Summary

I'm Angela Brett, and this is my online Curriculum Vitae. I'm interested in any job where I can use my skills with computers, mathematics, or language. I have organised this CV to reflect these areas of talent - click on the links above to see information on the experience and qualifications I have in each area. You can also see a list of all my qualifications and awards, although most of them are mentioned in the other sections.

This CV is also available online at http://acronyms.co.nz/resume.html

Contact information

e-mail:	angela@kagi.com
Mobile:	+41 76 494 5759

Summary

I've always had quite a logical mind, so I've been good at mathematics. Somewhere along the line I must have become obsessed with it because now I have a degree in the subject. I continued to indulge my interest in mathematics by taking a postgraduate paper while working full-time. I am currently writing some software to make it easier for me to read mathematics without constantly flipping between equations.

I studied mathematics purely because it interests me, and I didn't see much prospect of learning it on-the-job. However, I would love to be able to work in a position where I can use and extend this knowledge.

Training and Awards

2004 - Postgraduate paper at Massey University

C 160.738 - Studies in Continuum Mechanics

2001 - B.Sc. (Mathematics) at Massey University

A-	60.101 - Introductory Calculus
A-	60.102 - Algebra and Geometry
A-	60.203 - Calculus
C+	60.204 - Differential Equations 1
A	60.212 - Discrete Mathematics
B-	60.211 - Applied Linear Algegra
A+	60.302 - Algebra
B	60.318 - Differential Equations 2
B-	160.301 - Analysis
C	160.319 - Mathematical Modelling
A	160.316 - Geometry
B	160.325 - History of Mathematics

2000 - Statistics paper at Massey University

B+ 161.120 - Introductory Statistics

1994, 1995 and 1997 - Distinction awards in Australian Mathematics Competition

Experience

2001 - Tutoring

I tutored a first-year student in mathematics at Massey University.

2000 - FriezingWorkz software

I created a small HyperCard stack to demonstrate and explain the seven frieze groups - more details are at http://apronyms.com/software/friezingworkz.html.

Other mathematical software used:

MATLAB
LaTeX — In my spare time am working on a LaTeX preprocessor which will make it easier to browse and understand mathematical papers.

Summary

My brothers taught me to program on various 64KB machines almost as soon as I could read well enough, and ever since then I have found it easy to pick up new programming languages. I enjoy programming and would be open to learning a new environment if necessary. I prefer to work with Mac OS X, but I have experience with Linux and Windows.

Training and Awards

2007 - Oracle 10g Certified Professional course

2006 - Oracle Tutorials at CERN

I attended the tutorials on Tuning, PL/SQL II, and Tools and Language Bindings

2006 - Finite State Machines in the JCOP Framework at CERN

1999-2001 - Computer Science papers at Massey University

A+	159.101 - Programming Fundamentals
A	159.102 - Computer Science Fundamentals
A+	159.201 - Algorithms and Data Structures
A	159.233 - Computer Architecture
B+	159.234 - Object Oriented Programming
A-	159.302 - Artificial Intelligence

2001 - Parallel Computing Summer School at Massey University

This included learning about parallel computing and programming the university's Beowulf cluster using High Performance FORTRAN.

1998-2000 - Information Systems papers at Massey University

A-	57.116 - Principles of Information Systems
B	157.221 - Information Systems Analysis

Experience

April 2007-Present - Academic Guest at ETH Zurich based at CERN

I mostly work on PVSS applications to display the status of part of the electromagnetic calorimeter of the Compact Muon Solenoid.

April 2005-March 2007 - Marie Curie Fellow at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research

Through the Marie Curie Early Stage Training programme, I worked on Controls, Trigger and Data Acquisition for the Compact Muon Solenoid. My main achievements were writing interfaces to the Oracle Database, for PVSS II and XDAQ.

January 2005 - Software Developer for Universal Networks

I developed a small application for Mac OS X which fetches and displays flat members' balances from flatAccount.com

June-October 2004 - Travel

I took time off work to attend Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, and travel the world.

March 2002-March 2005 - Software Developer for Software of Excellence International, Ltd.

I was involved in developing the company's practice management software for Windows.

Key Tasks:

Developing and writing C source code to meet specifications provided
Discussion of problems/solutions with other developers/managers as required to resolve coding issues
Fixing bugs in source code
Reviewing other developers' source code

October 2001-July 2002 - Software Developer for Altscape Ltd

I developed the Mac OS X version of the Altscape Scene Saver and Media Manager applications. I was solely responsible for development of the Mac OS X applications according to Altscape's specifications, and contributed my own ideas on the interface.

2000 - Tutoring

I tutored a first-year student in the C programming language at Massey University.

Some software used for development:

Mac OS X

Project Builder/XCode
Interface Builder

Linux

gcc and gdb
f90
hpf
...and various other three-letter abbreviations

Windows

PVSS II
Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
Borland C++ Builder

Programming and Scripting Languages

C/C++

I taught myself generic (console I/O) C in 1999, but did not use it much as I didn't see much application for it without GUI tools. In 2000 and 2001 I was taught C and C++ at university, during which time I realised that the C I knew could be used for CGIs on my website. I have since written several CGI applications in C, to add searching and other dynamic content to my APRONYMS website. The CGIs have since been converted to PHP.

In my job at Software of Excellence International, Ltd. I used C to maintain software for Microsoft Windows.

At CERN, I use C++ to develop a database interface for XDAQ, a platform for the development of distributed data acquisition systems.

Objective-C/Cocoa

Since June 2001 I have been programming for Mac OS X in Objective-C, using the Cocoa frameworks. I have completed two arcade games and an application for viewing apronyms from and submitting apronyms to my Apronyms website. I also released two beta versions of software for Altscape, as described above. More information on the Cocoa projects I've completed and what I'm currently working on is at http://cocoa.co.nz.

CTRL

At CERN, I often program in CTRL, the scripting language of PVSS II.

AppleScript

I have been playing around with AppleScript since early 2001, and have made several scripts for personal use.

PHP

I learnt PHP in May 2003, and have replaced most of the web pages on http://apronyms.com (which were previously generated by a HyperCard stack and then uploaded) with a few PHP pages.

VBScript

In my job at Software of Excellence International, Ltd. I wrote some VBScript macros to smooth workflow.

SQL and PL/SQL

I use Oracle SQL and PL/SQL extensively at CERN. I am in the process of rewriting some of my websites to use MySQL databases.

HyperTalk

I began teaching myself HyperTalk (the scripting language of Apple's HyperCard) at 14 years old, and since then have released several successful shareware and freeware HyperCard stacks. More details are available at http://apronyms.com/software/index.html.

Other languages

To a lesser extent, I have experience in the following programming languages:

Java
BASIC
FORTRAN
Assembly for the 2051 micro-controller

General Computing

Naturally, as a programmer I am confident with computers and have general computing skills such as word processing and everyday use of Mac OS, Linux and Windows. Here is a listing of some of my relevant qualifications and experience.

2001 - Microsoft Excel 2000 course with Step by Step Computer Training Limited

2000 - Helpdesk for Quicksilver Internet

I helped some Macintosh users over the phone to set up their computers for the internet.

Websites

A friend taught me the basics of HTML in 1997, and since then I have made several web sites for myself and other people - including this CV. I don't claim to be an artist, and I often don't find the time to keep websites up-to-date once I have made them, but I enjoy the challenge of expressing an idea for a website design without overusing new technologies that don't work in many browsers. I have also written programs in C and PHP to add dynamic content to my web sites. The following web sites demonstrate my capabilities:

APRONYMS - A Potted Rendition Of Notion Yields Miniature Summary

This is my Apronyms website, the site I have put the most time into. The design is focussed on organisation of content rather than fancy graphical gimmicks, and most of it can be automatically created by anyone who has the accompanying HyperCard stack without the need for any separate graphics files. Now that HyperCard is obsolete, the online version of the site is now entirely generated by PHP using data from a MySQL database.

NSCoder.com

A pun on the name of a class in the Cocoa frameworks, this is an Objective-C interface to my personal websites. I wrote this to practise some basic CSS.

Corko's Cosmos

The website for my tetris-like game Brettrix. Resplendent in the blocky, garish colours that Corko the quirky kiwiloon hopes will annoy the humans who took his beloved Claire, most images on this site are derived from screenshots of the game itself.

Cocoa.co.nz

This website is about my Cocoa development and also has links to resources for other Cocoa developers.

OldScientist.com

This website is a spoof on New Scientist magazine, and as such the design is loosely based on NewScientist.com. There is not much content on the site yet as I haven't been able to afford a scribe to write the articles.

Other Angela-related web pages

This page links to my homepages, my software pages, and my computers' pages. I am working on an up-to-date versuin using PHP, MySQL, and a flexible hierarchy similar to that of the Apronyms website. I will also write a French version, in order to get more practice writing French.

Summary

I have wanted to be an authoress ever since I learned to write, and since then I have had some success with my short stories and poetry. I love writing and word play, and have an interest in languages and linguistics.

The foreign language I am most comfortable with is French, which I use for daily life in Geneva. Apart from that, I learnt Japanese and Maori at secondary school, and I taught myself some German in preparation for a three-week holiday in Germany in 2004.

Training and Awards

2008 - Advanced French course at CERN (in progress) I learnt enough independently that I was able to skip the four intervening courses.

2006 - Making Presentations course at CERN

2005 - Beginners French courses at CERN (two terms)

2000 - English paper at Massey University

B  139.177 - Written Communication for Information Science Students

1998 - Linguistics paper at Massey University

C  72.132 - Language and Culture

B Bursary (Japanese) at Takapuna Grammar School

1995 - School Certificate at Carmel College

B  Japanese
Te Reo Maori - Oral: 1  Written: 3
A  English

1995 - I won the Young Writers' section of the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Writing Awards

1992 - I won the New Zealand section of the Commonwealth Essay Competition for my age group, and was commended in the Commonwealth competition.

Experience

French

French is the only language other than English with which I have had much experience with native speakers, and because of that I am far more fluent in it than I am in any other foreign language. I started teaching myself French in March 2005, moved to Geneva in April 2005, and then attended CERN French courses taught in the language. Since then I have continued to learn it on my own. This self-study has been quite effective, as I was able to skip four levels when I began another French course in April 2008. I try to get as much practice reading and listening as possible, so I have few problems understanding written or spoken French. However, since I speak English at work, I have not had as much practice speaking French as I would like.

Japanese

I have written some software for revision of Japanese vocabulary and sentence structures. The software can take words and sentence structures from lists and form grammatically correct sentences to test the user on. This involved figuring out algorithms to convert English and Japanese words into their different forms, which was very interesting due to the many exceptions in English. I would like to make a Cocoa (Mac OS X) version of the software and market it, however, my experience with French has shown me that translating sentences is not the best way to learn a language.

Creative writing and wordplay

I have loved writing long stories ever since I first learnt to write. In 1994 I began attending twice-monthly creative writing classes run by the WEA, and began writing poetry and short stories. I have amassed a few folders of poetry and prose, much of which has been published in the amateur writers' magazine Write Now. I have also had a poem published in the book, 'Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured' as a result of entering it in the Robert Louis Stevenson centenary writing competition. My winning entry in the Katherine Mansfield awards was read on National Radio.

I am a member of the Geneva Writers' Group, and I attended the Geneva Writers' Conference in 2006 and 2008. Since February 29, 2008, I have been writing a piece of prose or poetry each week and publishing it on a blog, at http://angelabrett.wordpress.com. I plan to continue this for a year, to get back into the habit of writing.

I also enjoy an unusual form of wordplay... making up apronyms. An apronym is an acronym which means something relevant to what it stands for. This began when a friend and I wanted to use more imaginative expressions of laughter than 'LOL' in emails. We now have a HyperCard stack, a Mac OS X Cocoa application, and a web site devoted to these apronyms, with many thousands of apronyms by over a hundred people. We are hoping that the neologism 'apronym' will get into common usage.

Tertiary

Since completing my degree I have completed one postgraduate paper at Massey University, for interest.

C 160.738 - Studies in Continuum Mechanics

Mathematics

A-	60.101 - Introductory Calculus
A-	60.102 - Algebra and Geometry
A-	60.203 - Calculus
C+	60.204 - Differential Equations 1
A	60.212 - Discrete Mathematics
B-	60.211 - Applied Linear Algegra
A+	60.302 - Algebra
B	60.318 - Differential Equations 2
B-	160.301 - Analysis
C	160.319 - Mathematical Modelling
A	160.316 - Geometry
B	160.325 - History of Mathematics

Computer Science

A+	159.101 - Programming Fundamentals
A	159.102 - Computer Science Fundamentals
A+	159.201 - Algorithms and Data Structures
A	159.233 - Computer Architecture
B+	159.234 - Object Oriented Programming
A-	159.302 - Artificial Intelligence

Information Systems

A-	57.116 - Principles of Information Systems
B	157.221 - Information Systems Analysis

Statistics

B+ 161.120 - Introductory Statistics

English

B  139.177 - Written Communication for Information Science Students

Linguistics

C  72.132 - Language and Culture

Human Development

C  87.102 - Human Development I

Parallel Computing Summer School at Massey University

This included learning about parallel computing and programming the university's Beowulf cluster using High Performance FORTRAN.

Secondary

1997 - B Bursary at Takapuna Grammar School

Mathematics with Calculus
Physics
Chemistry
Japanese

1995 - School Certificate at Carmel College

English
Mathematics
Science
Japanese
Te Reo Maori

Other

2008 - Advanced French course at CERN (in progress)

2007 - Oracle 10g Certified Professional course

2006 - Oracle Tutorials at CERN

I attended the tutorials on Tuning, PL/SQL II, and Tools and Language Bindings

2006 - Finite State Machines in the JCOP Framework at CERN

2006 - Making Presentations course at CERN

2005 - Beginners French courses at CERN (two terms)

1995 - I won the Young Writers' section of the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Writing Awards

1994, 1995 and 1997 - Distinction awards in Australian Mathematics Competition

1992 - I won the New Zealand section of the Commonwealth Essay Competition for my age group, and was commended in the Commonwealth competition.