Who am I? Teaching, training, supervision, communicating, etc
Here are some experiences I've had over my career (so far) with teaching, training, supervision, writing/editing and communicating more generally.
In 1980/1981 I was employed over the university Xmas holidays by the university to assist with marking the National NZ university entrance exam programming question.
Lecturer, Waikato university, Computer Science Department, 1985, Lecturer in computer architecture (3rd year course). I supplemented existing course material (written by Professor Mark Apperley) with new material I researched and wrote motivating current architectures from an historical context. I took students through a quick history of computer architecture from first principles, and they had to solve problems and "invent" each major new architecture innovation. Also introduced new material for emerging technologies (yes, field-programmable gate arrays - FPGAs - were around in 1985), and likely future computer architecture directions.
I assisted a friend typesetting his MSc physics thesis (I spent 6 weeks typesetting 100s of quantum mechanics equations and knot diagrams, what fun), on Quantum Knot theory. I also wrote, typeset and published my MSc thesis (300+ pages).
I moved to Australia in 1986 to start a PhD (in Machine Learning) at the computer science department at UNSW in Sydney. During some of this time I was the senior tutor in networked systems (networks and distributed databases, computation and operating systems) for Associate Professor John Lions's course (1987-1989?). I recall this was a rapid and extremely in depth introduction to all things UNIX, networking and distributed, as up until then I hadn't used or even programmed UNIX (I learned fast as I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of tutorial classes!). As senior tutor this role also involved supervising other tutors and assisting with development of the tutorial material, marking quality control, and providing feedback to the lecturer on any issues. The text book was "Computer Networks" by Tanenbaum (whoops, it looks like I borrowed "my" copy from John Lions - as it has his name in the front - and didn't return it).
From 1996-1989 I was a residential academic tutor at Sir Philip Baxter College, UNSW (Computer science, philosophy, cognitive psychology). This role involved providing occasionally advertised but more typically on-demand 1-on-1 tutoring for students that were residents at the college (including the other associated Kensington colleges, making it the largest residential college on campus). I also participated in regular college organisational meetings with the Master, Wardens and tutors from all Kensington colleges, and other occasional college events (running inter-college debating, inter college sports, etc). I provided late night emergency "services" (e.g. locked rooms, first-aid, letting the fire brigade in when toast was burnt (a regular occurrence), personal emergencies, someone to talk to - particularly for overseas students who didn't much have much in the way of local support networks, etc). I also occasionally ran croquet matches, played music with students and other university people (e.g. Jazz guitar) and provided LOUD music for lawn picnics, helped out with the college IT strategy and implementation and issues, went to a U2 concert with some of the students etc).
From 1990-1993 I was a senior consultant with a tech startup, Softway Pty Ltd, specialising in UNIX kernel and systems programming for a UNIX resource management systems (SHARE), and for clients. I also developed and delivered specialist courses including advanced C programming, X-Windows programming, and UNIX systems programming.
I was a senior software process improvement manager/engineer with the CSIRO cross-divisional Software Engineering Initiative from 1996-1999. This role involved discovering best practices for scientific s/w development across a large number of teams in CSIRO, refining and trialling them with other teams, introducing best practices from outside CSIRO, evaluation tools and methods, and providing training and forums for s/w engineers to share problems and solutions. I also worked with a team of s/w process engineers across other divisions and had regular meetings with them to develop ideas and see what was working in their divisions and publish results etc.
I worked for the CSIRO in the Middleware technology evaluation project form 1991-2003 which involved supervision of students for research projects, supervision of other staff (engineers and scientists), and communication of results in publications, with clients, and in speaking tours around Australia and at international academic and industry conferences. I edited the final MTE report which was published by CSIRO and Cutter, and downloaded over 1000 times (we stopped counting then). During this time I was also CSIRO representative on the SPEC Java committee which gave me good experience of collaboration with an international standards organisation and vendors etc. During this time I was also the technical expert representing the CSIRO Staff Association (and by default the CSIRO as due to the politics they were not representing themselves) during the Senate committee of enquiry into IT outsourcing (2001), and was called upon to present the reasoned case, based on the specialised nature and criticality and agility required for IT as a primary research tool in a R&D organisation) against outsourcing to Senators, the Senate committee, and the then CEO of the ASX who was brought into make a ruling.
During 2004 I was a visiting research fellow at UCL, Department of Computer Science, managing a EPSRC funded distributed research project to evaluated Grid middleware across 4 participating sites. During this time I was heavily involved in the department (e.g. attending and presenting at seminars), provided management and technical leadership to 4-6 contributed staff members and numerous occasional IT support staff across multiple sites, and manged stakeholder and interested party interactions. I produced and reported results at various forums including town hall meetings, conferences, eScience meetings, and gave an invited talks to the Oxford university computer science department.
Back at CSIRO ICT centre from 2005 to 2007 I organised the combined ANU/WWW/ICT centre seminars, and supervised a few more students and staff on research, development and evaluation projects and published results.
From 2007 I was a senior research scientist in the NICTA Software and Systems Research Group. During this time I worked extensively with other research engineering staff, and supervised and provided technical leadership to NICTA vacation scholars and an increasing number of our own project staff team members. I represented NICTA on the SPEC RG, and gave multiple presentations on our research work at professional and other venues, developed and ran short NICTA courses, master-classes, workshops for clients, etc, and published, reviewed, organised, attended and/or was on the PCs of an increasing number of conferences, workshops and journals etc (40+).
I was a founder and CTO of a NICTA tech startup in 2007. In this role I provided technical and business leadership for the company and employees, focussing on R&D, product development and roadmaps, product architecture, and product innovation (new algorithm prototyping, integration with other vendor products, visualisation of results, etc). An important component of this role was educational and involved: communicating with clients and partners and other professionals, including explaining the theory, practice and limitations behind out tool and approach, customising the approach for particular client problems, presenting results to clients, etc. I also maintained publication and presentation of R&D at conferences and workshops.
Professionally
Waikato University, Computer Science Department.In 1980/1981 I was employed over the university Xmas holidays by the university to assist with marking the National NZ university entrance exam programming question.
Lecturer, Waikato university, Computer Science Department, 1985, Lecturer in computer architecture (3rd year course). I supplemented existing course material (written by Professor Mark Apperley) with new material I researched and wrote motivating current architectures from an historical context. I took students through a quick history of computer architecture from first principles, and they had to solve problems and "invent" each major new architecture innovation. Also introduced new material for emerging technologies (yes, field-programmable gate arrays - FPGAs - were around in 1985), and likely future computer architecture directions.
I assisted a friend typesetting his MSc physics thesis (I spent 6 weeks typesetting 100s of quantum mechanics equations and knot diagrams, what fun), on Quantum Knot theory. I also wrote, typeset and published my MSc thesis (300+ pages).
I moved to Australia in 1986 to start a PhD (in Machine Learning) at the computer science department at UNSW in Sydney. During some of this time I was the senior tutor in networked systems (networks and distributed databases, computation and operating systems) for Associate Professor John Lions's course (1987-1989?). I recall this was a rapid and extremely in depth introduction to all things UNIX, networking and distributed, as up until then I hadn't used or even programmed UNIX (I learned fast as I didn't want to be embarrassed in front of tutorial classes!). As senior tutor this role also involved supervising other tutors and assisting with development of the tutorial material, marking quality control, and providing feedback to the lecturer on any issues. The text book was "Computer Networks" by Tanenbaum (whoops, it looks like I borrowed "my" copy from John Lions - as it has his name in the front - and didn't return it).
From 1996-1989 I was a residential academic tutor at Sir Philip Baxter College, UNSW (Computer science, philosophy, cognitive psychology). This role involved providing occasionally advertised but more typically on-demand 1-on-1 tutoring for students that were residents at the college (including the other associated Kensington colleges, making it the largest residential college on campus). I also participated in regular college organisational meetings with the Master, Wardens and tutors from all Kensington colleges, and other occasional college events (running inter-college debating, inter college sports, etc). I provided late night emergency "services" (e.g. locked rooms, first-aid, letting the fire brigade in when toast was burnt (a regular occurrence), personal emergencies, someone to talk to - particularly for overseas students who didn't much have much in the way of local support networks, etc). I also occasionally ran croquet matches, played music with students and other university people (e.g. Jazz guitar) and provided LOUD music for lawn picnics, helped out with the college IT strategy and implementation and issues, went to a U2 concert with some of the students etc).
From 1990-1993 I was a senior consultant with a tech startup, Softway Pty Ltd, specialising in UNIX kernel and systems programming for a UNIX resource management systems (SHARE), and for clients. I also developed and delivered specialist courses including advanced C programming, X-Windows programming, and UNIX systems programming.
I was a senior software process improvement manager/engineer with the CSIRO cross-divisional Software Engineering Initiative from 1996-1999. This role involved discovering best practices for scientific s/w development across a large number of teams in CSIRO, refining and trialling them with other teams, introducing best practices from outside CSIRO, evaluation tools and methods, and providing training and forums for s/w engineers to share problems and solutions. I also worked with a team of s/w process engineers across other divisions and had regular meetings with them to develop ideas and see what was working in their divisions and publish results etc.
I worked for the CSIRO in the Middleware technology evaluation project form 1991-2003 which involved supervision of students for research projects, supervision of other staff (engineers and scientists), and communication of results in publications, with clients, and in speaking tours around Australia and at international academic and industry conferences. I edited the final MTE report which was published by CSIRO and Cutter, and downloaded over 1000 times (we stopped counting then). During this time I was also CSIRO representative on the SPEC Java committee which gave me good experience of collaboration with an international standards organisation and vendors etc. During this time I was also the technical expert representing the CSIRO Staff Association (and by default the CSIRO as due to the politics they were not representing themselves) during the Senate committee of enquiry into IT outsourcing (2001), and was called upon to present the reasoned case, based on the specialised nature and criticality and agility required for IT as a primary research tool in a R&D organisation) against outsourcing to Senators, the Senate committee, and the then CEO of the ASX who was brought into make a ruling.
During 2004 I was a visiting research fellow at UCL, Department of Computer Science, managing a EPSRC funded distributed research project to evaluated Grid middleware across 4 participating sites. During this time I was heavily involved in the department (e.g. attending and presenting at seminars), provided management and technical leadership to 4-6 contributed staff members and numerous occasional IT support staff across multiple sites, and manged stakeholder and interested party interactions. I produced and reported results at various forums including town hall meetings, conferences, eScience meetings, and gave an invited talks to the Oxford university computer science department.
Back at CSIRO ICT centre from 2005 to 2007 I organised the combined ANU/WWW/ICT centre seminars, and supervised a few more students and staff on research, development and evaluation projects and published results.
From 2007 I was a senior research scientist in the NICTA Software and Systems Research Group. During this time I worked extensively with other research engineering staff, and supervised and provided technical leadership to NICTA vacation scholars and an increasing number of our own project staff team members. I represented NICTA on the SPEC RG, and gave multiple presentations on our research work at professional and other venues, developed and ran short NICTA courses, master-classes, workshops for clients, etc, and published, reviewed, organised, attended and/or was on the PCs of an increasing number of conferences, workshops and journals etc (40+).
I was a founder and CTO of a NICTA tech startup in 2007. In this role I provided technical and business leadership for the company and employees, focussing on R&D, product development and roadmaps, product architecture, and product innovation (new algorithm prototyping, integration with other vendor products, visualisation of results, etc). An important component of this role was educational and involved: communicating with clients and partners and other professionals, including explaining the theory, practice and limitations behind out tool and approach, customising the approach for particular client problems, presenting results to clients, etc. I also maintained publication and presentation of R&D at conferences and workshops.
I also developed and taught a 2 semester
high school programming course for year 9-10 students (but 1st year university level material), based around the “Processing” language, a Java based language with generative 3d design/art capabilities, and Prolog). I've since published the course material (lectures, notes, example programs, tests) online (look for Introduction to Programming Class 1 for the start).
Non-professional
I have related experience in other contexts. For example, I have had senior leaderships roles in 2 non-profits (both churches). I was on the Parish Council of one (Sydney) and on the Board of another (twice with a gap while away in the UK) (Canberra). These both required an active teaching role as a prerequisite (small groups, training, speaking and/or chairing regular meetings (up to 500 people), running and speaking at AGMs, leadership, etc), and providing high level strategic leadership for staff and volunteers and members.
I've also had "recent" experience being a student again. During 1994 I was enrolled full time at Moore Theological college doing a 1st year of the 4 year BD degree. This was a shock after not having formally studied or sat an exam (last exam I can recall was in 2nd year in 1981 as most assessment for computer science and philosophy from 2nd year on was essays, take home exams, open book exams (ok they were exams), or practical and/or group assignments and presentations).
This was a challenging year, it was busy, there was a lot of lectures and other related compulsory attendance at events and practical experience, I did subjects including dead (Biblical) languages (Greek and Hebrew, hard), and had theoretical and practical training, experience and workshops in preparing and giving various types of talks (called "sermons" in Anglican terminology).
I also took practical subjects such as counselling, and more theoretical subjects (actually not part of 1st year curriculum but I discovered it) in "hermeneutics" (how texts are interpreted, post-modern criticism, deconstructionism - it's surprisingly difficult to communicate unambiguous meaning in a text - reader/response criticism - how texts are written and read as stories, looking at large chunks of text and overall narrative flow, and the different character roles and responses in the story lines, etc). These oddly enough have all made a contribution to the way I read/write/review/analyse, and prepare and present oral and written communications (except Blogs perhaps which are too stream of consciousness).
I gave an invited talk at MacQuarie University several years ago on "Theology and Technology", and have published a few papers in journals in areas overlapping science, technology and theology.
I also took practical subjects such as counselling, and more theoretical subjects (actually not part of 1st year curriculum but I discovered it) in "hermeneutics" (how texts are interpreted, post-modern criticism, deconstructionism - it's surprisingly difficult to communicate unambiguous meaning in a text - reader/response criticism - how texts are written and read as stories, looking at large chunks of text and overall narrative flow, and the different character roles and responses in the story lines, etc). These oddly enough have all made a contribution to the way I read/write/review/analyse, and prepare and present oral and written communications (except Blogs perhaps which are too stream of consciousness).
I gave an invited talk at MacQuarie University several years ago on "Theology and Technology", and have published a few papers in journals in areas overlapping science, technology and theology.
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