Owner @ Braillest LLC

I designed and prototyped a novel additive manufacturing approach to produce braille literature at a significantly lower cost than existing approaches. To streamline the production process, I developed a process that converts imported text into STL models, which are then used to emboss the corresponding braille. Currently, I am focused on automating the manufacturing process to efficiently scale production and establish a ready-to-ship inventory for an upcoming online storefront.

Senior Security Engineer (AI) @ H&R Block

I currently work within the security development team at H&R Block. We're a very small group of engineers that field internal asks for software solutions. I wear many hats and solely contribute to, "FraudEngine", a project designed to identify and classify fraudulent tax returns in realtime, across the org.

This position has challenged me in so many ways. The sheer volume of incoming requests alone the application has to handle is on a level I've never had the pleasure of optimizing for before. That, coupled with the seasonality of tax prep work, creates a requirement for making applications that can scale to meet unthinkable request volumes.

Full Stack Engineer @ Freelance

As a freelance full stack software engineer, I have made significant contributions to a project for a pilot charter service. My responsibilities have included completing numerous work board tasks, such as developing new features and fixing bugs, and working closely with the project owner, who is also a pilot, to ensure that investor expectations and needs are met.

In this role, I have translated complex business logic into code, such as creating algorithms to match pilots with clients and implementing secure payment processing via stripe. I have also been responsible for reviewing and approving pull requests to ensure that the code meets quality standards.

My contributions as a full stack software engineer have been critical to the success of the project. Most distinctly, my inclusion of Docker into our software stack has enabled prompt onboarding turnaround for new developers as the project has expanded through the seamless creation of development and production environments. Through this collaboration, we have facilitated and expedited the development of a platform that streamlines the process of booking charter flights and the matching of clients and pilots.

Graduate Teaching Assistant @ University of Arkansas

As a graduate teaching assistant for Programming Foundations I & II, I played a critical role in facilitating student learning and success. I guided three lab sessions, assisted in the creation of homework material, and provided grading support for approximately a hundred undergraduate students while also providing office hours for both courses. During office hours, I commonly answered questions regarding assignments and lecture, assisted students with debugging logical and compilation errors, and explained programming concepts discussed in lecture. I also collaborated with the courseinstructor to create lab materials and assignments, and gave guest lectures on occasion.

One of the most rewarding aspects of this role was the opportunity to connect with students and provide individualized support. For example, I remember one student who was struggling with a particular concept and came to me for help. Together, we worked through some practice problems and I was able to explain the concept in a way that made sense to them. Seeing their understanding click into place was incredibly rewarding.

Overall, my experience as a teaching assistant taught me the importance of clear communication and individualized support in promoting student success. I am excited to continue applying these skills in future endeavors.

Graduate Research Assistant @ University of Arkansas

Through this position, I contributed to the development of a machine learning (ML) enhanced application that: scraped and provided recommendations for Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) patches, offered remediation strategies to the management, and enabled the auditing of devices in system critical electrical infrastructure.

I played a key part in translating design requirements and implementing critical features of the application, including the integration of ML algorithms to improve the accuracy and efficiency of patch recommendation and remediation, as well as, ensuring auditability to ensure compliance with federal guidelines. This required working closely with other developers and researchers to ensure that the ML algorithms were properly trained and optimized for the specific needs of the electrical infrastructure environment. Principally, any models or algorithms that were applied required verifiability and explanation as to why specific courses of action were recommended.

Additionally, I collaborated with other team members to write code, develop and execute test cases, and troubleshoot issues to ensure the successful deployment of the application. I also participated in code reviews, made suggestions for improvements, and helped to ensure the overall quality of the application met described standards. This work was part of a funded research project with a substantial contribution from the Department of Energy. As a member of the development team, I played a critical role in helping to deliver a high-quality, effective application that met the rigorous requirements of this important project.

Full Stack Engineer @ CTTP - University of Arkansas Research Center

Collaborated with a tight-knit team of developers to optimize, refactor, and migrate legacy implementations into a Symfony LTS codebase for CTTP, a state-accredited engineering company that provides training and certification services for employees and contractors of the AR Department of Transportation (ARDOT).

Facilitated digitization processes and migration from a physical record keeping solution to a Symfony-powered web application, which streamlined operations and improved efficiency. As a senior member of the team, I played a key role in leading the planning and implementation of various projects, which included an online registration and payment portal, a certification and grade record keeping service, a lab inspection service for ensuring compliance with state guidelines, and an equipment calibration record management system for securely storing and access for auditing purposes. I also provided input and suggestions during meetings to solve complex problems and contributed to the deployment and server administration tasks of the system.

One of my key accomplishments during my time at CTTP was containerizing the development and production environments using Docker, which significantly improved the onboarding process for new developers and deployment times. By improving the efficiency of the development and deployment environments, we were able to reduce overhead costs and accelerate the software development life cycle.

Overall, my second experience at CTTP further reinforced my understanding of the full software stack, business logic, and server administration. This exposure has prepared me well and instilled me with confidence for the many future challenges and opportunities in the field of software engineering has to offer.

Software Developer (Internship) @ Walmart

During my summer internship at Walmart's newly created Intelligent Automation Department on the Bentonville, AR campus, I developed a series of applications to extract, modify, view, and interact with data from paper receipts. With much of the produce grown in Latin America still coming with paper invoices, Walmart needed to digitize a vast amount of data. To help address and explore this need, I focused on developing spike implementations to demonstrate the possible speed increase of a human-moderated OCR system over a purely human data entry process.

In addition to developing these spike implementations, I participated in meetings with external providers to gain insight into their solutions for creating a human-moderated OCR system. I also collaborated with Walmart's internal AI teams to evaluate the capacity of existing AI deployments and infrastructure. Throughout the internship, I presented and discussed my work in daily standup meetings, gaining valuable feedback from team members and leaders. I was also able to leverage my problem-solving skills and technical expertise to find a way around the security sandboxing for networked user accounts, allowing me to use devices with admin privileges.

Full Stack Developer @ Thrive GmbH

As a software developer for a company based in Bietigheim-Bissingen, Germany, in addition to brushing up on some german, I had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects for clients across different industries. I particularly enjoyed working on the many challenging projects that required creative problem-solving.

One such project was a challenge hosted by BMW, where I contributed to an inventory system overhaul that was selected for utilization in a major manufacturing plant. Our solution consisted of a barcode scanning glove, programmable e-ink displays, and the integration with an existing MQTT system. I played a key role in the development of this system, which significantly modernized the part-request process for assembly lines and replaced a pen-and-paper solution. The project presented many unique challenges, such as only being provided limited, API-like details of the internal MQTT system at BMW and the need to integrate the custom, in-house hardware with a control system whilst simulatenously on simulatating a MQTT network.

In another project, I contributed to a seed grant sponsored by the EU to enable public transit for rural towns in Germany. This project, dubbed "der bürgerbus" (the citizen bus), required a custom routing solution to allow for dynamic time and location scheduling of stops. I extended an open source routing engine "Project OSRM" to handle the dynamic constraints and developed a web user interface that allowed operators to view and modify proposed routing solutions in a intuiative manner. This was one of the most complex problems I have had the pleasure of programming.

Largely, these experiences exposed me to a range of unique challenges and provided me with valuable experience in solving complex problems and developing creative solutions. They also taught me the importance of collaboration and communication in achieving project success.

Master of Science - MS, Computer Science

GPA 3.7GPA

Activities and societies Research Assistantship, Teaching Assistantship, hackathons, 2021 NSA codebreaker challenge, CTF events

Thesis on Privacy-Preserving Distributed Machine Learning

Privacy-Preserving and Secure Divide-and-Conquer Learning

Submitted to The Seventh ACM/IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing - 3rd Workshop on Edge Computing and Communications. Published to ACM Digital Library. This paper details the application of my thesis work applied to an edge computing environment.