Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
ducky at webfoot.com
Position Desired
I am pretty much retired now, so not really looking. If the perfect job comes along, I might consider it,
but am pretty happy doing my own thing.
My ideal job description is "go do great things" for an organization which is doing things
which will help lots of people. I am a generalist capable of doing a good job on a wide range of things.
Experience
2/20-present: Hobby projects
I have two hobby projects at the moment:
- COVID-19 in BC blog
- Data-driven maps of rolling averages of confirmed
COVID19 cases and deaths in the US by county by day on a population-based cartogram,
including an animation.
7/19-2/20: Travelled
It was awesome!
5/18-7/19: Satellite Data ETL, Adecco under direction of Google
Wrote code to automatically process and ingest data (e.g.
Sentinel 5P,
LUCAS,
FLDAS,
TIGER,
HUC02,
TRMM,
GPPD,
GLIMS,
NLCD,
HYCOM)
into
Google Earth Engine's data store, and wrote documentation
explaining the data.
4/14-2/18: QA Manager, Maintenance Lead, and Senior Developer,
Awesense
I had a dizzying array of roles, doing
whatever needed to be done to advance a startup making hardware and software
to help electric utilities find losses in their power distribution grid.
Lead of QA and SW Maintenance groups. Wrote huge fraction of the dev documentation (including, for example,
17 pages on endpoints).
I was also:
- Acting Dev Lead -- directed, supported, assisted, and motivated a team of about seven people to fill a management void.
- QA -- saw and filled a need, becoming the first person to emphasize and systematize QA.
Started by implementing our first CI system (Jenkins) and building out Protractor tests. Grew the group.
- Project Manager -- managed three different customers' pilot projects until a dedicated project manager could
be hired.
- Internationalization/Localization Engineer -- saw and filled a need. Localized system in five languages.
five languages.
- Back-end developer -- added features and fixed bugs in Python/PostGIS back-end.
- Front-end developer -- added features and fixed bugs in Javascript/Angular front-end.
11/12-4/14: Self-employed
9/12-11/12: Campaign Volunteer, Obama For Wisconsin
- Developed maps on demand to support state-level campaign activities using my own framework.
Work included significant Javascript/Leaflet work and geocoding.
- Customer Support Lead -- half time tech support lead with understanding that I would become the manager
of the tech support group, half time whatever needed including writing manuals, delivering training,
and doing voice-over for videos.
- Code development (Java) for SpringSource Tool Suite Eclipse plug-in for remote third party client.
- Lead developer for Food Network Canada's iPhone application and PostMedia's iPad application,
leading offshore team. (ObjectiveC)
Developer on Best Buy and Bloomberg iOS applications. (ObjectiveC)
8/08-3/10: Self-employed
- Developed cute visualization of US population distribution.
- Implemented cartographic map of US unemployment by month
for 22 years using my own
fast
and flexible maps framework for applications with very large numbers of points or
polygons (ScapeToad cartogram and custom PHP for ETL; R for graphs and seasonal adjustment; Javascript/Leaflet front-end;
PHP/MySQL/GD backend).
- Developed demo of US election maps
with overlays of demographic and point-based information (Java/Google Web Toolkit front-end; PHP/MySQL/GD backend).
- Consulted for two clients; one doing geographic market research, one doing ETL (in
Django/Python) and documentation for maps company.
- Volunteered for Obama For America, doing data cleansing on geographic data. (ArcGIS)
Course projects and extra-curricular projects included:
5/06-8/06: Summer intern, Google
- Programmer on Google Maps team (C++).
- Took five classes at Stanford to prepare for entering grad school in the
fall: Object-Oriented Programming (Java), Operating Systems (C), Compilers (C++),
Probability, and Logic.
- Developed stronger ties with the open source developer community by improving
external communications.
12/98-2/03: Book Author, Publisher, and Trainer
- Wrote two books on
how to overcome email overload -- one for Eudora users and one for
Microsoft Outlook users. Interviewed many people on their email habits.
Incorporated feedback on the text from more than 130 people around the world.
Both books have five-star Amazon ratings and
rave reviews.
- Published books. Designed and laid out books, oversaw manufacturing,
and built distribution channel. Negotiated all contracts.
- Developed media kit and publicity campaign. Gained
publicity
in many media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal,
New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune,
San Jose Mercury News, Information Week, All Things Considered, KDKA, KNX, KCBS, and KOMO.
- Wrote approximately twenty articles on email effectiveness for magazines,
newsletters, and e-zines.
- Developed and presented email effectiveness training to military,
educational, and corporate clients.
6/98-12/98: Domestic Organization Lead
- Project lead for five-hour, 100-person event. Researched options,
negotiated with stakeholders, jointly selected vendors, and oversaw
logistics. Documented
results.
- Investigated culture, flora, and fauna, language, history, and architecture
of several southeast Asian countries. Obtained
certification
in negotiating a hazardous environment. Documented
findings.
- Facilities management project lead for small condominium complex.
Researched options, negotiated with stakeholders, jointly selected
vendors, and oversaw logistics for landscaping, pest control, and roofing.
Note: Interval spun out this home media integration project into
a separate company, Avio Digital,
which was then purchased by Centillium.
Project included proprietary home media network, a "tablet" controller/Internet
appliance, and a digital media storage device.
- Taught self
Squeak, a Smalltalk dialect.
- Developed basic GUIs for integrated email/address book application,
camcorder and VCR control, and telephony simulation.
- Implemented and/or expanded code for Internet
and serial protocols, including HTTP, SMTP, POP3,
VISCA (Sony's consumer devices bus) and X10 (home automation protocol).
- Improved speed and page layout of Web browser software.
- Interpreted register-level hardware specs to co-develop demo
controlling radio, CD player, and TV using MediaWire.
- Wrote "straw man" specs for telephony products' register-level interface.
- Performed "soft QA": discovered, analyzed, and reported numerous bugs
in code I depended on. Frequently suggested exact fixes to code
owners.
1/96-6/96: Web Development Contractor
- Developed database-driven Web site using Access and Cold Fusion
for Enterprise Integration Technologies (bought by Verifone).
- Wrote server-side macro expansion code for pseudo-HTML
for Tribune Corporation,
- Developed registration scripts and web-based tutorial for
TriQuest Design Automation.
- Developed StreetView-esque
"virtual tour"
of the UIUC campus via 800+ still photos and intuitive
user interface.
- Developed navigational system
which included five zoom levels of maps/floorplans. Users could find
the location
of a room or the location
of a building via simple, regular URLs. (This was also linked to the virtual tour.)
- Developed wheelchair access information.
(Winner of the university-wide Harold Scharper Service Award.)
- Programs of Study (university information, including graduation requirements) to HTML.
- Developed prototype of hypertext versions of
Courses Catalog and Timetable
with rich cross-linking between the the two.
- Developed and maintained university-level Web pages.
- Evangelized the Web; helped academic units create Web sites.
Summer 1995
-
Webfoot's Used Car Lot: first self-serve
auto classifieds and indices to useful information, which won the Best
Amateur Site / Personal Finance Division of
GNN's 1995 Best of the Net Awards.
(Discontinued due to repetitive strain injury and the advent of
similar commercial sites.)
- Webfoot's Travel Information:
travelogues and tips
- Beginner's Guide
to Effective Email, which at one point got about 600,000 hits per year.
6/94-8/94:
Enterprise Integration Technologies (bought by Veriphone), Menlo Park, CA
- Wrote what may have been the first
email-to-Web gateway (like Hotmail or Yahoo mail) with
CGI scripts (in Perl and Python).
- Contributed to access control scripts.
- Developed original versions of
General Engineering department,
College of Engineering, and
University
Web pages
- Parsed text of the UIUC engineering class
Timetable
and
Courses Catalog
to create
highly cross-linked HTML documents. (Scripts were subsequently modified
to work for all University classes.)
- Performed system administration for
Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory's four RS/6000s.
- Wrote and augmented numerous Perl, awk, sed, and csh scripts and C programs
to improve usability of design automation tools, including software to present
simpler user interfaces, translate between vendor formats, queue jobs,
and improve readability of output.
- Worked closely with a variety of clients to analyze circuit timing
of approximately thirty chips and five CPU and memory boards.
2/88-3/90: Arix Corporation, San Jose, CA
Promoted up through four jobs in two years:
- Founded Electronic Design Automation group: Evaluated, purchased,
and installed hardware and software, then simulated dual-processor
68040 board. Wrote Verilog behavioral models for memory board, arbiter, and
several glue parts. Wrote netlist translator in C.
- Project lead of Integration group: Turned chronically troublesome
area into smoothly functioning organization. Supervised two engineers
and one clerk. Offered my choice of three different management jobs afterwards.
- UNIX utilities programmer: ported, upgraded, and maintained System
V.3 utilities. Required ability to read and comprehend a wide variety
of coding styles, quickly determine the cause of the bug, fix, and
test.
- UNIX software test engineer: Tested UNIX OS and utilities, NFS, RFS,
and several third-party applications. Assisted customer with NFS in
France in French.
2/87- 1/88: Quad Design Technology, Inc. Camarillo, CA
Co-founder of startup which merged profitably with
Viewlogic in 1993.
- Original author and illustrator of majority of documentation for MOTIVE,
a static timing analyzer.
- Wrote majority of timing models
- Assisted in customer benchmarks and support.
Joined before company's two-year anniversary.
- Developed wafer tracking / engineering data collection system for
fab using IBM PCs and commercial relational database package.
- Developed bi-level metallization.
- Developed sputtered silicon anti-reflective coating for DRAM process.
- Interfaced residual gas analyzer to HP microcomputer over RS-232 interface.
- Responsible for equipment uptime. Supervised 7 technicians.
- Developed a technique for gas carbo-nitriding of high-carbon steel
- Reorganized and maintained laboratory facilities
- Wrote simulation of two-phase decarburization of steel (in Pascal on Apple II)
- Calibrated an oxide furnace
- Drew blueprints, soldered boards, wired cables for zero-gravity boiling experiment
in spacesuit design lab
EDUCATION
MSc
General Engineering (now part of
Industrial and Enterprise Systems Engineering department), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1996. GPA 3.865/4.0 Project:
Development of the
University of Illinois Web.
Winner of departmental Outstanding Graduate Student Award.
BSc Metallurgical Engineering (now part of
Materials Science department)
, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1984. GPA 3.47/4.0
14 non-degree classes at:
Approximately 200 hours of managment training classes from
Intel internal courses, Leadership Midpeninsula, and a UIUC course.
As part of UIUC MSc, took U.S. Intellectual Property Law class and
a business case study class.
Theatrical/Performance Works
- Co-producer of community access TV show Parents, Families, and
Friends. Host for more than 30 episodes; previously had roles as
director, floor director, technical director, and camera operator.
- Associate producer/host for ten episodes of community access TV show
High
Tech Heroes. Also floor director, tape operator, timer,
lighting op, camera op, teleprompter op, and floor director in
different episodes.
- Chorus in 1999
West Bay Opera production of
Carmen.
- Followspot operator in 1998
West Bay Opera production of
Italian Girl in
Algiers
- Stage crew for 1998
West Bay Opera production of
Turn of the
Screw
- Audio board for 1999
Opera San José
world premiere of
Tale of the Nutcracker
U.S. Citizen, Canadian Citizen
