Max Laite

Hello everyone, Max here, I am a Senior in the Computer Science department at the University of the Virgin Islands. I will be working on pony-build for the Winter Semester. I dabble in bits and pieces of everything, hoping to get back into, and refine, my Python this semester while working on the Pony-Build project.

I am looking forward to meeting everyone at the Code Sprint next week.

Khushboo Shakya

Hello! My name is Khushboo Shakya and I am from Minnesota State University majoring in Software Engineering with a minor in Mathematics. I will be working with the Pony-Build team. I am pretty much a newbie! I have worked on small group projects for school and few outside school but not a huge one like this. So I am utterly nervous but excited at the same time to work on this project. I look forward to meeting everyone in Toronto!

-Khushboo

Veronica Wong

Hello everyone!

My name is Veronica, and I’m a 4th year student at UofT finishing up my undergraduate degree in computer science (specializing in software engineering and minoring in economics). I’ll be working on the usability and interface design aspect of Basie for the upcoming term.

I was fortunate enough to work with Professor Karen Reid on MarkUs last Spring on its design, and with Khai Truong with his research project on upcycling and disposable technology the same summer.

Right now I’m 6-months into my year-long internship at Isobar as an information architect/user experience designer.

Looking forward to meeting you all!

Nikita Pchelin

Hi guys, my name is Nikita Pchelin and this semester I will be working on Basie. Last semester I worked on ElmCity.

I am a 3rd year CS and French student, at the University of Toronto (Mississauga campus). I am really excited about taking this course – partly because if the programming challenges, but also because I want to experience working in a large team.

Working in a team where members live thousand miles away from each other is challenging; it forces the members to find new effective ways of interaction to get things done in time. I’d like to learn more about this, and this course seems to be an excellent opportunity.

Good luck to all students who are taking this course, and lots of patience to our mentors! :]

(to be honest, this is almost exactly what I wrote in the last semester’s introduction. But hey, at least I changed the picture)

Chris VanWiemeersch

Hi all — I’m Chris, a junior at Michigan State studying Computer Science and Film Studies. This spring, I’ll be working with the Basie team. Since middle school, hiding my face behind the computer screen, I’ve worked on a variety of freelance web development projects (many of which are related to film) and an assortment of contract gigs.

This will mark my first venture into open-source development. I look forward to meeting everyone at the code sprint in Toronto!

Maciej Kozlowski

Hello everyone. My name is Maciej and I’ll be working on Basie this term.

I’m a fourth year computer science student at the University of Toronto specializing in Software Engineering. I haven’t done any internship or co-op jobs but I have worked on many projects, academically and otherwise. These include: developing image differencing software, HCI research for a public washroom locating device, fixing bugs for the JFreeChart project, working on OS161, as well as some embedded systems programming.
On top of this, last term I worked on Eclipse4Edu so I am already quite familiar with the UCOSP experience (feel free to ask me any questions about the project).

Currently, I am working on the monitoring and control software for a solar powered race car that will be competing in the North American Solar Race Challenge.

I will only make it to about half of the code sprint but I look forward to meeting the rest of the team.

Alexandru Totolici

Hi, I’m Alexandru Totolici. I hail from UBC, starting the 6th winter term of my Bachelor of Science program (majoring in Computer Science). I’ll be working on Mercurial.

I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some great people during co-ops at WebCT (now Blackboard), MDA, Safe Software, and Kodak, as well as during my time with UBC’s Office of Learning Technology. I’ve touched on QA, GUI, server API testing, backend tool development, WordPress and MediaWiki plugin development, and I’ve done it in everything from Bash to C#.

Things I care about:

• computer security;
• user experience;
• omitting needless code;
• rapid development;
• making stuff;
• making stuff better.

Looking forward to the sprint, first round of caffeine is on me!

Jackie Huynh

Hi Everyone,

My name is Jackie Huynh, currently a 4th year B.Sc student majoring in Computer Science (software engineering).  I’ve worked with many different programming languages before, mainly C\C++, Java, Python, and PHP. This coming term, I’ll be working in the Basie Project.

I’m also in the COOP program at UBC. I spent 8 months at HSBC, and another 8 months at Safe Software. I’m really looking forward to this open-source development program, and also meeting with other students from other Universities at the Coding Sprint.

I wish everyone a Happy New Year! See you in 2010!

Victoria Mui

My name is Victoria Mui, and I’m a 4th year student currently completing my undergraduate specialist degree in Computer Science (Software Engineering) at the University of Toronto.  This coming spring/winter term, I’ll be working on the user interface design of the MarkUs online marking tool.

I’m primarily a Java programmer, and I’ve made contributions to the Cytoscape open source community through the Google Summer of Code 2008 program under the mentorship of Professor Greg Wilson.  But I also have experience working with other programming languages like Python and C.

In addition to software development,  I also have strong interests in user experience design (UX) and human-computer interaction (HCI).  This past summer, I helped Professor Khai Truong with his HCI research on Upcycling.  And as of May 2009, I’ve been working full-time as a User-Centered Design Specialist at the IBM Toronto Lab.

I hope everybody is enjoying their winter holiday!  Looking forward to meeting everybody in January! 😀

Cory Matheson

Greetings from Edmonton!

My name is Cory Matheson, and I will be working on the Eclipse4Edu project for the Winter 2010 term. A little about myself:

I’m currently in my 4th year as a Comp Sci student with the University of Alberta. I just finished an 8-month work-term with Research In Motion in Waterloo, Ontario; I worked with the BlackBerry Crypto / Security development team. I had a great time in Waterloo and did some really interesting work at RIM (and I can’t live without a BlackBerry now!). My interests lie in the art of software engineering, maintaining software quality, and of other miscellaneous areas including AI, Cryptography, Security, Networking, etc. etc. I would say I have experience with enough programming languages, and anything I don’t have, can be picked up in a day or 2 :).

I swear by Eclipse for Java programming, so I’m really excited to start contributing to the open source Eclipse4Edu project. It sounds like a great idea for helping new students learn programming.

Looking forward to seeing everyone in Toronto for the code sprint!

Cory Matheson.