User:Pat Palmer

In my job at Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, I do database work, programming, and system administration. I have masters degrees in computer science (Univ. of Tenn., 1983) and public sector management (Fels Center, Univ. of Penn., 1992) and many years work experience in the software industry, especially telecom. My academic background includes public sector management, computer science, and the liberal arts (linguistics and literature). I was also a part-time lecturer in the Computer & Information Sciences department at the University of Pennsylvania, where I have taught computer architecture, software engineering and programming in the MCIT program. I have taught some Eduzendium courses, such as Emerging Technologies 2010.

I spent several years consulting on software systems within pharmaceutical and insurance companies. My early computer career included several years’ experience developing telecommunications software at Bell Laboratories, originally part of AT&T and then part of Lucent (now Alcatel-Lucent).

In the 1970's, I spent three years doing graduate study in Germanic linguistics (specialization: semantic change in Middle High German) at the Univ. of Tenn but switched over to computer science without quite completing a linguistics degree (I was working on a Ph. D.). During that time, I read Old High German, Old Norse, Icelandic, Middle High German, Afrikaans, Pennsylvania Dutch, Yiddish, various regional German dialects under direction from Professors Nordsieck and Kratz, and also studied Spanish, Latin, and Russian. My undergraduate degree was liberal arts with a concentration in English literature and German (which I speak fluently). I also took a lot of physics, math and science, and that enabled me to move into computer science afterwards.

I worked two years in the 1970's repairing telephone switches for GTE in Virginia and worked in some of the last Strowger switching offices remaining in the United States. During that time, I also repaired electromechanical telephone switching systems made by Leich, that had so-called common control units for call routing--in effect, a fully electromechanical, special-purpose computer. I could see numbers being stored in registers as people dialed. This is where my interest in computing really grew strong, and I moved into the field of computer science afterwards.

More about me personally is [here].

As part of getting to know Citizendium, I first worked on CZ:The_Big_Cleanup, and that led me all over the place. Here is what else I've been working on in Citizendium. Besides authoring, among other Citizendium roles, I am a Computers editor, and for awhile I served also on the Citizendium Executive Committee. I am currently serving on the Management Council.

During July-August 2008, I led an Eduzendium course; please see Special_Topics_2008. See the 2010 Eduzendium for this course (coming in July).

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