index

welcome!

I am Director of Engineering for Query Optimization (North America) at MongoDB. We are always hiring full-time engineers and we accept applications every fall season for the next summer internship program in NYC.

Prior to that, I was an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the Computer Science Department at Northwestern University, where I taught various computer systems classes.

I also work in digital journalism by publishing the National Gun Violence Memorial. To better understand the impact of gun violence in America, our volunteers and community have collected over 70,000 photos of American gun violence victims from the past few years. We also host a grief counseling forum for our visitors.

I completed a Ph.D. program at Northwestern University in August of 2011 in Computer Engineering. My advisor was Professor Peter Dinda, and I worked on mobile systems, with an emphasis on acoustic sensing.

tweets

2020/7/1

You can save some energy by disabling your Zoom virtual background. I measured +5 watts of electricity on my laptop w/ background on.

2018/3/22

RT @DenverWestword: Lydia Coronado was a real person, not a statistic. t.co/fSb5GJ4DbO

2017/11/2

RT @teamtrace: Gun violence did not let up after Las Vegas. These are the stories of 30 of the people we’ve lost since. t.co/SwstGL…

2016/7/27

RT @knightlab: What happened when t.co/6WtNEn8ACq let anyone contribute directly to victim profiles: t.co/AAm1lD1woM

2016/7/1

RT @knightlab: People join communities to 1) make friends, 2) reinforce identities. Great read if your job is to build audiences: https://t…

2016/6/30

RT @GunMemorial: The 49 Orlando victims were joined by 35 others on June 12. t.co/7tKPa975NY t.co/qMQ6PnFLPP

2016/6/22

RT @C2ST: When physics and dance collide. Still time to get tickets! @rogerzare t.co/VxbDbTvAVx

2016/6/14

RT @GunMemorial: Faces of 3117 Americans shot dead so far in 2016. Let's #EndGunViolence starting this #FlagDay. t.co/tbLMhCMyLV

2016/6/12

RT @GunMemorial: Gun Memorial is wearing black this week to mourn the loss of 50 innocent lives at #PulseNightclub in Orlando.

2016/6/10

We're fundraising for an art+science project that I'm helping with. Yes, that's me doing the voiceover: t.co/N73Fg7p2lY

2016/6/2

RT @GunMemorial: Don't forget to #WearOrange today for victims of gun violence: t.co/7tKPa975NY

2016/5/25

RT @knightlab: Letting readers get a word in: An experiment in reader engagement: t.co/fniGDZUDwH Check this out; real creativity v…

2016/5/23

@svlafraniere Can we talk about somehow presenting the photos and stories we're publishing at @GunMemorial to the NYTimes' audience?

2016/5/3

RT @StructStories: .@SteveTarzia, creator of @GunMemorial, discusses challenges & possibilities of catalog-style structured journalism htt…

2016/3/28

RT @knightlab: We’re hiring two developers: t.co/Mhh6d5OKOD

2016/3/11

RT @GunMemorial: 581 Americans shot dead in the month of February: t.co/7tKPa975NY #NotOneMore #GunSense t.co/hyTbtFfNLE

2016/3/11

@aetnahelp ok, LL, I followed, so can you DM your contact info?

2016/3/10

@aetnahelp Yes, please. She's really frustrated at the moment.

2016/3/10

@AetnaHelp my friend in VA called every local doc. They all said they got a memo saying not to accept her Aetna Marketplace ins. What gives?

2016/3/10

@aetna my friend in VA called every local dr. and they ALL said they got a memo saying not to accept her Aetna Marketplace ins. What gives?

2013/01/04

Badminton Footwork Trainer version 2.0 for iPhone was and iPad was released on the iTunes store. This is an open-source project

2012/06/04

Badminton Footwork Trainer for iPhone was released on the iTunes store. This is an open-source project

2012/04/26

ClapIR Acoustics Measurement app for iPhone was released on the iTunes store. This is an open-source project

2012/04/25

Prem presented our acoustics research at the AES Convention in Budapest.

2011/12/14

The VaporStream iPhone app is available in the iTunes store! Writing this app was my first responsibility at VaporStream, and I'm pleased with how it turned out.

2011/09/06

I began work as an iPhone software engineer at an exciting Chicago startup called VaporStream.

2011/07/25

I successfully defended my PhD thesis "Acoustic Sensing of Location and User Presence on Mobile Computers." :)

2011/06/30

MobiSys’11 conference talk [paper] [slides]

2011/06/29

Batphone app version 1.2 released on the iTunes store.

2011/06/23

Added a room identification listening test.

2011/03/08

Our paper Indoor Localization Without Infrastructure Using the Acoustic Background Spectrum will be presented at MobiSys’11 in June.

2011/01/27

Batphone app version 1.1 released on the iTunes store.

2010/11/30

Batphone app version 1.0 released on the iTunes store.

2010/10/21

My computer Cosmos has it’s 15 minutes of fame at OOPSLA’10.

2010/06/08

ICAC’10 conference talk [paper] [slides]

2010/03/08

Our paper Display Power Management Policies in Practice will be presented at ICAC’10 in June.

2010/03/05

Check out the Sonar Power Manager video at Tinkernut blog or on Youtube.

2009/10/28

Sonar Power Manager version 0.8 released.

2009/10/15

Sonar Power Manager featured on slashdot.org tech news site.

2009/10/02

UbiComp’09 conference talk [paper] [slides]

2009/10/01

USENIX’09 Annual Technical Conference summaries published. I wrote several of these summaries.

2009/09/24

First public release of Sonar Power Manager, version 0.7.

2009/06/17

Presented Sonar poster at USENIX’09 Annual Technical Conference in San Diego.

2009/04/05

Updated remotecmd code for newer kernels.