User:Pat Palmer
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I have worked all over Citizendium, especially in the Computers Workgroup. I once served on the governing council, when no one else would, in hopes of keeping the project alive. When Citizendium teetered again in mid 2020 (first year of the COVID-19 era), I wanted to recover the sense of community that I formerly had in Citizendium, so I returned (after a long hiatus) and took ownership of the Citizendium domain to help the project continue. My interests are wide ranging and include traditional music, languages, science fiction, literature, plants and flowers. I once contributed significantly to the Coal mining article.
- 2008-present: System administration and programming for a group of algae scientists in the Phycology Section at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, where I wrote web services such as this one which shows data about one algal species.
- 2002-2012: Taught computer architecture in the Univ. of Penn. MCIT program; remained as a research associate in the UPenn CIS department until 2020
- 1998-2002: Various computer consulting jobs in elearning and big pharma.
- 1984-1998: Member of technical staff at Bell Laboratories, writing software for embedded systems and light-wave communications and doing all kinds of interesting other stuff.
- M. A. in public sector management (Fels Center, Univ. of Penn., 1992).
- M. S. in computer science (Univ. of Tenn., 1983).
- 1978-1980: I repaired telephone switches for GTE in southwest Virginia and worked in some of the last Strowger switching offices remaining in the United States. 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.
- 1974-1977: I did all the coursework required for a Ph D in Germanic linguistics (Univ. of Tenn., Knoxville); read Old High German, Old Norse, Icelandic, Middle High German, Afrikaans, Pennsylvania Dutch, Yiddish, and various regional German dialects under Professors Nordsieck and Kratz; studied Spanish, Latin, and Russian. Lived in Germany for several months.
- B. A. in liberal arts; major: German; minor: English (Univ. of Tenn., 1974)