Certification Program in Generative AI at Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering2025-2026 (current)

I am enjoying the privilege of learning the latest in theoretical and industry use of Generative AI and the AI landscape in general from the amazing faculty at Johns Hopkins.

• I am learning new material all of the time, but so far have taken a particular interest in
  • NLP and more specifically sentiment analysis,
  • methods for using AI on the web to make information faster to process,
  • refining LLMs through transformer models and
  • optimizing different algorithms and methods of ML and AI.
• My mid-term project is to create an email secretary AI to prioritize, summarize and organize emails.
• My final project will be a system to generate grant proposals that leverage AI for effectiveness.

VibeCheckAI2025-current

VibeCheckAI is a tool for small to medium size content creators to gather meaningful and actionable feedback based on their audiences' comments and posts.

• Inspired by my education at Johns Hopkins and some subsequent independent traditional and AI-powered NLP experimentation.
• It runs on a multi-vendor infrastructure of traditional web servers and cloud GPUs.
• After running analysis on a post, using a unique ensemble of LLMs and other ML and NLP methods, it presents charts, an AI-generated summary of comments and some other interesting information about the comments in aggregate.
• There are logged in and paid user features such as queuing posts, saving results, bulk analysis, more. It is written in Python and uses PostgreSQL.

Outco: Technical Interview Skill Course2021-2022

In this course, I twice completed what I call a “computer science bootcamp”. I studied algorithms and practiced daily at completing Leetcode-type programming exercises in front of peers and mentors. This course refined my skill as a technical thinker and filled in my knowledge of computer science fundamentals.

18F/Technology Transformation Services, General Services Administration

Lead Innovation Specialist - Washington, DC - 2014-2018

I was lucky to be on this team for four years. I was asked to move from an individual contributor role to a leadership role within three months of my employment.

• Managed a team of 3-6 high performing engineers, some of whom were tech leads in their focus areas (front end, devops, etc). A handful of this talent was promoted off my team, becoming leaders as well, while I was helping mentor them.
• On initial leadership team that built an engineering department from a little over a dozen engineers to sixty engineers, focusing on individual productivity and career development, thereby exponentially increasing the number of paid projects the agency could accept.
• Co-authored Code of Conduct for events as part of internal Diversity and Inclusion Guild, which became the foundation for the organizational Code of Conduct.

My leadership position also came with individual contributor responsibilities:

• Extended software I first built in an earlier position, used to parse and view federal regulation for the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau, increasing regulatory compliance and ease of use for ATF staff using React, JavaScript, Backbone.js, Python and Django, Sass, HTML.
• Worked closely with designers and server side engineers to develop a website for an initiative that First Lady Michelle Obama created, resulting in interest being generated in the program and sign ups to the campaign, using Jekyll, JavaScript, Sass.
• Led continued development of an internal tool for federal procurement officers to receive fairer prices on government contracts by comparing past prices on similar contracts, which saved compliance officers time and money on new contracts, using Python and Django.

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Technology and Innovation Fellow - Washington, DC - 2012-2014

I was awarded a two year fellowship position to establish the digital components of this new federal agency built out of the 2008 housing crisis.

• I led front end development for innovative and modern software that dynamically parses and displays federal regulations, revolutionizing the space for federal employees and private industry alike using Python, JavaScript, Django, Backbone.js, Underscore.js, Travis CI, Sauce Labs, Selenium, Mocha, Grunt, shell scripting, ESLint, Babel, HTML, Sass.

Quartz, An Atlantic Media Company

Web Application Engineer - New York, NY

• I led front end engineering for the initial deployment of an innovative news website, using Backbone.js, Underscore.js, JavaScript, PHP, Wordpress, jQuery.

ConsumerSearch, then A New York Times Company

Senior Web Developer - New York, NY

• Maintained and built new features for a consumer product comparison website owned by The New York Times Company, using JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Drupal, PHP, jQuery.
• Halved load times by minimizing HTTP requests and optimizing server side code for Drupal views/templates.
• Co-led usability testing and user feedback collection, alongside the design director.

The Economist

Senior Web Developer - New York, NY

• Ported complex news site from Coldfusion to Drupal.
• Mentored Coldfusion engineers learning Drupal and PHP.

Sony Music

Drupal Themer - New York, NY

• Ported musician websites from Drupal 5 to Drupal 6, including artists like Ben Folds and Kesha.

The New York Observer

Client Side Developer - New York, NY

• Built the front end of two versions of a high traffic media website using Drupal, PHP, HTML, CSS, SVN.