Experience

Freelance IT Consultant
Independent
1/2013–Present
I offer technical troubleshooting and web development services for small-scale organizations and individual clients. Have volunteered services free of charge for not-for-profit organizations.
  • Help guide clients towards suitable technology and services for each project, based on the resources and budgetary needs of the client.
  • Provide in-depth explanation and training as needed.
  • Produce additional visual assets such as logos and design elements as needed.
Research Assistant
University of Victoria
8/2019–9/2019
Django developer and data analyst.
Volunteer Electronics Appraiser
Victoria Women in Need Community Cooperative
4/2019–7/2019
Inspected and assessed electronic items (clocks, toys, scales, etc.) for the second-hand market.
Product Specialist
Meiya Pico Information Co. Ltd.
1/2018–5/2018
Served as a technical writer and localizability analyst for Meiya Pico's digital forensics product line.
  • Overhauled the user interface text of several key products.
  • Made use of my computer science background to design a better-integrated translation workflow for internal localization teams.
  • Reviewed the overall product internationalization process for weaknesses and inefficiencies and wrote up suggestions for future best practices.
Internship: Researcher
Dragon Information Technology Co. Ltd.
11/2017–12/2017
Surveyed and summarized cutting edge facial-recognition research.
  • Wrote a literature review on the state of pose-invariant facial recognition and alignment research.
  • Surveyed facial recognition APIs.
Co-op: Web Developer & e-Business Analyst
CoGen Media (Canada), Ltd.
5/2008–8/2008
Served as the main front-end developer for the English market localization of ecoprint2, a Japanese-developed printing utility.
  • Prototyped the user experience design and handled all HTML and CSS development.
  • Managed affiliate marketing memberships.

Research

Morphable guidelines for the human head
University of Victoria
6/2010–7/2013
Conceptualized and developed a photo-editing system for user-friendly face manipulation with an emphasis on caricature simulation. Results published and presented at the 2013 International Symposium on Computational Aesthetics.[1]
  • Studied Andrew J. Loomis books to design a 3D version of his guidelines system.
  • Designed the guidelines system in Processing/Java and applied the effects to photographs using a MATLAB implementation of the Moving Least Squares image deformation algorithm.
  • Built a combined system in C++ in OpenFrameworks. Image deformation achieved using an open-source OpenCV implementation of MLS image deformation.
  • Defended a Masters thesis.
Double Meandering Algorithm
University of Victoria
5/2009–7/2011
Conceptualized and developed a procedurally generated animation algorithm with visual artist Lucy Pullen. Received an Honourable Mention in the 2010 Computing Research Association Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers contest. Results published and presented at the 2011 International Symposium on Computational Aesthetics.[3]
  • Learned to emulate the artist's 'drawing game' process on paper.
  • Designed algorithms to emulate several different major types of drawing game results using randomized size and directional variables.
  • Designed a double line-drawing animation algorithm in Processing.

Education

M.Sc. in Computer Science
University of Victoria
2010–2013
Thesis: Morphable guidelines for the human head
Studied computational aesthetics, computer graphics and image processing under Dr. Amy A. Gooch.
Received a 2010 University of Victoria Computer Science Graduate Studies Fellowship.
B.Sc. in Computer Science and Visual Arts
University of Victoria
2006–2010
CSc focus: computer graphics and human-computer interaction design.
Arts focus: illustration, digital installation and video editing.
Received NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards in 2009 and 2010.

Skills

IT

Programming languages
Python
Java
C++
C#
Javascript
HTML5
CSS3
SQL
Web dev tools
AngularJS
Bootstrap
Foundation
WAMP/MAMP
Jekyll
Computer vision & creative libraries
OpenCV
Processing
OpenFrameworks
Environments
Unity
XCode
Platforms
macOS, Windows, Linux (Ubuntu)

Arts

Languages
English (fluent)
Mandarin Chinese (conversational)
Design
Responsive web design
user experience analysis
Adobe Illustrator
Affinity Designer
Photography & illustration
Adobe Photoshop
Affinity Photo
Final Cut Pro
digital illustration
Technical writing
scientific copy editing
post-editing (Chinese to English)
computer assisted translation (OmegaT)

Publications

  1. Morphable guidelines for the human head. Shelley Gao, Christopher Werner, and Amy A. Gooch. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Computational Aesthetics (CAE ’13), pages 21-28, New York, NY, USA, 2013. ACM. DOI=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2487276.2487281
  2. SoundAnchoring: Content-based Exploration of Music Collections with Anchored Self-Organized Maps. Collares, Tiago Tavares, Joseph Feliciano, Shelley Gao, George Tzanetakis and Amy Gooch. In Proceedings of the 2013 Sound and Music Computing Conference, pages 768-775, Stockholm, Sweden. 2013. Logos Verlag Berlin.
  3. Double meandering algorithm: from drawing game to automated animation. Shelley Gao, Lucy Pullen, and Amy A. Gooch. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Computational Aesthetics in Graphics, Visualization, and Imaging (CAe ’11), pages 55-62, New York, NY, USA, 2013. ACM.DOI=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2030441.2030454