Brian Gardner

Mr. Brian K. Gardner is an Assistant Teaching Professor of Information Technology at Penn State Schuylkill. He is responsible for the scheduling and delivery of the curriculum that fulfills the requirements for the Cybersecurity Analytics and Operations (CYAOP) and Information Technology (IT) baccalaureate degree programs offered through our College of information Sciences and Technology (IST). In addition, he serves as the Program Coordinator for both programs at the campus. He is also the Professor in Charge of the University College CYAOP Statewide Consortium who is responsible for coordinating the shared delivery of the undergraduate curriculum from our CYAOP degree program to six of Penn State’s Commonwealth campuses.

Mr. Gardner complements his teaching responsibilities with a very active research agenda. He has aligned himself with some of the best and brightest researchers across our Commonwealth campus system to pursue numerous initiatives that have been rewarded with invitations to present his research at nationally recognized academic conferences and publishing credits in several respected academic journals and conference proceedings. His work has also secured several grants of shared software licenses and research funding to support ongoing research initiatives.

Mr. Gardner has had a long and distinguished career in IT consulting and academia. He began his career at IBM and served on a wide range of technical teams providing system administration and programming support for large clients such as the U.S. Navy and DuPont. He also worked for a number of other small to medium-sized consulting firms providing critical technical support to Commonwealth state agencies such as PennDOT, the Department of Health, and the Department of Labor and Industry. His valuable contributions have earned him technical lead and project management roles on numerous projects. His consulting work has provided him with the opportunity to travel extensively across the continental United States and overseas which included project work in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. During his consulting career at IBM, Mr. Gardner also traveled across the U.S. teaching networking courses to external customers for their Skills Dynamics services organization.

Mr. Gardner has also had extensive academic experience to complement his consulting work. Before coming to Penn State Schuylkill, he was an adjunct instructor at Penn State York for eight years, assuming responsibility for teaching the 200-level IST networking courses. Other teaching credits include adjunct lecturer roles at Elizabethtown College, Harrisburg Area Community College, ITT Technical, and York Technical Institute.

Mr. Gardner started his Penn State journey at the McKeesport campus (known today as Greater Allegheny) and earned his bachelor of science degree in Computer Science from Penn State's University Park campus. He also earned a master of science degree in Information Systems from Shippensburg University. He also holds an Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation certification, considered to be the most widely used IT Service Management framework in the industry.

Brian is originally from New York City and developed his love for computer technology from his father, Earl, who was Manager of Computer Operations at Book of the Month Club. Brian’s wife, Diann, has deep Schuylkill County roots and is a proud Schuylkill campus alumna, earning her bachelor of arts in Individual and Family Studies from University Park one year after his graduation. Brian and Diann are also proud of their three daughters, one of whom is a 2016 Penn State School of Business graduate.