What am I doing?

My time is currently divided between two things I love to do. One pays the bills and allows me to continue doing the other.

I'm currently a systems software engineer for the Iowa State University Computation Center. I provide system administration, system monitoring and software design and support for Project Vincent, a campus-wide distributed computing system based on Project Athena, developed at MIT. I am also involved in two projects designed to bring Project Vincent services to desktop microcomputers running a free UNIX such as Linux or NetBSD or Windows 95/NT and MacOS. Here you can find a list of my current projects.

I am a graduate student in high energy physics. My current work at CERN involves working on the DELPHI Experiment, which, in addition to the ALEPH, L3 and OPAL experiments, was used to study the electroweak parameters associated with the Z0 gauge boson at its production threshold. These experiments are now recording and analyzing data on the W+ and W- gauge bosons. All four experiments are situated at different interaction points on the LEP electron-positron collider located near Geneva, Switzerland covering a circumference of 27 km.

My work with DELPHI involves

Physics Analysis

Studying the properties of the tau lepton decays to multi-pion final states Here is a list of tau papers I have found on the web.

Detector Hardware

Providing support for the HPC ( High density Projection Chamber ), the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter for DELPHI. Click here for publications about the HPC.

Computing

I was formerly a coordinator for the SHIFT (Scalable Heterogeneous Integrated batch FaciliTy ) ( see publications ) which provides high performance and high speed intensive data analysis in a distributed computing environment connected by a dedicated high speed FDDI ring. SHIFT is part of the CORE ( Centrally Operated Risc Environment ) shown here

In addition to coordination, I have developed interface tools to the SHIFT services. One of these tools, the Poor Man's Newsreader, for use by system administrators operating a small cluster, is available as public domain software. Contact me for a copy of this and other SHIFT software I have written. This work was supported by the Computing and Networks ( CN ) Division at CERN.

I also acted as a liason between DELPHI and the developers of PIAF ( Parallel Interactive Analysis Facility ), a service which provides analysis of large data files ( in excess of 200 MB ) using the concepts of parallel computing. ( see publications )

I acted as a DELPHI Workgroup Administrator where we were developing the DELPHI interactive services during the migration of DELPHI users from an IBM VM/CMS environment to a UNIX-based environment. This involves the usage of workgroup servers such as the IBM SP2 shown here

I provided system administration support for the HPC DECstation Cluster

I maintained a WWW server ( delsoft.cern.ch ) for DELPHI which provided access to the DELPHI Offline Software and DELPHI Offline information.

I collaborated with the DELPHI Offline group in coordinating offline activities and structure.

Software Support

I am the co-author of and maintain support for a tau analysis software package known as TAUPLUS for the DELPHI Tau Team ( Team 3 ) ( see publications )

I am also responsible for offline quality checking software for the HPC ( High density Projection Chamber ), the barrel electromagnetic calorimeter for DELPHI.

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Teaching

In the past I have taught and tutored the following courses

• PHYS 106 - a non-calculus-based general physics course for non science majors
• PHYS 111 - non-calculus-based introductory physics covering mechanics, thermodynamics and waves for biology and veterinary medicine students
• PHYS 112 - non-calculus-based introductory physics course for biology and veterinary medicine students covering electricity and magnetism, light, optics and modern physics.
• PHYS 221 - calculus-based introductory physics covering mechanics, thermodynamics and waves for engineering and physics students
• PHYS 222 - calculus-based introductory physics covering electricity and magnetism, light, optics and modern physics.

I have taught the corresponding courses at Purdue University for three years, including courses aimed at Physics majors. I also was an introductory mathematics instructor at the University of Maryland while I was an undergraduate.

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Conferences I Have Attended

( see publications )

Fifth International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics,

A working conference on studying the properties of the Tau Lepton

Santandar, Spain

14-17 September, 1998

The 1998 USENIX Annual Technical Conference,

New Orleans, Louisiana,

15-19 June, 1998

Fourth International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics,

Estes Park, Colorado,

16-19 September, 1996

HEPiX Europe 94

A working conference on developing a common UNIX environment for High Energy Physics

Paris,France,

23-26 October, 1994

Third International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics

Montreaux, Switzerland,

19-22 September, 1994

APSDPF 94

The Eighth Meeting of the Division of Particles and Fields of the American Physical Society

The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico

2-6 August, 1994.

HEPMiX Europe 93

Amsterdam, the Netherlands,

19-22 April, 1993

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