Heather M. Byrne - UMASS Lowell

About Me

I'm currently a graduate student working towards M.S. in computer Science. I began work at the start of June of 2008 as a research assistant working on the VAST2008 challenge project under the direction of Dr. Grinstein - I have since participated in VAST2009 & VAST2010. I also worked with Dr. Kevin Hughes at Massachusetts General Hospital developing a tablet application that collected and applied risk models to patient history to obtain lifetime breast cancer risk and make appropriate recommendations. My current work is on development of a web based visualization platform called Weave, with interests in visualizing environmental data sets and in bringing Weave into the classroom as a learning tool. Specifically I am responsible for developing multiple user interfaces for users of varying abilities and for adapting the visualization interface to maximize preattentive perception.

I have been elected Vice President of the Computer Science Graduate Student Organization and am the lead of its Women in Computer Science subcommittee. Participation in these types of groups has made me an excellent event coordinator and champion of causes. I have strong interests in feminism, environmentalism, and sustainability and hope that my work in visualization and visual analytics can someday be of benefit to these causes.

Resume

Education:

University Of Massachusetts Lowell, Bachelor Of Science,
Computer Science: concentration in Bioinformatics

UML Computer Science
UML Bio/Cheminformatics
My Advisor and Supervisor, Dr. Georges Grinstein

Relative Skills:

Programming Languages: C, C++, C#, Java, HTML, CSS, Scheme, C#, Flex, Tex, Processing
Operating Systems: Windows 2003/XP/Vista/7, Mac OSX, UNIX/LINUX
Software: Microsoft Office, Eclipse, Flex Monkey, Photoshop, SVN, Tex Maker, Weka, Rapidminer, UVP, Jigsaw, Weave, Tableau, Ggobi, R Project

Work Experience:

Research Intern: Institute for Visualization and Perception Research Lab(June 2008 - present)IVPR Lab
- Grant supported National Science Foundation research
- automating scoring for the VAST 2008 Challenge Information on the VAST 2008 Challenge
- Grant supported open source interdisciplinary web based visualization software development project called Weave
- Grant supported proprietary software development for breast cancer research at Mass General Hospital

Lab Assistant: Computer Science Department Help Desk, UMASS Lowell (August 2007 - June 2008)
- Maintence of Windows Mac and Linux operating systems in computer Labs
- Performed small tasks such as retrieval and sorting of mail
- Assisted users with account creation, password resets, and trouble shooting

Teaching Assistant: Computer Science Department at UMASS Lowell (June 2007 - August 2007)
- Assisted with classroom setup and technical difficulties
- Aided classroom instruction and provided support during lecture to keep students on track
- Scheduled and taught lab instruction

Systems Lab Member: Computer Science Department at UMASS Lowell (December 2006 - June 2007)
- Completed any and all tasks assigned by Dr. James Canning
- Directed and coordinated the creation of a working Systems Lab at UMASS Lowell in Dec. 2008
- The Systems Lab

Contact Info

Email:
hbyrne83@gmail.com

Alternative Email:
hbyrne@cs.uml.edu

Activities, Interests, and Organizations

SEMVAST

Scientific Evaluation Methods for Visual Analytics Science and Technology

WiCS Home Page

The UMASS WiCS club was established as a support, retention, and recruiting aide for women in Computer Science. Activities include frequent guest speakers, volunteer opportunities, and mentoring.

UML Crew Home Page

I was a coxswain for the mens crew team spring semester, 2007. It's the 5 am practices I don't miss :).

Indoor Rock Climbing

A great way to spend some excess energy after sitting in a classroom all day. Student discounts make it affordable, belay training available for beginners!