Information Johnathan Dewey was born on July 27th, 2002, in Poughkeepsie, New York. He grew up in the nearby town of Hopewell Junction for the first 18 years of his life. In Hopewell, Johnathan attended schools in the Wappingers Central School System, going to Gayhead Elementary School, Van Wyck Junior High School, and John Jay Senior High School. As a child, Johnathan had a creative and adventurous spirit that enjoyed creating things out of Legos, playing video games, and exploring the natural beauty the Hudson Valley had to offer. From the young age of 3, his parents had him try a plethora of activities to get interested in sports. At first, Johnathan played baseball and soccer, until he went through a noticeable growth spurt, and then ventured into basketball. By the end of elementary school Johnathan was more content with being in his creative mind than competing, and preferred to play with his Legos, video games, or neighbors and friends.
Transitioning into Junior and Senior High School, Johnathan began to establish himself more in a manner that made sense to him. He stopped playing basketball and stopped engaging in sports for his time in Junior High School, but when he moved on to High School, he decided to run Track and Field to get him out of the house. In Track and Field, Johnathan went on to become a formidable competitor in the Hurdles for John Jay Senior High School. Johnathan also participated in other extra-curricular activities, such as honor societies and community service.
In High School, Johnathan became very intrigued with computer systems, and began to explore the different disciplines of computation. He learned Java and Visual Basic programming languages in High School and completed simple projects to prove his understanding. He also took classes in communications and learned valuable programs like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and other concepts such as 3D printing and sound mixing. Therefore, at the time of sending college applications, Johnathan sent his out with the intent of receiving a Computer Science degree.
Johnathan graduated from John Jay Senior High School in June of 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Quarantine was a definitive time for Johnathan-as it was for many people. He completed his senior year online and away from his dear friends, which allotted much time for himself and promoted the self-growth and healing. At the end of quarantine Johnathan had a new outlook on his life-path and does not regret his time spent in isolation.
After High School, Johnathan attended Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. Upon entering Furman, Johnathan was intent on declaring a B.S. in Computer Science and did so in the first semester. However, during his orientation counseling, a soon-to-be professor and mentor of his convinced him to take Japanese to satisfy a foreign language requirement. This decision evolved into the declaration of a second major in Japanese Studies, and Johnathan thoroughly enjoyed his studies about Japanese culture. This helped Johnathan understand the anthropologist aspects of his interests where he conducted much undergraduate research in the factors surrounding discriminatory practices, such as poor urban planning, unfair legislation, and hidden forms of propaganda. Learning Japanese also ignited Johnathan's interest in language which evolved into a fascination with translation. During Johnathan's senior year, he conducted a senior thesis for both of his majors where he focused on the translation of English and Japanese. For Computer Science, he wrote Context-Driven English to Japanese Translation, where he built a simple translator that uses linguistic corpora, tree structures, and a visitor pattern, to transform English sentences into Japanese sentences. For Japanese Studies, he wrote Discrepancies among Translation, which explains the difficultly of different aspects of translation, and why computational translation fails to match the efficiency of human translators.
On May 4th, 2024, Johnathan graduated from Furman University, Cum Laude, with a B.S. Computer Science and B.A. Japanese Studies. Johnathan was known for his dedication to his studies and his help around Campus. Johnathan was inducted into Upsilon Pi Epsilon and the National Japanese Honor Society, he studied abroad at the prestigious Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, and was an assistant in a professional academic research project with LSU's DeepDrug. Johnathan worked many jobs at Furman but worked as an IT technician for all 4 years. At Furman he also was a Teaching Assistant and a Peer Tutor, but he also was a Tricasting Operator for the University's Lightboard room.
After University, Johnathan is seeking a career in Software Engineering and wants to move to Boston, Massachusetts to be closer to where he grew up and his family. He will be moving with his partner, Patrick, and their dog, Yuri.
