Chief Algorithm Officer

Summary

I create elegant solutions crossing technology disciplines, and rescue "stuck" projects in online advertising, optimization, biomechanics, user interface, and brain theory.

• Algorithms: Invented and managed a key innovation in Microsoft's PreFix automatic debugging technology, which nearly eliminated system crashes ("The Blue Screen of Death") in Windows 2000 & XP.

• Online advertising: Invented Epic Advertising's pCPM metric based on statistical "induced visits", maximized margin by autobidding on Google AdWords, architected Epic Advertising's ad-serving and retargeting algorithms.

• Web Services: Created the live FlowSheet service which visually "explains" Excel spreadsheet computations www.flowsheet.us/Public

• Brainstorming: Daily one-on-one sessions with Jeff Hawkins (Palm founder) architecting brain-like computation

• Presentation: Obtained an ovation from hundreds of sleepy scientists during a brief technical presentation; articles still used for classroom discussions ten years later.

• Journalism: In the well-regarded online journal The Register:
  Google translation: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/15/google_translation/
  Lie detectors: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/31/bill_softky_lie_detectors/
  Consumer robots: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/25/softky_robots_part_one/, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/28/softky_robots_part_two/

• User interface: Invented/coded/maintained the "page-in-page" TreeDoc hypertext display, with simple, HTML-like authoring (live demo at http://www.softky.com/TreeDoc).

• News: Profile at http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/14909.html

• Designed and prototyped the ad-serving and retargeting optimization algorithms and architecture.

• Invented a statistical metric ("induced visits") for benchmarking CPM ad campaigns.

• Initiated and created an automated split-testing architecture to allow incremental performance-testing of new algorithms prior to full deployment.

• Conceived and coded an automated profit-maximization algorithm for bidding against the Google AdWords "black box," by combining the most statistically significant effects in robust new ways.

• Discovered (via data-mining) several curious quirks of Google's AdWords pricing/allocation/presentation system, surprising even seasoned SEM veterans.

• Architected a statistically coherent, adaptive algorithm for "arbitraging" keyword bids in a search marketing service.

• Right-hand man to Jeff Hawkins (Palm/Handspring founder)

• Created and implemented a reference architecture for a brain-like hierarchical/predictive processing network.

• Endless brainstorming and seminars with Jeff and the world's best brain theorists.

• Co-taught Theoretical Neuroscience class at Berkeley.

• Designed a unified web-portal architecture for the Personal Financial Services project, encompassing single-sign-on, portfolio display, trading tools, and backend CRM monitoring.

• Authored all customer-facing whitepapers: interactive voice interfaces, wireless stock trading, and strategic/technical issues involved in unifying Reuters' retail & institutional equity-trading products.

• Evaluated, critiqued, and prototyped new online brokerage technologies: web-portal software, financial single-sign-on, QA automation, and statistical load prediction.

• Co-invented and prototyped numerous web applications and server backends.

• Evangelized, invented, and shipped the final essential feature ("message prioritization") of a simulation-based debugger product ("PreFix"); Microsoft then bought the entire company to quickly debug Windows NT5, ultimately making Windows2000/XP nearly crash-proof (patented by Microsoft)

• Created an intuitive graphical display for debug/error messages, illustrating control flow by displaying the code for each subroutine in a box nested inside the calling function (patented by Microsoft).

• Managed the integration between software, algorithm, and mechanical aspects of the company's only product.

• Evangelized, invented, and prototyped the product's next-generation transducer technologies: a microphone-based "receiver" much lighter, cheaper, and more reliable than the previous design, and a electromagnetic "transmitter" with far better vibrational, cabling, and power properties than its predecessor.

• Created and taught "Physics for Poets" for hundreds of science-shy Junior College students.

• Taught Physics to West African high school students, who then earned the highest exam scores in the country.
  

Education

Ph.D., Computation & Neural Systems / Physics
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena

BS, Physics (with Honors, Phi Beta Kappa)
Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania