Gary Johnson Graduate Research Assistant, PhD Program Relationship with MIMES: Participant in workgroups 2 (Modelling and Collaboration Environment), 3 (GIS and Data Management Development) and 7 (Computational Infraestructure) and 8 Case Studies and Calibration Sites. Contact: 617 Main Street, Burlington VT, 05446 Phone: 802-656-2900 |
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Gary Johnson is a graduate student in Computer Science at the University of Vermont, who enjoys hacking away at obscure device driver code almost as much as spinning on his head and trying to figure out how to balance his body weight on his elbow. On the software end of things, he strives onward tirelessly,squashing bugs and deftly dodging the quicksand pull of GUIs in his daily sorties into the wild lands of code development, and as an advocate for Open Source technologies everywhere, he is always ready at the drop of a hat to provide a dissertation on the importance of penguins and camels in improving human welfare in the modern age.
When given the option, Gary prefers to work from his trusty-dusty Linux From Scratch platform, wielding the eclectic sword of the Perl language against the insectoid hordes, but as the need arises, he is also comfortable waging war under the various banners of x86/MIPS assembler, C, C++, Java, Javascript, TCL, LISP, OCaml, PHP, SQL, and Unix shell scripting, as well as the ubiquitous web technologies of XHTML, HTML, CSS, and the DOM. In his down time, he can usually be found playing Linux sysadmin and studying up on any piece of CLI software he can get his hands on.
Unlike the disorganized little beasties that he fights, Gary graduated summa cum laude from Marlboro College in 2004 with his B.S. in Computer Science, focusing on the development and application of Open Source GIS software for landscape mapping and wildlife monitoring, and has since been working on a daily basis to "Save the World through Perl" as he pledged to do upon first entering his alma mater.
When not armed for battle in a ThinkGeek shirt, he can be found tracking mammals and interpreting bird calls in the frozen mountains of Southern Vermont (or more recently along the city streets of Burlington), building fires with his bow drill, and adding to his botanical catalogue of native wild plants. His fellows are still waiting anxiously for the day when he will discover how to plug his computer into a tree and disappear into a snow-covered hermitage.
