Graduate School
I'm in my seventh year of grad school at the
University of California, Santa Cruz.
I finished my Masters degree in the Spring quarter, 2004. I worked with
Professor Jane Wilhelms in
Computer Graphics and Animation. My Masters thesis is titled "Motion-Assisted Capture with
Template Motions" and introduces the concept of a "Template Motion". For details, visit the
Zoo and Masters pages.
Since finishing my Masters degree, I have concentrated on my Ph.D.
The title of the project is Whisper,
for Web Information Sharing Project (or Protocol). Whisper is designed to be
a collaborative academic work environment and stems, philosophically at least, from the work
of Doug Engelbart.
"The computer revolutionaries still fail to understand that the art and power of using
a computer as a mind amplifier are not in how the amplifier works but in what amplified minds
are able to accomplish." - Doug Engelbart
Silver Spring Networks
In 2006 I went looking for a summer job and found one at a startup on the peninsula called
Silver Spring Networks. They are
putting network cards into power, water, and gas meters and creating an IP-based network (a
private internet, if you will) via which the energy companies can do things like read the
meters every few hours, remotely connect or disconnect service, communicate with Smart Devices
in the home to request they draw less power during peak usage times, and so on. My initial 6
months there turned into a full time job at the beginning of 2007; I took a leave of absence
from UCSC for the year. I'm hoping to be able to continue working at Silver Spring while I
finish my Ph.D.
Humane Software
In the summer of 2003 a friend introduced me to Kate Treichler, a student in the MBA program
at Santa Clara University. Earlier this year, Kate took a
class that required each group of students to create a marketing plan for a product. When
their first idea fell through, Kate asked me if I had any projects that might work as a
commercial product. I did, and jumped at the chance to have a free marketing team. At the
end of the quarter, I asked Kate if she would be interested in working on my idea over
the long term, and when she said yes, Humane Software was born. Unfortunately, the realities
and workload of my Ph.D. project, Kate's
continuing education at
Carnegie Mellon's HCI Institute, and now our full time
jobs have prevented us from doing much more than planning for the future.