Sean Cier -- Resume

Multithreading, distributed, and massively parallel computing: clouds, grids, distributed servers, multithreaded client applications, P2P, and General-Purpose GPU (GPGPU) techniques

Design and implementation of robust, scalable software architectures for server-based systems

Software engineering and design techniques and technologies, including object-oriented methodologies and design patterns; REST, Map/Reduce, and other web-based and distributed systems; cross-platform development; scalable, reliable and redundant server and service design; database-backed persistent services; encryption, authentication, and secure software

Algorithms in domains such as nonlinear optimization and evolutionary computing (such as genetic algorithms and particle swarm optimization), physical simulation, Monte Carlo method and other stochastic techniques, and computational geometry

Seeing the big picture and creating innovative and flexible architectures, APIs, and protocols to solve the problem at hand in a scalable, maintainable, and pragmatic manner; also happy getting my hands dirty writing code to implement such systems

Able to adapt quickly to the use of new software architectures, APIs, languages, and techniques

Quote able to write in English as well, for technical and nontechnical audiences

3D graphics: visualization, modeling, animation, and rendering (both photorealistic and interactive). Experience with OpenGL, Open Scene Graph, RenderMan, and other graphics APIs. Have designed and implemented novel image-based modeling and rendering techniques, realtime animation and 3D user interface paradigms, distributed rendering, Monte Carlo path tracing, and virtual reality applications

Education and Professional Achievements

BS degrees in Computer Science and Physics from Carnegie Mellon University, 1998

Keith Sullivan, Sean Luke, Curt Larock, Sean Cier, and Steven Armentrout, "Opportunistic evolution: efficient evolutionary computation on large-scale computational grids," Proceedings of the 2008 GECCO conference

U.S. Patent #6463457: System and method for the establishment and the utilization of networked idle computational processing power, issued 2002

Parabon Computation: February 2007 to present
System Architect
- Participated and led a variety of software development projects to enhance Parabon's Frontier grid technology
- Worked on a variety of government proposals and sales efforts
- Implemented Map/Reduce atop the Frontier grid platform
- Led the development of Watchman, an AJAX-based web application for sensor placement optimization via evolutionary computation techniques, using the Frontier system for computation
- Implemented the Blitz testing service for large-scale DDoS simulation and cybersecurity analysis
- Continued to evolve and refine the Frontier Grid SDK for application and task development

Ported the classic UNIX networked space combat game XPilot to the iPhone and iPod Touch
Created Subatomic, a physics-based casual game for the iPhone and iPod Touch

ProLogic (now part of Ultra Electronics): July 2002 to January 2007
Project Tech Lead; Senior Software Architect
- Led teams and collaborated on design and implementation of unified terrorist threat visualization and analysis environment including facility modeling and vulnerability analysis applications. Personal contributions included modular framework design and implementation, module interface designs, visualization technologies such as route interpolation and scene graph access and manipulation, data serialization, and others
- Led team working on advanced algorithm development for support of projects across the company, including problem domain analysis, algorithm development, and validation. Algorithms investigated include weapon fire scheduling; optimal sensor placement; sampling and isocontour extraction; and blast wave propagation and shielding simulation
- Integration of visualization environment with threat analysis techniques, algorithms, and applications including in particular the Blast Estimation Effects Model (BEEM); also led research on implementing threat models, including blast wave propagation and structural response
- Performed customer training and system demonstrations, helped bid and win various contracts, and worked with customers to define requirements and contract Statements of Work (SOWs)

Managed Object Solutions: October 2001 to June 2002
Software Engineer
- Worked on developing, implementing, supporting, and documenting a published API for incorporating third-party applications and data sources into Managed Object's network managament product, to replace a proprietary legacy API. Primary requirements included generality, scalability, simplicity, and robustness

Part of the core architecture team for Frontier, a general-purpose distributed computing platform which utilizes idle time of Internet-connected desktop machines (providers) to perform powerful, supercomputer-scale massively parallel computation
Designed the high- and low-level communications protocols for interaction between provider engines, client applications, and the central server
Designed, implemented, and documented the client and task runtime APIs
Participated in implementation of the Java-based central server
Designed and implemented a grid-based application for Monte Carlo-based distributed photorealistic rendering using a bidirectional path tracing algorithm

Autometric (now part of Boeing): June 1997 to November 1999
Lead Software Engineer
- Designed, developed innovative technologies for, and implemented a proprietary system for building-interior familiarization using existing and novel image-based modeling and rendering techniques, as part of a small team, working with Java, C++, and OpenGL
- Feature implementation and refinement of a large-scale real-time visualization system, as part of a medium-large team, working with C/C++ and OpenGL

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