education

2006→present

Ph.D. Computer Science, University of British Columbia

Visual analysis of massive time-series data sets. Supervision by Tamara Munzner.

2004→2006

M.Sc. Computer Science, University of British Columbia

Human Computer Interaction (HCI) Specialization. Research focus on information visualization and HCI. Supervision by Dr. Tamara Munzner. Developed novel interfaces and visualizations for managing large scale network alarm and metric data from multiple data sources. My thesis project pursued a focus+context approach for visualizing data from a production managed hosting services environment. Coursework: Information Visualization, Human-Computer Interaction, Physical Interface Design, Operating Systems, Experiment Design & Analysis.

1997→2001

B.A. Honours Computer Science and Philosophy, Queen’s University

Coursework highlights: data structures, operating systems and software engineering, philosophy of mind, language and law.

publications

2008

Peter McLachlan, Tamara Munzner, Eleftherios Koutsofios, Stephen North. LiveRAC - Interactive Visual Exploration of System Management Time-Series Data. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Florence, Italy, April 5 - 10, 2008). CHI '08.

2005

Tang, A., McLachlan, P., Lowe, K., Saka, C. R., and MacLean, K. 2005. Perceiving ordinal data haptically under workload. In Proceedings of the 7th international Conference on Multimodal interfaces (Trento, Italy, October 04 - 06, 2005). ICMI '05. ACM Press, New York, NY, 317-324.

awards

2008

Best of CHI 2008

Submission in the top 5% of papers for Computer Human Interaction (CHI) 2008.

2007

NSERC PGS D

National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Doctoral Postgraduate Scholarship.

2005

Best Paper

International Conference on Multimodal Interfaces, “Perceiving Ordinal Differences Haptically Under Workload”

certifications

Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) and Linux Professional Institute Level 1 Certified

work experience

Aug 2007→present

Chief architect, Handi Mobility Inc.

Architect software and infrastructure for mobile applications including an SMS based voting platform and mobile-accessible bus schedules. Responsibilities include software/hardware platform selection, high level design, and implementation of web based services in python.

May→June, 2006, May→Aug 2007, May→Aug 2008

Research Intern, AT&T Labs Inc. - Research

Projects relating to design and evaluation of a novel visualization system for managing hosting services alarm, ticketing and metric data. Collaborated with researchers working on complementary systems to deliver a field-tested prototype with ongoing development.

Jan→May, 2005

Teaching Assistant, University of British Columbia

Teaching assistant for a fourth year undergraduate human-computer interaction course. Responsibilities included mentoring teams of students on their course projects, providing feedback on project prototype iterations, and evaluating final work products.

2001→2004

IT Specialist, IBM Canada Ltd.

Customer facing specialist in the implementation of Linux based software solutions. Led the development and deployment of a Linux based VPN appliance for retail. Participated in sales and deployment of high performance SMP clusters, including RFP process, customer demo and delivery. Deployed Linux services to customers including optimization, file services, mail services, network hardening, security forensics and NIS.

2000→2001

Database Application Developer, Department of National Defence

Developed a financial planning database from a small prototype to a complete web based application serving as the primary source of information for strategic long term capital planning. Independent work, requirements gathering, consulting, rapid iteration and gathering feedback were key elements of this project.

software development

Java, Python, XHTML, CSS, C++

networking & systems

Mac OS X, UNIX, Windows, TCP/IP, Apache, qmail, Sendmail, Samba, Squid, NFS, PostgreSQL, mySQL

extracurricular

2005→2006

Vice-president, Computer Science Graduate Student Association (CSGSA), UBC

The CSGSA facilitates social events and places student volunteers on department committees including admissions, curriculum, space and facilities. Responsibilities of the vice-president include managing the CSGSA budget, managing graduate student offices and assisting with CSGSA operations.