Damien R. Sullivan

Skills:

• Perl, C, C++, Java programming, testing, and system development, for Unix computers.
• Also HTML, XML, SQL, Oracle, MySQL, CVS. Experience installing and configuring MySQL, gcc, Perl.
• Engineering methodology, particularly design and testing.
• Intensive experience using Unix and the Internet since 1992.
• Varied math and science fields, and aptitude for rapidly learning more (see below).

Education:

• B.S. in Planetary Science, California Institute of Technology, June 1997.
• Math: Calculus, Differential Equations, Complex Analysis, Partial Differential Equations, Linear Algebra
• Physics: Classical Mechanics, Electricity and Magnetism, Waves, Quantum Mechanics, Thermodynamics
• Biology: readings in evolutionary theory; genetics; immunology; microbiology.
• Micro- and macro-economics.

Work Experience:

• April 2001-August 2001: Subcontract, BSI. Learned Turbine Java servelets and Velocity web server and templating systems; rewrote an admin web page within this framework; wrote an events (business, not computer) handling module; contributed to customer subscription handling.
• April 2001: Contract, Silk Route Technology. Helped develop, and implemented as a Java prototype, an important optimization algorithm, and helped explain it to non-scientist members of the company.
• July 1998--November 2000, Software Engineer, Cogit Corporation. Hired for six months as a temporary employee. Promoted to permanent status after two months. Initial task: managing a suite of Perl/CGI scripts acting as the GUI for the company's core application. Later branched out to enhancing C++ components of the core application, then adding significantly to the core code and learning to manage a more junior developer.

  After April 1999 mostly programmed in C++, with occasional emergency Perl jobs; learned the STL and basic SQL, and written a networked service dispatcher with dynamically loaded plug-in modules, and designed the interfaces and configuration for the dispatcher and modules. Became more disciplined in writing unit tests and doing full testing before release to QA. Worked with and helped train the company Unix sysadmin and guided another junior developer.

• February 1997--June 1998. Webmastering and design in the Planetary Science department at Caltech; learned Perl.
• Summer 1996: Contract for Integraft. The project was a body suit to capture movements. Translated Visual Basic code, which obtained the raw data and transformed it into 3D coordinates and Euler angles, into C++ code. Then moved that code into a Visual C++ application to display a stick figure and save 'movies' of a subject's movement.
• Fall 1995: Worked on a Web site for a geology/environment class at Caltech. (For the same professor as in February 1997.)
• Summer 1995, 1993: Miscellaneous data processing, in the Caltech Seismological Laboratory.
• Summer 1995: Laid out the seed of, and provided graphics for, the Earthquakes in Southern California page of Caltech's Seismological Laboratory.
• Summer 1994: Created an AVS animation of the Northridge Earthquake, which was used in a public information kiosk in the lobby of the Seismo Lab and on a SCEC Web page.
• Summer 1992: Database manager for Corboy and Demetrio, a nationally renowned law firm based in Chicago.
• Summer 1991: Advanced Placement Pascal Teaching Assistant, Loyola University of Chicago.

Projects:

• Wrote an incompetence interview test.
• Wrote a personal e-mail program in Perl.

Interests:

• Biology: extensive reading for fun, including The Social Insects (Edward Wilson), Immunology (Janis Kuby), Biology of Microorganisms (Brock and Madigan), The Molecular Biology of the Gene (Francis Crick et al.)
• Varied reading in economics.
• Strong and eclectic intellectual curiosity.
• Attended 2001 Annual Conference of the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science.)