Paris B-A

Snapshot

I am currently in Silicon Valley, California, USA, working on my research in information management for my PhD at UTAS while leading Secret Lab in a variety of exciting software development and design projects for iPhone, iPad, Facebook, Android, BlackBerry and the web. Together with my business partner, Jon Manning, and noted technologist Neal Goldstein, I am writing iPhone and iPad Game Development for Dummies for Wiley Publishing. I have a passion for Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Computer-supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Information Management and Design, User Experience Design (UX), Interaction Design (IxD), game design and development, mobile computing, calm computing and the Command & Conquer video game franchise. I am addicted to coffee.

Selected Activities

• 2000 – 2008 – Founded ithinkITworks, Freelance Software Development business. Lead developer on numerous varied projects in C#, .NET, Windows Mobile, Cocoa, Mac, Windows, Gnome, KDE, GTK+, Qt and others.
• 2008 – Founded Secret Lab, a independent game and application development studio for iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, web, Mac and PC.
• 2008 – Java, Programming & Problem Solving, and Programming Data Structures help session leader (teaching assistant/tutor) for Computing students at the University of Tasmania.
• 2009 – Class tutor and marker (teaching assistant) for Artificial Intelligence (third-year unit), Software Construction (second-year unit) and Computer Graphics & Animation (third-year unit) units at the University of Tasmania.
• 2010 – Leading Secret Lab in a variety of ventures based in Australia and the United States while writing iPhone and iPad Game Development for Dummies and researching towards a PhD in Computing.

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Arts (History) – Bachelor of Computing Combined Degree (Graduated 2007)
• Bachelor of Computing with First Class Honours (Graduated 2008)
• Doctor of Philosophy (Computing) Candidate (Commenced 2009, expected completion 2012)

Selected Conferences and Presentations

• Apple University Consortium /dev/world/2008 – Melbourne- September, 2008
• Three-day Professional Training Workshop – REALbasic – November, December 2008 – Melbourne and Sydney
• Australian Computer Society (ACS) IT in the Club Public Presentation – March, 2009
• State Library of Tasmania, Social Networking Public Presentation – National Youth Week – April, 2009
• UTAS, Public Lecture Series (Social Networking Lecture) – National ICT Careers Week – July 2009
• UTAS, 90 Seconds of Fame – National Science Week – August, 2009
• Apple University Consortium /dev/world/2009 – Canberra – September, 2009
• OZCHI 2009 – Melbourne – November, 2009
• Apple University Consortium CreateWorld 2009 – Brisbane – December, 2009
• Three-day Professional Training Workshop – Unity – Sydney – December, 2009
• Three-day iPhone Boot Camp – Melbourne – December, 2009
• iPad Discussion – iPhone Boot Camp Developers’ Town Hall Meeting – San Francisco – January, 2010
• Three-day Professional Training Workshop – Unity – Melbourne – May, 2010
• Three-day Professional Training Workshop – Unity – Brisbane – May, 2010

Publications, Posters and Writing

• The Pile of Least Effort: Supporting Lived Document Management Practices, Proceedings of OZCHI 2009, Melbourne, Australia – November, 2009
• Avoiding Creepy People: Social Networks Increasing the Pleasure of Carpooling, Poster at OZCHI 2009, Melbourne, Australia – November, 2009
• The Hunt for Melbourne: Creating Tourists, Winning poster at OZCHI 2009 for the 24 hour Design Challenge, Melbourne, Australia – November, 2009
• iPhone and iPad Game Development for Dummies, Wiley Inc. – forthcoming, early 2010

Selected Conference and Workshop Attendance

• Apple University Consortium Cocoa Workshop – Sydney – January, 2008
• Apple University Consortium XCode Tools Workshop – Melbourne – February, 2008
• Apple WWDC 2008 – San Francisco – June, 2008
• Apple iPhone Tech Talk World Tour 2008 – Melbourne – November, 2008
• Apple WWDC 2009 – San Francisco – June, 2009
• Unity Developer Conference, Unite 2009 – San Francisco – November, 2009
• Mac World Expo 2010 – San Francisco – February, 2010
• Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2010 – San Francisco – March, 2010

Affiliations

• Golden Key International Honour Society Member 2004 – now
• TUCS (The UTAS Computing Society) Secretary 2008
• TUCS (The UTAS Computing Society) Vice-President 2009
• TUCS (The UTAS Computing Society) Sponsorship & Community 2010
• ACS (Australian Computer Society) – Executive Board – Tasmania 2009, 2010
• AUC Student Activities

Academic Achievements

• Hutchins School Scholarship
• UTAS Dean’s Roll of Excellence
• AUC Honours Scholarship 2008
• AUC Student Developer Scholarship 2008 – 2010
• Tasmanian Graduate Research Scholarship, 2009 – 2012 (PhD studies)
• OZCHI Design Challenge Winner – Melbourne, 2009

Technical Skills

• Objective-C, Cocoa on Mac OS X, iPhone and iPad
• Blackberry, Android and general mobile development
• PHP, Python and Ruby
• C, C++ on all platforms
• Java, .NET, and REALbasic
• Cg, GLSL Shader Languages
• GUI Toolits: GTK+, Qt, wxWidgets

Other Skills

• Strong presenter and technical trainer
• Strong object-oriented design and programming skills
• Strong flexible grasp of English, including analytical, research writing and copywriting
• Strong understanding of HCI and usability issues in software design
• Relational database theory (mySQL, postgreSQL)

Other Qualifications

• St. John Ambulance Emergency First Aid (Workplace Level 1)
• United States of America E3 Visa holder, entitled to work in the USA 2009 – 2011
• “Hello World” Expert