My work:

I lead the team of software developers for NASA's Interferometry Science Center at Caltech. Among the many cool things I've gotten to do at Caltech is observe on both the 5m Hale telescope at Mount Palomar and the 10m Keck II telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawaii -- two of the largest telescopes in the world. (Another neat experience: I've been quoted on the cover of a Java programming book.)

The interferometry group at Caltech is a multimission core spanning two space missions and one ground-based observatory: the Keck Interferometer, the Space Interferometer Mission (including the SIM testbed interferometer) and Space Technology 3 (formerly known as Deep Space 3). Our software team supports all three of these Origins missions in data capture, analysis, and visualization.

IPAC is well-known for its science expertise; I've been trying to help create a software culture here as well. Activities I've participated in with this goal in mind include giving numerous talks on software topics, starting an internal group to set up and discuss components for software reuse, and providing informal advice to people on various projects here, including SIRTF, 2MASS, and IRSA. Also, with Dave Van Buren, I taught a course on the Personal Software Process.

Other work:

Other projects I've worked on at Caltech include a high-speed radiative transfer simulation and a networked collaborative environment. From time to time, I continue to do some work on these. I also made a minor software contribution to the 2MASS project.

Occasionally, I review technical books. So far they've all been Java-oriented. I'm seriously considering doing some authoring of my own, probably starting small (some articles) and then someday working my way up to a book.

Reflecting my former training as a mathematician, I also dabble in some math research from time to time. Recent unpublished accomplishments include solving a famous unsolved problem in geometry and discovering some infinite families of graceful graphs.

And finally (as if that isn't enough to do!), I'm looking into starting up a company that will allow me to pursue these outside activities under an official aegis.

(trip cancelled, due to work)