I’ve been building websites and web-based applications for over 20 years (13 years as lead developer running my own software company prior to my PhD). I’m a generalist with experience and expertise in web technologies, server-side application development and database design. I’ve advised and led diverse projects, from blogs and ecommerce systems to applications to manage and monitor internet of things devices. In my work I’ve deployed and and extended a number of open source content management systems.

This skill-set has followed me into my academic work. Many of the tools I build are implemented as web-based applications. For example, the Political Language Browser built during my PhD combined frontend (HTML/CSS/Javascript) and backend technologies (PHP/MySQL) to allow searching, browsing and analysing a large corpus of parliamentary debates. This was inspiration for the ConText browser-based corpus analysis tool I’m developing in current research projects. Both these enabled computer-assisted analysis of texts, but also allowed research collaborators to explore and engage with the texts.

I have also built websites and web-based interactives for research projects, including current projects: Mapping LAWS and Mining the Sea. Through my work with the Arts Digital Lab I’ve assisted with a number of web projects at UC and advised colleagues on how to understand and use web technologies in their research.

Skills & Tools: Software devleopment; Python; PHP; MySQL; HTML; CSS; Javascript; Responsive design; CMS applications/frameworks.