John McDowell

John McDowell

Box 94243 • Durham, NC 27708

Cell: 919-225-0554 • Email: john.mcdowell@duke.edu

Summary

· Over five years experience designing, building, and maintaining computer software and hardware both professionally and for the internet community.

· Highly self-motivated—taught myself most of what I know on my own time. Love working with technology.

Formal Education

· Duke University. Durham, NC. Expected graduation May 2005.

o B.S. in Computer Science, B.S.E. in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and a minor in Economics.

o Computer Science GPA 3.9 / 4.0 – Overall GPA 3.4 / 4.0

o Computer Science Courses: 100 (C++, Data Structures), 104 (C, MIPS Assembly, Hardware implementation), 108 (Java, C++, Design Patterns, Object-Oriented Methodology), 110 (Operating Systems), 120 (Digital Logic), 130 (Algorithm Analysis), ECE195 (Embedded Computing), 214 (Networking, Distributed Systems), and ECE251 (Advanced Digital System Design, VHDL).

· St. John’s School. Houston, TX. 1988 - 2001.

o 1580 – SAT I.

Professional Experience

· Volt (Student Consultant for Microsoft, September 2003 - Present) – Working closely with Microsoft’s University Relations to build student and faculty awareness of Microsoft solutions through Tech Talks, programming competitions, and other campus initiatives.

· Motorola (Web Developer, May - August 2003) – Designed and developed .NET technologies for Motorola’s corporate intranet. Worked in a team of eight to strategize tools and solutions to increase efficiency in the police and fire communications department.

· Noble Drilling (Application Programmer, May - June 2002) – Programmed Excel applications using Visual Basic. These programs are now used by drillers to model well behavior in the field.

· Noble Drilling (Research Engineer, May - June 2002) – Researched and designed an angular position sensor for use in an oil field application. A prototype based on my design is currently being tested on several offshore oilrigs.

· Maurer Engineering (Assistant to the Network Administrator, July - August 2000) – Built and repaired computer hardware; handled software and maintenance issues.

· Freelance Web Design (Self-employed, 1998-2000) – Designed a number of websites including an e-commerce store with over 500 products. CGI scripting written in PERL displayed product database and processed credit card orders.

· Computer Construction (Self-employed, 1998-1999) – Built and sold computers to a local business and through eBay.

Independent Projects

· Designing and implementing a campus-wide, web-based system to monitor the status of Duke’s 400+ laundry machines via the internet using Microsoft’s .NET platform. Personally designing an Ethernet compatible data acquisition boards to interface with a web service layer. The project is partially funded by Microsoft Research.

· Authored a basic text editor for use on an embedded Linux hardware device that is currently in use several countries (car stereo application).

COmputer Skills

· Proficient in C++, C, and Java and have significant experience with the .NET platform, C#, VB.NET, and SQL.

· Experience with microcomputer programming and computer hardware design (VHDL, CAD Tools).

· Experience leading midsize (8,000+ LOC) software projects.

· Solid grounding in writing robust, maintainable, object-oriented code in both Windows (Visual Studio .NET) and UNIX environments.

Activities

· Personally teaching a for-credit course on .NET development to interested students this semester.

· President, Duke Microsoft Users Group.

· Continued to work with my Boy Scout Troop after receiving the rank of Eagle Scout.

· Duke University club water ski team.

· Dean’s List 3 of 5 semesters; Phi Eta Sigma Honors society.