I have a background in Cultural Anthropology and I will be completing a M.S. in Information Architecture in December of 2010 at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, IL., a private Ph.D granting university which is a member of the Association of Independent Technical Universities. The curriculum included in this program places an equal emphasis on user-centric design principles and technological education.

I design websites and web applications. I put an equal amount of energy into both the aesthetic and functional elements of each project I have the opportunity to work on. I strive to create standards compliant sites and utilize XHTML, Ruby on Rails, CSS, PHP and JavaScript as my primary tools to do so. I use the Adobe Creative Suite for manipulating graphics for the sites that I create although I do prefer Notepad++ as opposed to ever opening Dreamweaver.

I have also built sites with Drupal, Lotus WCM, Websphere Portal, and Wordpress content management systems. Additional technologies that I have a great deal of experience with include SQL, MySQL, PL/SQL, and I am currently learning Java. I have developed mobile sites and have also conducted extensive research in geolocation and sms application integration.

I focus on creating user-centric designs that include any and all media such as print design, flash presentations, vector graphics, and edited digital photography. I utilize my background in Cultural Anthropology to create designs and websites that adhere to i18n standards and have done a great deal of independent study on the art of globalization and localization.

I am currently employed at Yum Brands in Louisville, KY as a Web Application Developer. There I have worked on the Enterprise Architecture, SOA, and Web Applications teams. I have developed and supported websites for Taco Bell, KFC, Long John Silvers, and A & W. I have also helped to support several internal applications that are used worldwide by Yum Brands employees.

I have included many of my school projects and a few outside projects as well in this portfolio.