Contact Information

Chris J. Karr
Northwestern University
Dept. of Communication Studies
2240 Campus Drive
Evanston IL 60208-3525

E-mail: c-karr@northwestern.edu
Web: http://www.aetherial.net

Education

Northwestern University
Ph.D. student in the Media, Technology, and Society Program (Dept. of Communication Studies), Sept. 2006 - Present.
Supported by a assistantship provided by the Northwestern University School of Communications.

Princeton University
A.B., Computer Science, June 2002
Thesis: An Information Architecture for Sharing and Aggregating Geospatial Content
Thesis advisor: Brian W. Kernighan

Research Interests

Peripheral and Ambient Displays
User Interface Design
Attention and Interruptability
Mobile Computing
Intellectual Property Issues
Free and Open Source Software
Internet Users and Internet Usage

Publications

Trade Publications

Karr, C. (February 2005) MacOS X: Welcome to the jungle. Free Software Magazine, No. 1. Tortola, British Virgin Islands: The Open Company Partners, Inc.

Karr, C. (March 2005) Poking at iTunes: A developer's guide to the iTunes platform. Free Software Magazine, No. 2. Tortola, British Virgin Islands: The Open Company Partners, Inc.

Karr, C. (April 2005) Promoting free software on non-free platforms: Why developing free software for proprietary platforms benefits the free software community. Free Software Magazine, No. 3. Tortola, British Virgin Islands: The Open Company Partners, Inc.

Karr, C. (July 2005) Free software and digital rights management: Bitter enemies or strange bedfellows? Free Software Magazine, No. 6. Tortola, British Virgin Islands: The Open Company Partners, Inc.
Republished in Satish, D. (ed.). Digital Rights Management: An Introduction. Hyderabad, India: The Icfai University Press. 2007. pp. 26-34.

Conference Talks and Invited Colloquia

Ferolo, J., Karr, C. The Evolution of Oyez: A Supreme Feat. New Media Consortium Regional Conference. San Antonio, Texas. November 2006.

Professional Experience

Lead Technical Developer, The Oyez Project (Chicago, IL)
Managed the technical reimplementation of the popular high-traffic Oyez website. Work included designing and implementing a new architecture built on Zope and Plone technologies, creating and deploying Flash-based rich media components, migrating content from the old system, and collaborating with a graphic designer to create and implement a new user interface. Summer 2006.

Software Developer, Northwestern University Academic Technologies (Evanston, IL)
Worked with University faculty and staff to design and develop a variety of software solutions, including web-based teaching and learning tools, content management integration infrastructure (Fedora, Sakai, Blackboard, Z39.50/SRW library systems), and web-based scheduling components for University videoconferencing services. June 2002 - June 2006.

ICN Consultant, Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM)
Worked in restricted areas as a summer intern in the lab's internal computing consulting group (CIC-6). Work included curriculum development for a high-school educational program (The New Mexico High School Supercomputing Challenge) and assisting full-time consultants in various other matters. Held a US Department of Energy L clearance from 1998 to 2000. Summer 1998, Summer 1999.

Teaching Experience

Undergraduate

Lab assistant, COS 109: Computers in Our World
Instructor: Brian W. Kernighan
Provided assistance to undergraduate humanities students taking Princeton's introductory computer science course. Responsibilities included providing assistance students learning Unix, Visual Basic, and basic web publishing. Spring 2002.

Professional Service

Manuscript reviewer, various commercial publishers
Periodically reviewed unpublished manuscripts for trade books produced by commercial publishers on topics including software development and Unix system administration. Books reviewed include Step into Xcode (Fritz Anderson), A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming (Mark Sobell), and Subversion Version Control: Using the Subversion Version Control System in Development Projects (William Nagel). 2004 - Present.

Community Service

Mentor, Friends First (Chicago, IL)
Mentored disadvantaged children in the Chicagoland area. Responsibilities include supervising children while providing educational and recreational activities that would otherwise be unavailable. 2004 - Present.

Webmaster and Internet consultant, The House Theatre of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
Provided technical advise and expertise to young theatre company in Chicago. Responsiblities included the implementation of a weblog and podcast for communicating with the theatre's patrons and audience, working with the company's graphic designer to create and implement a new online site, and providing technical expertise to the theatre as needed. 2005 - Present.

Project manager and lead developer, Books for MacOS X
Designed, implemented, and distributed an open-source personal book cataloging application for MacOS X. Responsibilities include the maintenance and continue development of the software, working with online volunteers to provided localized versions of the software to non-English speaking users, implementing interoperability with local regional libraries, and providing service and support to end users. 2003 - Present.

References

Brian W. Kernighan, Professor, Dept. of Computer Science, Princeton University

Timothy Feddersen, Wendell Hobbs Professor of Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, The Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Jerry Goldman, Professor, Dept. of Political Science, Northwestern University

Biography

I am a software designer pursuing a Ph.D. at Northwestern University's program in Media, Technology, & Society. My current research applies machine learning to develop adaptive software applications that modify their behavior based upon the user's context. (Read more...)

In my free time, I develop end-user software for the MacOS X platform under the Audacious Software banner.

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Acknowledgments

Colors by kuler.
HTML by TextWrangler.
CSS by CSSEdit.

Made on a Mac.