My CV is available for download in PDF format here.
My name is Michael and I am currently a PhD student at Aberystwyth University. I have recently (June 2010) finished my undergraduate degree (MEng Software Engineering Hons. I Class) also from Aberystwyth. My home for many years has been the Ceiriog Valley in North Wales near Llangollen, but I recently moved to a little village (though the residents will insist it is a town) near Mold called Caerwys.
During my MEng degree my final year dissertation involved the conversion of an ARGO 6×6 Off-Road Amphibious Vehicle into a highly versatile and manoeuvrable robotic platform. As a result of this work I have recently had a paper (Development of a Control System for a Skid-Steer Amphibious Vehicle) published.
For a number of years, starting in June 2007, I worked for Sun Microsystems in their Global Labs department. It was during this time that my interest in Operating Systems and all things ‘low-level’ flourished and I took various courses including the Solaris Advanced Crash Dump Analysis and Solaris 10 Internals courses. For my last year with Sun I worked as a manager for the Sun Campus Ambassador program managing the 22 student ambassadors in the UK. I finally resigned from my position during October 2009 in order to focus my full attention on the development of my final year dissertation project.
In addition to my research I help out in the Computer Science department here at Aberystwyth demonstrating on various modules including CS101 (Introduction to Personal Computer Equipment), CS237 (C and UNIX System Programming), CS121/CS122/CS123 (Introduction to Computer Programming), CS257 (Mobile, Embedded and Wearable Technology), CS357 (Ubiquitous Computing) and CS359 (Internet Services Administration). In addition, during 2009 I gave two guest lectures during CS101 and I am now lecturing more permanently on this module.
For those interested, my lecture slides and notes for these lectures are available under the teaching section of this website.
In addition to all this high-tech stuff I like to chill out by playing the guitar. Many years ago, when I was about 9 or 10, I started to learn classical guitar. At the time I got bored pretty quickly and so gave up. At the beginning of 2009 I decided that I really still wanted to play the guitar and so I have been having lessons since January 2009. I’m in no way `amazing’, but every day I improve and get better.
My current guitar is a Adam Black O-7CE, of which there are a few of pictures below.
I tend not to watch much TV, but I do like some of the older comedies such as Dad’s Army, Allo’ Allo’ and Fawulty Towers. More recently I have been watching ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and I also enjoy some of the science based series, particularly the work by Dr. Michael Mosley. I am a keen reader and thoroughly enjoy a good book. In the past I also practised quite a bit of archery; however, in recent years I haven’t had much chance to play, so my bow (a Samick Agula) and arrows are currently gathering dust! About the only other ‘sport’ I enjoy is swimming; something which I am trying to do more of recently.