User:Pat Palmer

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I do database work, programming, and system administration for a small group of algae scientists who work at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University. I am also a research associate for a professor in the CIS department at the University of Pennsylvania. I do both jobs mostly out of my home, part-time and with a flexible schedule, and I never seem to quite catch up on anything.

I have masters degrees in computer science (Univ. of Tenn., 1983) and public sector management (Fels Center, Univ. of Penn., 1992) and many years work experience in the software industry, especially telecom. I started my computing career as a member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories, originally part of AT&T and then part of Lucent (now Alcatel-Lucent), where I worked for about 15 years as the company slowly fell apart around my ears and my former colleagues scattered to the four winds. After that, I worked at a series of jobs whose funding only lasted a year or two. Eventually, I taught in an untenured position at the University of Pennsylvania for four years, and then spent 5 years as a full-time employee at my current job at ANSDU before changing to part-time work. Over time, I have done just about every kind of programming and most kinds of system administration. I've tried very hard to keep up with a field that changes faster than you can blink an eye.

In the past, I used Eduzendium for some courses which I taught, such as Emerging Technologies 2010.

I also did three years of graduate work in Germanic linguistics in the 1970's, working towards a Ph D which I never quite finished. During that time, I read Old High German, Old Norse, Icelandic, Middle High German, Afrikaans, Pennsylvania Dutch, Yiddish, various regional German dialects under direction from Professors Nordsieck and Kratz, and also studied Spanish, Latin, and Russian. My undergraduate degree was liberal arts with a concentration in English literature and German (which I speak fluently). I also managed to complete a couple of years of calculus and a year of physics, which stood me in good stead when I converted to being a computer scientist later on.

I worked two years in the 1970's repairing telephone switches for GTE in Virginia and worked in some of the last Strowger switching offices remaining in the United States. During that time, I also repaired electromechanical telephone switching systems made by Leich, that had so-called common control units for call routing--in effect, a fully electromechanical, special-purpose computer. I could see numbers being stored in registers as people dialed. This is where my interest in computing really grew strong, and I moved into the field of computer science afterwards.

More about me personally is [here].

Besides authoring here, I am a Computers editor, and for awhile I served also on the Citizendium Executive Committee. I am currently serving on the Council in hopes that we can somehow save this project and even revive it. I believe in its possibilities.

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