Professional Profile

My career has spanned a wide spectrum – from athlete to coach to software developer. Through it all I have been a hard worker, a dedicated employee, a great communicator, and a team player. I bring a positive energy to any team I am on and looking for a new opportunity that leverages my skills and experience.

Education

M.S. COMPUTER SCIENCE

Virginia Tech, 2010-2013

B.S. COMPUTER SCIENCE

Virginia Tech, 1999-2003

Research Interests

VIRTUAL/AUGMENTED REALITY

SPORTS BIOMECHANICS, SPORTS PSYCHOLOGY

IMMERSIVE TECHNOLOGIES

HUMAN LEARNING, HUMAN PERCEPTION

Technical Skills

WEB DEVELOPMENT

HTML/CSS/JS
PHP
SQL
WordPress
Ruby on Rails
Angular JS
React Native
Elixir

LANGUAGES

C/C++
Java
Python
Ruby
Matlab

GRAPHICS/3D MODELING

Photoshop
Google Sketchup
3DS Max

3D TECHNOLOGIES

X3D
Vizard
Wired/wireless/markerless tracking systems
Mocap
CAVE/HMDs/3D displays
Sport simulators

Work Experience

INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR / DESIGNER / HANDYWOMAN

Self-employed, 2022 – Present

After working for a decade with the same company, I left my full-time position and took some time to reflect on my career. I pursued a variety of interests during the year including: contract work, home renovation/design, carpentry, and landscaping.

FULL-STACK SENIOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Precision Nutrition, 2012 – 2022

Over my tenure at Precision Nutrition, I worked my way up from Junior Developer to Lead Developer of my team. In addition to working on the company’s public-facing sites, APIs and custom applications, I also regularly (1) acted as a technical consultant, (2) coordinated and managed feature development by contractors and agencies, (3) wrote job descriptions and interviewed potential applicants and (4) prepared/executed test plans for the company’s multi-million-dollar product launches.

GRADUATE RESEARCH WORK

Virginia Tech, 2010-2013

My research centered around using virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) applications to promote learning, training and sport performance. My coursework spanned the fields of computer science, industrial training, and biomechanics, and my research projects exposed me to a wide variety of 3D displays and tracking system.

ASSISTANT VOLLEYBALL COACH / INSTRUCTOR

Appalachian State University, 2007 – 2010

As a coach for the university’s women’s volleyball program, my duties included player training, video analysis, travel arrangements, opponent scouting, game-day preparations, and equipment management. In addition, I also taught several volleyball and badminton classes every semester where I was responsible for instruction, grading, and course administration.

PROFESSIONAL VOLLEYBALL PLAYER

Canadian National Team, 2003 – 2006
Clube Desportivo Ribeirense, Azores, Portugal, 2015
Palma-CIDE, Mallorca, Spain, 2006 – 2007
Alvemaca Eccentric, Tenerife, Spain, 2005 – 2006
Hainaut Volley, Valenciennes, France, 2004 – 2005
USC-Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany, 2003 – 2004

SOFTWARE ENGINEER

AUEL-EDV, Braunschweig, Germany, 2004

While playing volleyball in Germany, I worked part-time as a software engineer on a medium-scale database application.

Teaching Experience

GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANT

Dept of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, Fall 2010

My duties included administering the lab portion of an introductory programming course, grading and office hours.

LAB INSTRUCTOR

Dept of Computer Science, University of Manitoba, Fall 2003

I was the lab instructor for a first-year programming class. My duties included teaching the lab and writing lesson plans.

UNDERGRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANT

Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, 2001 – 2003

Over the course of my undergraduate studies I worked as a teaching assistant for a variety of courses in the department. I held office hours to help students with coding assignments.

Research Projects

For my master’s thesis, I investigated the feasibility and usefulness of using virtual reality (VR) for two sport subdomains: sport psychology and sport biomechanics. I wanted to determine if the training benefits that have been observed in other VR domains could also generalize to athletics. Below I provide a brief description of the two projects, along with some images of the software applications.

VIRTUAL REALITY FOR SPORT PSYCHOLOGY TRAINING

Based upon the success of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET), where phobic patients are treated for their fears using virtual environments, I was curious to explore the potential of virtual reality as a training platform for high-anxiety sport situations. Using Virginia Tech’s VisCube (a 4-walled immersive VR display), I developed an application for soccer goalkeepers to defend against penalty kicks. Multiple environments were created, with varying degrees of fidelity and anxiety triggers. The application was used for two studies, one with high-level goalkeepers and the other with regular population. Using physiological sensors and surveys we were able to determine that anxiety could be triggered in users, suggesting that VR has potential for sport psychology training.

VIRTUAL REALITY FOR BIOMECHANICAL TRAINING

This system was developed to explore the potential for VR to support sport biomechanical training. The system was aimed at adolescents aged 5-12 who were looking to improve their jumping ability. The system uses the Microsoft Kinect to provide real-time, full-body tracking to turn a common plyometric exercise (continuous lateral jumping) into a video game. The user’s movements control a cartoon avatar, and they must jump back-and-forth between two rocks floating in a sea of lava. If they take too much time between jumps, or if they do not jump a far enough distance (based on their height), the avatar sinks into the lava, points are lost, and a new avatar appears. While the user is playing the game, the system analyzes the jumping biomechanics. When the round is over, users are shown images depicting their biomechanical performance and tips for improvement. The purpose of the biomechanical analysis is twofold: (1) to improve the user’s jumping ability, and (2) to reduce the risk of injuries associated with poor jumping technique.

VIRTUAL REALITY FOR SEARCH AND RESCUE

This project is based on design and implementation of an innovative solution to solve the challenge proposed by the 2012 3DUI Contest. It offers an application that can be used to train search and rescue efforts using Virtual Reality. The responder uses a head-mounted display to navigate within a 3D environment filled with hazards and danger. The scene commander has a mixed 2D/3D view on a standard display and can help guide the responder through the environment using waypoints and audio instructions.

VIRTUAL REALITY FOR SOLVING 3D PUZZLES

This project is based on design and implementation of an innovative solution to solve the challenge proposed by the 3DUI Contest 2011. Rather than using a direct manipulation technique to handle placement of the puzzle pieces, such as the virtual hand, we designed an innovative technique based on building blocks. We aimed to provide a fun and intuitive way to solve puzzles that is not possible in the physical world. Rather than having to focus on specific pieces one at a time, users instead build pieces from individual building blocks, allowing them to focus on the structure of the puzzle space.