NSF Statement of Purpose

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I work in a studio crammed with hacker paraphernalia, three workstations, four gigs, a fiber-optic Internet connection, and an extensive CS library, yet the most valuable design reference in this den of iniquity is hanging on the wall: Murphy's Computer Law. From Osborn's Law (``Variables won't, constants aren't'') to Nolan's Placebo (``An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance''), it's an exceedingly clear indictment of the Software Crisis. You know, that threat to motherhood, apple pie, and baseball dressed in Capital Letters: software productivity seems to fall off faster than hardware efficiency escalates.

Since hardware multiplies with the torrid licentiousness of Moore's Law, doubling every eighteen months, that's a pretty harsh statement. So what are we really going to do about it? Computer Science's latest contributions to the backlog have been relational databases, GUIs, and object-oriented design. Industry has been living off the fat of the land (a.k.a ``stuff done at Xerox PARC in the '70s'') for a decade.

We know where CS is going: highly parallel, widely distributed, tightly connected, ubiquitous computing. With today's analysis and design technique, the tagline will be ``You can't get there from here.''

Perhaps if I'm a tad more bitter than those who have come before me, it is only because I have stood on the toes of giants. I am part of the first generation of software architects who have been weaned on OO tools; whose academic training has been predicated on distributed computation. My personal paradigm of computing is one of distributed objects -- and I think that will be part of the solution.

Object Technology is also close to my interests, and I have been particularly involved with NeXTSTEP, organizing user group activities at Caltech, for the LA region, and at the international level, where I helped found the international user group and annual conference program.

Inspired by my journalism and graphic design interests from high-school, I have successfully worked as a freelance computer journalist for IDG Publications and others, covering object technology and multimedia events on both coasts.

I have also developed a few pieces of commercial object technology, including an encryption tool and a complete email connectivity package for UNIX machines without Internet access. In many of these projects, I actually played the professional role of architect, as well as actual implementation, which directed my thinking very early on to organizing paradigms for the software-construction market in an age of OO component-ware.

I also have an extensive background in economics, finance, and management, academic (Economics dual major) and practical, from managing our family business and my own software ventures. I have every intention of following through on my research career by moving the technology out to the market.

I have played an active role in the founding of the Caltech Entrepreneur Club, and the SEDS GASCAN project, a Caltech student-built gamma-ray experiment that flew on the Space Shuttle.

For more information: the eText Engine Page and my home page

Go Up (Parent):

[NSF Fellowship]

See Also (Siblings):

[NSF Application Part II] [NSF Study Plan] [NSF Research Experience]