Hi there.

From August 1999 till November 2001 I worked at BBN Technologies, Speech and Language Processing department. I worked on text understanding and information extraction technologies.

Before that I taught Computer Science at Northeastern University for two years, pursuing a combined Math/CS graduate program at the same time.

My thesis is in Algebra & Symbolic Computation and deals with algorithms on finite groups (permutation groups and matrix groups over finite fields).

I like fixing software that doesn't work exactly right. Being a Linux user, I can do it too :-) [I pity Windoze users -- they mostly have to put up with whatever M$ thinks is best for them]. Here are some of my little hacks for fellow Linux users.

I am looking for a new job:

• Short description of skills and experience
• Resume
• "Academic" resume (chronological)
• Curriculum Vitae (expanded, academic-oriented)
• Courses taught, projects done while in grad school

• XML-based semantic representation of structured documents and other objects on the Internet.
  The web will eveolve to accomodate more semantics, more structure in published documents. We need open and very flexible standards to make this possible. Today's web is full of knowledge, put there by its users empowered by hypertext and simplicity of publishing; the problem is finding and cataloging that knowledge, as well as supporting efficient collaboration between publishers. Semantic markup will give the hyperlink graph more structure, while the ability to define and transfer complex objects will offer new services and richer collaboration on the web.
• Symbolic computation, computational group theory.
  My Ph.D. thesis was on computations with the so-called black box groups (when the information available about a finite group is minimal, or the available representation is far from the natural one).
• Symmetry and search on algebraic and combinatorial objects.
  I am interested in applying algebraic techniques to make search that involves objects that have group structure faster.
• Internet security and network intrusion detection. I am interested in using statistical machine learning methods to detect potential attacks. While "cybercrime" is a hugely overblown issue (partly out of lack of elementary tech knowledge in the media, partly for political purposes by those pursuing their own goals), and "cyberterrorism" luckily still belongs to the realm of fiction, computer security is an important and interesting research field, and cracker intrusions can be a major pain.

• Linux resources: Getting started.
• My environment: Software I like.
• C++ links.
• Buying a computer and planning to run Linux? Here are some vendor, hardware and multiple OS boot stories.

Join the Blue Ribbon Online Free Speech Campaign! Here is why it is vitally important that you care.

• software patents and
• Hollywood-financed legislation.

  Quotable:

  This [SSSCA, now CBDTPA, a bill by Fritz Hollings, "Senator from Disney"] law would effectively announce the end of innovation in digital technology: it would become illegal to create any hardware or software that failed to incorporate controls chosen by the content providers.

  Andy Oram, O'Reilly editor

Here is a zipped "New Hacker's Dictionary" (as a Windoze help file). Don't confuse hackers and crackers. Read about the glorious early days when hackers organized hard drive races and programmed their LISP machines to call the elevator.

BTW, this version (3.20) is quite out of date. The latest version (4.10) is available at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/.

• COM 1105 Computers and Applications
• COM 1100 Fundamentals of Computer Science
• COM 1101 Algortihms and Data Structures I
• COM 1201 Algortihms and Data Structures II