What would you recommend to future UseIT interns?

I would recommend that future UseIT interns come in with inquisitive
mindset. Many times you won't know how something works until you break
it, so I encourage everyone to start breaking the code the moment they
get their hands on it. Our shared repository allows us to instantly
restore our code to working condition, so I encourage everyone to make
the best use of this crutch.

What is your overall impression of the facilities and equipment?

I was extremely impressed by the quality of the facilities and
equipment at SCEC. Up to date computer hardware made our work a lot
faster and easier while little things like having multiple whiteboards
and a projector right in the lab made communication among all of us
seamless. Meetings in the boardroom force us to step back from the
fine details of our work and focus on the big issues at hand in our
grand challenge.

What is the atmosphere or working environment like?

Our work environment is very constructive and unlike working for a
corporation, there is no "rank" for employees and everyone is able to
voice their concerns and be a productive team member on a level
playing field. Being treated as an equal from day one is priceless
and really helps to make us feel that we belong.

Has this program influenced or affected your plans for a career? If so, how or why?

This program has turned me on a wealth of academic research I didn't
even know existed. Although I was not seriously considering graduate
school before this program, I am now much more likely to seek that
route. As a computer engineer, I really appreciated stepping back
from the code and getting to learn about seismicity and geology in
general. There is no better way to actually get a feel for the
engineering process then to jump into it full speed and learn from
experience.

What you have done to contribute to the UseIT program?

I have been primarily involved in the increasing the usability of the
SCEC-VDO application. A big part of this was making the program more
interactive through implementing features such as the ability to click
on and highlight faults and earthquakes to identify which data it is
we are actually looking at. I've also been involved in streamlining
the application startup and developement process to allow for more
flexible developement without the need for a specific IDE. As a side
project, I've been actively adding and maintaining compatibility with
alternative operating systems and hardware such as Linux and Mac OSX.
(All versions) I've also laid the groundwork for a quantitative
method of measuring the performance of SCEC-VDO across the variety of
platforms we support.