A Brief History of Me

The (relatively) distant past

I started off doing web page development when I was in elementary school. I was very curious about the way the web worked. How could I make something on the web dynamic? I started to learn javascript, but one of burning questions I was left with was how could I make a secure website. (One where the password wasn’t just hidden in the javascript). Well, I must admit I didn’t figure that out until much later, when I learned how to write server-side scripts.

The past

In high school I started to get back into web development and building more complicated websites by using server-side scripting in PHP, as well as beginning to learn how to use MySQL. Then in my senior year I took AP Computer Science and joined the FIRST Robotics Team at my school. The combination of these two things are what really inspired me to go to school to become a computer scientist.

So, I decided to go to Virginia Tech, a fine school, with a great engineering program. Of course I started out with all of the normal Freshman Engineering courses: Chemistry, Physics, English, and Intro to Engineering, plus my first college Computer Science Course: Data Structures. In my Sophomore year I had to take the infamous Public Speaking class, thanks to the stereotype of Computer Scientist not being able to get up and talk in front of an audience. It was also in my Sophomore year that I decided to take two bonus courses (just for fun, mind you) in C++ and Python. In addition they also required us to take a few math courses including: Multivariable Calculus, and Differential Equations, and my all time favorite Applied Combinatorics. Towards the end of my Sophomore year, I decided to go to Sweden to study abroad for a year.

I arrived in Luleå, Sweden towards the end of summer, and within a few weeks I began to feel right at home. It was a lot of meeting people from all over the world, going to class with them, and hanging out together. I enjoyed learning Swedish both in and out of the classroom. It was amazing how fast I was able to pick up on snatches of conversation, whether it was people at the supermarket talking about the “färsk fisk” (fresh fish) or in the lunch hall at school talking about how class was. While I was there I took some really interesting computer courses. I took courses in Machine Learning, Pervasive Computing, Network Programming and Distributed Applications, Software Engineering, and Computer Graphics with Virtual Environments. At the end of the Pervasive Computing course we wrote a paper about our class project, The Brightnest Web-Based Home Automation System, which was accepted to the 8th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing and Ambient Intelligence, 6th International Work-conference on Ambient Assisted Living (UCAmI & IWAAL 2014).

After just one more short year at Virginia Tech, I graduated, Spring 2015, Magna Cum Laude with a BS in Computer Science with a Minor in Math from Virginia Tech. My Professor for my capstone course recommended, what we submit our final project as a demo to AA 2015: CRITICAL ALTERNATIVES 2015 The fifth decennial Aarhus conference. The demo Light is Loud: A Sound Driven LED Suit was one of six accepted to the conference.

The more recent past

I moved to Austin, TX to take a job with IBM. The work was interesting, and I enjoyed learning about how a data center functioned. One of the tasks that I was give was to build an IoT application to monitor the environmental and electrical usage statistics. This gave me the opportunity to learn a bit of NodeJS and to contribute to several NodeRed nodes, but as they say all good things must come to an end, and so a little after two years…

The fairly recent past

I worked for nearly five years Samsung Austin R&D Center (SARC), where I work on an IT team, as an Automation Engineer. I worked primarily on automation around server lifecycle management including maintaining the Configuration Management Database (CMDB) as well as a GraphQL that was used to augment the information in the CMDB.

Now

I am working at Amazon on the Privacy team.