of high school math in a little over six months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Woodard\u2019s dream at the time was to become \u201cthe Black Bill Gates,\u201d he said, and it pushed him to excel. In his senior year, he received the Highest Senior GPA Award from the National Society of Black Engineers in 1997 and earned a bachelor\u2019s degree in computer science and computer information systems.<\/p>\n

Finding His Academic Home<\/h2>\n

Advice from an African American Ph.D. student at Tulane turned Woodard\u2019s thoughts from entrepreneurship to graduate school, especially when he learned that in 1994 there were fewer than 100 Black PhDs in computer science.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018I am going to be in that number. I\u2019m going to do it.\u2019 It was my new goal,\u201d said Woodard.
Buoyed by support from the Graduate Education for Minorities (GEM) Fellowship Program, he chose Penn State University to earn his master\u2019s degree in computer science and engineering.<\/p>\n

The program was good, but in the late 1990s the atmosphere on campus toward underrepresented students was \u201cextremely hostile\u201d there, he said.<\/p>\n

On his first day, he entered his graduate computer architecture class. He was the only Black student in the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never forget it,\u201d said Woodard. \u201cA [white] student comes up to me and say, \u2018Are you sure you\u2019re in the right class? Because this is Advanced Architecture.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, I had experienced every sort of micro\/macro aggression you can think of, so I had a tough skin, but this was through the roof,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd you should have heard the stories the other African American graduate students used to tell in the dining hall.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 1999, Notre Dame flew Woodard to Indiana to check out its Ph.D. program in computer science and engineering. The university was home to the GEM program headquarters, and after just 15 minutes on the smaller, more welcoming, campus, he knew he had found his academic home.<\/p>\n

Building a Life Amid a Death<\/h2>\n

While Woodard was working toward his Ph.D., 9\/11 happened. He immediately wanted to drop out of school and join the Marines to fight al-Qaeda, and confessed as much to a trusted professor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was young, and I wanted to drive tanks,\u201d said Woodard. \u201cBut the professor told me, \u2018Don\u2019t do it. Your talents can help your country in a different way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The other way was through biometrics research, the specialty of new faculty member Dr. Patrick Flynn, who would become Woodard\u2019s dissertation advisor. While the field of biometrics had existed for decades, the 9\/11 attacks spearheaded a global push for countries to \u201cdevelop and implement systems to collect biometric data\u201d to accurately identify terrorists, as a UN Security Council resolution stated.<\/p>\n

After all, in the run-up to 9\/11, al-Qaeda was able to exploit weaknesses in border screening to send 19 operatives into the United States undetected. More advanced biometrics tools were urgently needed.<\/p>\n

Enter Damon Woodard. And enter his new research partner: the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed Woodard\u2019s family home and all their photos.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Woodard\u2019s 2005 dissertation, \u201cExploiting Finger Surface as a Biometric Identifier,\u201d became the opening salvo in an ongoing volley of academic papers and book chapters focused on ways to collect and analyze biometric data \u2014 everything from eyebrows to \u201ciris segmentation\u201d to \u201csoft,\u201d or behavioral, biometrics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a year as a [post-doctoral fellow] at Notre Dame, sponsored by the director of central intelligence,\u201d said Woodard. \u201cBiometrics is what my career has been built on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The intelligence community\u2019s initial support came at a critical juncture: Woodard\u2019s family in New Orleans had recently suffered multiple tragedies. In 2003, two years before Woodard made history as Notre Dame\u2019s first Black doctorate in computer engineering, his mother died of a stroke. For various reasons, she had never attended his prior graduation ceremonies, but Woodard had assured her she would be front row for this one. Now that longed-for moment was ripped from their grasp.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe saw me through the process, but she never saw the ending,\u201d said Woodard with emotion in his voice.<\/p>\n

More than anyone, Gwendolyn had believed he would make it as a computer scientist, even when others laughed in his face. He says it isn\u2019t hard for him now to imagine the feisty woman relishing his triumph over the smug naysayers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she were alive right now, my mom would be talking so much trash [to those people]!\u201d he said, chuckling.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Woodard can only preserve her memory mentally. Hurricane Katrina destroyed his family home and all their photos in August 2005. Three months later, his younger brother Jason was killed. The pain was almost unbearable, he says, but his academic \u201cfamily\u201d saw him through.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the worst times of my life were while I was at Notre Dame, but the support system I had there was phenomenal,\u201d remarked Woodard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Birth of a Mentor<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Fortified, Woodard vowed to fulfill a promise he had made to his mother on her deathbed: help his other younger brother, Brian, go to college.<\/p>\n

Brian had dropped out of high school when Woodard did, obtained his GED and went into the military. After Katrina hit, Woodard invited Brian to live with him in Indiana and enroll in nursing school.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot only did he finish nursing school, he graduated at the top of his class,\u201d Woodard said proudly.<\/p>\n

Woodard\u2019s own career took off in 2006 when he joined the faculty of Clemson University\u2019s School of Computing. There he extended his biometric research into keystroke dynamics, gender classification, machine learning and how aging affects people\u2019s susceptibility to online scams, among other areas.<\/p>\n

He also earned praise and awards for his effective mentoring of \u201cnontraditional\u201d students \u2013women, minorities, first-generation students and those who start college at age 25 and up.<\/p>\n

Woodard\u2019s unique skillset didn\u2019t escape the attention of his department chair, Dr. Juan Gilbert. When UF recruited Gilbert to head its Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) in 2015, Gilbert hand-picked Woodard and four other Clemson computer scientists to relocate with him to Gainesville.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an easy decision to bring Dr. Woodard,\u201d said Gilbert in a recent interview. \u201cNot only is he an outstanding scholar and researcher \u2013 his work in biometrics is top-notch \u2013 he\u2019s an exceptional person as well. He\u2019s an excellent communicator and works to solve problems when they arise.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Woodard bade goodbye to the Clemson Tigers, one of his leading graduate students, Tempestt Neal (PhD \u201918), followed him to UF. The daughter of a cosmetologist and a military veteran, Neal went on to make Gator history as the first African American woman to receive a doctorate in computer engineering from CISE.<\/p>\n

\u201cI credit much of my success to Dr. Woodard\u2019s mentorship \u2014 he\u2019s a game changer!\u201d said Dr. Neal, now a tenure-track professor at the University of South Florida. \u201cHe takes on a \u2018cool uncle\u2019 approach, where he isn\u2019t a hand-holder, nor is he hands-off. He allows his students to find their own way in nearly every aspect that matters in a PhD program\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that Neal is mentoring her own students, she says she often finds herself wondering, \u201cWhat would Dr. Woodard say about this situation?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe remains available when I text or call,\u201d she added. \u201cHe\u2019s a role model, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI credit much of my success to Dr. Woodard\u2019s mentorship \u2014 he\u2019s a game changer!\u201d<\/p>Dr. Tempestt Neal, first-generation alum, now a tenure track faculty member at the University of South Florida<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\"Dr.
Dr. Tempestt Neal and Woodard at her UF graduation.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Damon
Damon Woodard and his wife, Kila, married in 2008 when\nhe was a faculty member at Clemson University.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Damon
An expert in artificial intelligence and biometrics, Dr. Woodard serves as Director of AI Partnerships for UF\u2019s new\nArtificial Intelligence Initiative. In that role, he coordinates with industry, government and educators across the state.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Valuing “Diversity of Experience”<\/h2>\n

Married since 2008, Woodard enjoys a quiet life in Gainesville, where, in his rare free time, he enjoys good food and playing video games (first-person shooters are his favorite, his says).<\/p>\n

Looking back on his unorthodox career path, he says his bumpy journey only made him stronger and more resilient. He knows the value of grit and emphasizes to students that intellect alone is not enough; persistence and punching back after setbacks are the foundations of success.<\/p>\n

Lessons like these can\u2019t be gained by reading academic papers, he says. People have to experience them directly and pass them on to the next generation. He hopes that when hiring faculty members, universities will increasingly value nontraditional applicants who have overcome hardships to become standouts in their field.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the entire faculty is made up of people who only followed the strict path [to an academic career], you\u2019re going to get a certain way of thinking,\u201d said Woodard. \u201cBut if you mix in those folks with people like me, you get a diversity of experience that makes the whole institution stronger.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho better to help people overcome adversity than someone who\u2019s climbed that mountain themselves?\u201d<\/p>\n

More About<\/h2>\n