User:Pat Palmer

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I am the sysadmin and programmer for a group of algae scientists in the Phycology Section at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, where I have written many web services such as this one, showing data about one algal species. Working out of my home, part-time and with a flexible schedule, I am also a research associate for a professor in the CIS department at the University of Pennsylvania.

I have an M. S. in public sector management (Fels Center, Univ. of Penn., 1992) and computer science (Univ. of Tenn., 1983). I started my computing career as a member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories in 1984, originally part of AT&T and then part of Lucent (now Alcatel-Lucent). After more than a decade there, during which time the company slowly fell apart around my ears and my former colleagues scattered to the four winds, I left for a series of jobs whose funding only lasted a year or two. This was during the big out-sourcing surge in the 1990's. In 2002, I taught for 4 years (untenured) in the MCIT program at the University of Pennsylvania, and then I spent 5 years full-time employee at ANS, while teaching occasionally at night, before changing to part-time work. Over time, I have done just about every kind of programming and most kinds of system administration, and I've tried very hard to keep up with a field that changes faster than you can blink an eye.

Back in the 1970's, I did all the coursework required for a Ph D in Germanic linguistics (at the Univ. of Tenn.), reading 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 studying Spanish, Latin, and Russian. Unfortunately, I never completed that degree.

I have a B. A. in German, with a minor in English (Univ. of Tenn., 1974), and while an undergraduate, I 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.

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, which is a pretty good introduction to the field of computing.

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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