Christopher H. Tomkins-Tinch
 
an undergraduate student studying at the Rochester Institute of Technology

Résumé
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Research Interests

systems engineering, knowledge discovery, remote sensing, embedded systems, sensor networks, human-computer interaction, social networking & collaborative software design, data sharing, GIS, high-performance computing, data fusion & visualization, and microfabrication

Education

Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York

Bachelor of Science in Bioinformatics, Minor in Imaging Science
Expected graduation date: May 2012

Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Full-time college coursework in place of senior year of high school

Honors and Awards

Academic Honors

US Department of Energy SERCh Poster Competition Finalist, 2009; RIT Student Innovation Award, Spring 2009; Dean’s List, multiple quarters (RIT); President’s List (DCC); Phi Theta Kappa (DCC)

Scholarships

RIT Presidential Scholarship; Carlson Family Scholarship; Carlson Imaging Excellence Scholarship; Nathaniel Rochester Society Scholarship

Selected Coursework

Imaging Science

Programming for Imaging Science; Radiometry; Geometrical Optics; Vision and Psychophysics; Imaging in the Physical Sciences; Intro to Imaging Systems; Detectors

General Science

University Physics I, II, III; General and Analytic Chemistry I, II, III; Modern Physics I

Mathematics

Single and Multivariable Calculus

Special Topics

Computers, Instruments, and Data Acquisition Techniques

Professional Experience

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee
Contact: David Resseguie, resseguiedr@ornl.gov (865)241-5385};
or Edmon Begoli, begolie@ornl.gov (865) 241-1923

Student Research Assistant October 2009 – present
ORNL Co-op Student June 2009 - August 2009
DHS Intern June 2008 - March 2009
Participated in the design and development of the Sensorpedia project under a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) summer internship. Responsibilities included research and evaluation of emerging web, social and collective intelligence technologies, software framework development, branding and graphic design, backend programming, and utilization of Web 2.0 technology for sensor integration and emergency response systems. Continued work on the Sensorpedia project under three Oak Ridge National Laboratory educational co-ops. Responsibilities were extended to include embedded systems and sensor interfacing. Single-handedly implemented an iPhone application and associated web service for Sensorpedia. Later brought on for a fourth co-op to research and prototype resilient cross-platform mobile applications for emergency response. Worked as a member of the Computational Sciences and Engineering Division.

RIT Center for Imaging Science Laboratory for Imaging Algorithms and Systems, Rochester, New York
Contact: Robert Kremens, Ph.D., kremens@cis.rit.edu (585) 475-7286
Laboratory Assistant April 2007 – present
Supported wildfire research; worked on management of data flow from distributed sensors, remote sensing, C# programming, embedded systems, systems integration, mechanical design, mechanical assembly, and web development

RIT Department of Information Technology, Rochester, New York
Contact:Jon Schull, Ph.D., jis@it.rit.edu (585)738-6696
Teaching Assistant March 2009 - May 2009
Research Assistant January 2009 - May 2009
Developed an embedded hardware solution for aggregating data from mobile phones, and created an associated web service to provide this information in real-time. Assisted teaching and research activities of undergraduate and graduate students in a course covering Innovation and Invention.

Dutchess Community College, Poughkeepsie, New York
Student Aide, Department of History and Government May 2006 – August 2006

Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, Poughkeepsie, New York
Public Opinion Interviewer May 2005 – August 2005

Publications

Conference Proceedings

B. L. Gorman, D.R. Resseguie, C. Tomkins-Tinch. Sensorpedia: Information Sharing Across Autonomous Sensor Systems. International Symposium on Collaborative Technologies and Systems 2009 (CTS 2009). May 18-22, 2009, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Page(s):448 - 454

Posters

Kremens, R.L., Drake, R., Hovey, A., Bove, G.E., and Tomkins-Tinch, C.H. Inexpensive Buoys for Environmental Education and River Water Quality Assessment. Poster session at the International Association for Great Lakes Research 51st Annual Conference, May 19-23, 2008, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada

Tomkins-Tinch, C.H. The Sensorpedia Mobile Framework: Enabling Citizen Sensors. Poster session at the US Department of Energy Science and Energy Research Challenge National Student Poster Competition, November 9, 2009, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA

Skills

Operating Systems

UNIX/Linux, Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows (NT, 2000, XP), DOS
Programming Languages
Python, C#, AJAX/PHP/HTML/CSS, Obj-C, IDL, BASIC, SQL, C/C++
CAD Packages
CADKEY, AutoCAD, SketchUp
Software Frameworks
Zend Framework, Webpy, iPhone/CocoaTouch
Analysis Packages
MathCAD, Mathematica
Hardware
PC components, network components, soldering, embedded systems, microcontrollers
Publishing
LaTeX

Professional Membership

Membership

IS&T(The Society for Imaging Science and Technology, RIT Student Chapter)
AAAS(The American Association for the Advancement of Science)
IEEE(Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
IEEE Communications Society SPIE(Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers)

Community

Activities

RIT Caroline Werner Gannett Project Speaker Series, Advisory Board Core Working Group, September 2007 – present
RIT Make Club, Founder and acting President, January 2008 – present
Imaging Science and Technology Club (RIT Student Chapter), Member, Fall 2006 – present
Outing Club (RIT), Member, Fall 2006 – present
Boy Scouts of America, Eagle Scout and Merit Badge Counselor, 1998 – present

About
Academe
I am an undergraduate student studying at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
Biography
I was born in Valhalla, NY, grew up in Poughkeepsie, and currently call Rochester home. I am the son of William H. Tinch, a consulting attorney, and Karen Tomkins-Tinch, a university educator. Despite each having an education in the liberal arts, I more closely follow the quantitative careers of my grandfathers, one an electrical engineer, the other a Wall Street accountant.
Google(me)
Google for "Chris Tomkins-Tinch"
Calendar
Projects
Websites

TakeItApart dot Net

I've been taking things apart since I could hold a screwdriver, and co-founded TakeItApart in 2006. It's a photoblog that attempts to answer, “"Hey, I wonder what’s inside this thing",” or, “"So how does this thing work, exactly?".” It shows what everyday gadgets look like on the inside, and how to take things apart. The disassembly guides help visitors to better understand and maintain their electronic devices. In the words of Mister Jalopy, "If you can't open it, you don't own it."

Since its creation, TakeItApart has been featured on several media outlets. On 3 May 2006, it was featured on the LifeOnline with Bob Parsons radio show. On 21 July 2006, it was featured on the BBC News Website and on the international BBC World television channel. On 22 July 2006, it held a front-page slot on digg.com. It has been visited by over 550,000 unique visitors since going online, and the original videos created for TakeItApart have been viewed over 181,000 times [as of July 2009].

DumpsterNet dot Net

Working with RIT professor Dr. Jon Schull, I started DumpsterNet in the spring of 2009. DumpsterNet provides a means to index geocoded photographs of dumpsters. The idea is to reduce waste by exposing abandoned treasures to the world. An iPhone app to upload shots of dumpsters in the wild is forthcoming.

Make Club

Make Club is in the "projects" category for several reasons. It was a personal project, and the club iteself is all about projects.

In the spring of 2008, I started the Make Club at RIT. It is a student group interested in do-it-yourself projects, skill exploration, and learning. It is inspired by MAKE magazine, Instructables, hack-a-day, ReadyMade, and by groups like dorkbot and hackerspaces. Make Club is all about creativity. It's for the do-it-yourselfers, the dreamers, and those who like to get their hands dirty. Meetings are powered by cooperative learning, brainstorming, and hands-on experiences. What do we do? We make things, and show others how.
If you're an RIT student, come check out a meeting.

Personal projects

People Project Finder

Started in the spring of 2009, People Project Finder is like a dating site for projects. People Project Finder allows users to list their skill set and any projects they may be starting. It then allows users to search for projects that may interest them. Project managers may search for individuals who may fit their project. Given an adequately large user base, People Project Finder may automatically match users with skills to projects needing them. PeopleProjectFinder is currently implemented as a Facebook application and may use ancillary data from user profiles to provide better matches. People Project Finder is currently in closed beta.

Wearable Human Senses

In conjunction with several other students, I worked with RIT professor Dr. Bob Kremens to create a real-time sensor demonstration for the ImagineRIT festival. The project aimed to instrument five students with wireless sensor packages that would report temperature, sound power, GPS, and irradiance values.

I was responsible for the data storage and data visualization components. I wrote an extensible program to collect sensor readings via RS232 and store them in a MySQL database. For the visualization, values for temperature, sound power, and irradiance were overlaid on top of a WASP aerial image of the RIT campus. Each student was represented as a "spiky blob," with varying size, color, and edge roughness. Processing was used for the visualization, and the data collector was written in Visual C#.

Work Projects

Sensorpedia: iPhone Application (ORNL)

While working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during the summer of 2009, I created an iPhone application for Sensorpedia. The goal of the project was to develop a software application that can be run on a mobile computing device and used to transmit distributed data readings from citizens and first responders in near-real time. This application would permit citizens to rapidly report event information, such as disaster occurrences, security anomalies, and accounts of emergencies. It would allow field users to contribute to Sensorpedia. See the presentation below to get a gist of the motivations behind it (view at full screen to see the presenter text):

The Sensorpedia mobile application was designed to capture data from the iPhone's sensors and relevant context as quickly as possible. User interaction for the Sensorpedia mobile application was prototyped with sketch-based interfaces. This technique allowed for rapid iterative design, and greatly accelerated the development process. The Sensorpedia mobile application is implemented in Objective-C, and utilizes native Apple Foundation and Cocoa classes. It adheres to the model-view-controller paradigm for software development.

The creation of the mobile application necessitated an associated web service, which collects and registers data with Sensorpedia. The web service communicates with devices using JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and publishes data using the Atom Syndication Format (ATOM). Users maintain accounts to allow each user to be associated with multiple devices. Data are associated with users through an API key. Each of the sensors present in the device and a generic content block are represented in the data model.The associated web service is implemented in Python and utilizes existing libraries for its web server gateway interface (WSGI), image processing, JavaScript Object Notation (JSON), and database interaction. Data are stored in a relational SQLite database and can be retrieved through a Representational State Transfer (REST) interface.

The Sensorpedia iPhone app is currently in transition from the simulator, and is not yet available in the App Store.

Sensorpedia: Sensor Integration (ORNL)

While at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during a June-February coop, I wrote several demonstration guides showing how to interface a few different kind of sensors with Sensorpedia.

HFIRvision (ORNL)

HFIRvision was a prototype I developed while at Oak Ridge National Laboratory during part of a June-February coop. It was an example tool designed to provide emergency management information for one of the research reactors at ORNL. It provided a common operating picture, and included GIS, an event feed, KML overlay, alert notifications, and real-time emergency procedure evaluation.

Buffalo River Monitoring Project (RIT)

I worked on the Buffalo River Monitoring Project with Dr. Bob Kremens in the summer of 2007. The project aimed to gather, store, and present data from a series of distributed sensor buoys placed in the Buffalo River.

The sensors communicated wirelessly to a central server which allowed students and interested individuals to access the data from an easy-to-use web interface. A second mode of data access was provided for researchers so that they could download a monolithic file containing a cumulative log of recorded data. The framework used for this project was designed to be easily adapted to other datalogging applications.

Academic Projects

BASIC Stamp-based Lightmeter

In winter of freshman year, I built a BASIC Stamp-based lightmeter for the Computers, Instruments, and Data Acquisition Techniques course taught by Dr. Bob Kremens. It used a TSL230 light-to-frequency converter to sample irradiance, and a BASIC Stamp microcontroller to handle logic and output to an LCD display.

Elsewhere
Social Websites

Social Networks

Video

Geocaching

profile: throughthekeyboard

I really enjoy geocaching, it's a great excuse to get outside and explore new places. It's about as close to treasure hunting as we can get.

Wikipedia

user: tomkinsc

Twitter

profile: @tomkinsc

Recent tweets


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Last.fm

profile: tomkinsc

Recent tracks

Google Reader
Notable Items

profile: tomkinsc

Other
Things I like, read, or occasionally enjoy

News


Artists


Favorite blogs and feeds (in no particular order)


Comics


General appreciation

In the press
Public Speaking
Photos

Flickr

[forthcoming]

iStockPhoto

user: tomkinstinch

I have been trying to sell a few of my shots online using a stock photo website. Sales have not been great, but the shots remain listed nonetheless.

Contact
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