Amelia riding her bike, smiling at the camera

Hi,
I'm Amelia.

I'm a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed nerd with a M.S. in Computer Science from Portland State University's Maseeh College of Engineering and Computer Science (4.0 GPA) and a special interest in cybersecurity. My undergraduate degree is a B.S. Biology from the University of Central Florida. Beginning in May of 2023 and ending in August of 2024, over the final year of my M.S. program and the following Summer, I had the pleasure of working as a Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) Student Intern at BlackBerry/Cylance - more on that below.

Outside of my time at BlackBerry, my professional experience is mostly spread between technical roles in biochemistry and environmental engineering settings, with a focus on data collection, processing, and analysis, as well as workflow automation and research design and implementation.

I'm interested in using computers to better humanity, especially by bridging the gaps between people as well as between us and the rest of the natural world. I believe software is a uniquely powerful and flexible tool, opening doors to experiences people would otherwise be unable to have. Responsible and effective software engineering helps everyone to better understand one another and facilitates easier, more comfortable living for everyone.

Some of my previous work includes...

Checks and X's symbolizing test results, with a robot face

Software Test Automation

At BlackBerry/Cylance, I worked with a team of talented software engineers to maintain, enhance, and extend a robust test automation suite, as well as its associated custom in-house framework, for the company's Endpoint Detection and Response product. I found the work to be incredibly challenging and rewarding, and I grew immensely as a software professional (and as a person in general) as a result of working in this complex environment with these wonderful people.
Unfortunately, BlackBerry was not able to bring me on full-time, so I'm currently seeking a more-or-less similar role in development or software QA automation. Several letters of recommendation from my former colleagues are available upon request - holler at me!

A test tube icon with bubbling fluid

Clinical Testing

With HIPAA always in focus, clinical laboratory work allowed me to cut my teeth on programming and automation work in highly regulated environments. Additionally, the experiences I've had in clinical labs have sharpened my patience and discipline. I got practical experience working with sensitive data in a way that not only respected regulatory and ethical concerns, but made them easier to meet. Good informatics workstation programs and automation tools take cognitive load off employees and ultimately enhance the experiences of the lab's customers, technicians, and management all at once.

A stylized plant growing on a synthetic medium in a jar

Plant Tissue Culture

In my role as a tissue culture technician I had the opportunity to lead the digitization of an existing pen-and-paper stock management system, which was valuable experience in more ways than I can enumerate here. Working directly with the company's owner and the other technicians to set up a system that made sense for everyone as individuals and as a team was both challenging and satisfying.

Some personal projects...

ansifier

A screenshot of an image of a vintage computer, overlaid with the output of ansifier on that image, a grid of about 80x55 colored octothorpes.

A Python package that represents images as text. Try it out!

pip install ansifier
ansifier -h
 or, if python's Scripts aren't on PATH, python -m ansifier -h

You can also try it in a browser at https://ansifier.com/  or send well-formed application/json requests to use that site as an API; more information and source code here

IRC

A screenshot of an IRC server and 2 clients running in 3 terminals windows

A simple Internet Relay Chat protocol with an IETF-style RFC and a Python implementation.

This was a pair project for Internetworking Protocols at Portland State University. The language-agnostic RFC was a collaborative effort, and I was responsible for implementing the server and the packet classes used by both the server and client.

Lightlapse

A screenshot of lightlapse running, with a simple GUI for managing its functions

A Raspberry Pi based Python program to aid in managing environmental conditions for photosynthetic organisms.

I wrote this while beginning to teach myself Python/programming, GNU/Linux, and electronics. Eventually, I want to extend it to water & feed using gravity and solenoids, manage multiple light/watering zones, etc.

Animal Racing Simulator

A screenshot of Animal Racing Simulator running in the terminal, showing the main menu and a list of animals that are about to race

A C++ game I wrote for CS202 but with a twist - watch out for predator-prey interactions!

I want to eventually add a mode where players earn winnings to buy and breed new animals with commensurate stats... Animal Racing Tycoon, anyone?
Make sure to check out the other projects I completed for this class - see the readme on GitHub.

Reach out!