I am an innovative and passionate person with interests including information retrieval and visualization, open data and standards, participation, environmentalism, and education.
Work Experience
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Program Manager, Bing Maps, Microsoft
August 2008-November 2009
- Responsible for all search-related front-end features for one of the largest product releases in the team’s history: Bing Maps Beta
- Work included short and long-term planning and prioritization, data mining and collection, progress tracking, user interface design, coordination between designers, developers, partners, and others
- Analysed user searches which produced no results to determine causes and solutions
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Program Manager Intern, Bing Maps, Microsoft
May-August 2007 internship
- Took a complex and novel maps feature from vague concept to a complete specification and functional prototype
- Performed data mining and statistical analysis on a database of all United States yellow pages listings to better understand the data and surface interesting and useful information
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Program Manager Intern, Bing, Microsoft
May-August 2006 internship
- Major project was the creation of a new, complex instant answer
- Initiated new practices and otherwise contributed ideas, research, and work towards other areas within instant answers and related teams
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Software Design Engineer, A9.com Inc.
search technologies; September-December 2005 internship
- Major contributor to OpenSearch, a burgeoning Internet standard for search syndication
- Wrote OpenSearch documentation and tools, began engaging the developer community, and otherwise evangelized the technology, now used by Google, Microsoft, and others
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Associate Software Engineer, Feedster Inc.
feed search engine; January-May 2005 internship
- Implemented a website-wide redesign using standards-compliant code and according to designer specifications
- Improved the user experience, wrote and revised copy, added features, responded to user feedback, and contributed to all aspects of the company
Self-run Projects
- Waste Nothing, a waste-reduction tool, begun 2011
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Fagan Finder, a collection of search and Internet tools developed from 2001 to 2005
- Features included a meta-translator, web page investigator, and search engine news blog
- Highly acclaimed by search experts and casual Internet users; cited in various publications (books, magazines, etc.); continues to receive thousands of visits per day
- Profitable from 2003 onward
- Quizify, “web-powered flashcards,” in early beta
- UWhub, a search engine for the University of Waterloo (unaffiliated), May 2005-May 2006
Technical Knowledge and Skills
- Web development including (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP as well as standards and accessibility; past experience in a variety of other programming languages
- Experience with multiple operating systems, office, graphics, database, and other software packages
- Expert on the web search industry, geospatial, blogs, and other internet areas; kept up-to-date on a daily basis
Education