Alisdair Owens: CV

Alisdair Owens
e-mail: alisdair@alisdairowens.net

PhD: University of Southampton. Completed in 2011.
- Focus on indexing techniques for high performance in-memory RDF storage and query.

Undergraduate Degree: First Class (Hons) Masters Degree in Computer Science (MEng). BCS accredited.
- Dissertation on frameworks for hardware communication.
- Fourth year group project on information visualisation for semantic web data.

Education: A-Levels

Technical Positions

August 2016 - current: Software Development Engineer, Amazon

I've recently commenced work for Amazon as an SDE in the RDS Aurora team.

September 2010 - July 2016: Software Developer, IBM

I had the following major responsibility areas within IBM:

Development of the distributed transactions facility in WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Application Server Liberty Profile.
Architecture and development of an RDBMS-backed triple store and ORM, along with performance of the Java application built on the store. The ORM worked across Oracle, DB2, and SQL Server, giving me development experience across all three systems.
Development of an OSLC data server. This was heavily based on linked data technologies, and my skills in this area proved valuable to the team.

Prior to my move into the WebSphere Application Server team, I was responsible within my department for any work involving database systems. This involved regular client interaction as well as highly technical development tasks. In addition, my work on application performance yielded substantial improvements, and pre-empted several customer issues.

I have a strong reputation for high quality, reliable code, and build on this by taking an active role in enhancing functional and performance testing capabilities.

July 2008 – October 2008: Intern, HP Labs

I spent four months at HP Labs Bristol during the course of my Ph.D., where I was responsible for designing and implementing a clustered prototype of Jena TDB, their existing RDF database.

July 2005 – June 2006: Software Developer, Fidessa group plc

At Fidessa I was responsible for London Stock Exchange market data, including testing and deployment of a major rewrite of the software. This reinforced my understanding of operating in an environment where high code reliability is essential.

Summer 2004 & Summer 2003: Research Assistant, University of Southampton

During the summers of 2004 and 2003 I worked on the EQUATOR multidisciplinary research project at the University of Southampton. In 2004, my work involved reading vector format plans of buildings and, with the minimum possible human guidance, assign meaning to the data. In 2003 I worked on collation of data about the many sub-projects under the umbrella of EQUATOR, and the publication of that data in RDF format as preparation for the project's half-completion review. I was successful in this task and credited with greatly easing the review process.

Technical Abilities

Primary:

Development in Java including complex multi-threaded applications, low-level knowledge of JVM functionality, and dynamic class loading.
Database systems/SQL, including Postgres, DB2, Oracle, and SQL Server.
Extensive experience of Semantic Web standards such as RDF and SPARQL, along with related technologies like Apache Jena.
Extensive experience using *nix based platforms, including Debian, Red Hat, Ubuntu, and Solaris.
Extensive experience using Mac OSX.

Other:

Development of database-backed web applications using HTML/CSS and Javascript.
Development in Rust.
Development in Perl.
Java web application development, using Servlet and OSGI spec, on Apache Tomcat and IBM WebSphere servers.
Some development in C.
Some development in other languages such as Clojure, Tcl, and Python.
Experience using Windows.

Hobbies & Interests

Coding!
Badminton
I take a great interest in cricket and enjoy attending local games.
Reading (philosophy and sci-fi/fantasy.

Papers & Publications

2011

Owens, A. (2011) Using low latency storage to improve RDF store performance. PhD thesis.

2009

Owens, A. (2009) An Investigation into Improving RDF Store Performance. Mini-Thesis submitted for transfer from MPhil to PhD.

2008

Owens, A., Seaborne, A., Gibbins, N. and schraefel, m. (2008) Clustered TDB: A Clustered Triple Store for Jena. In: WWW2009. (Unpublished)

Owens, A., Gibbins, N. and schraefel, m. (2008) Effective Benchmarking for RDF Stores Using Synthetic Data. In: ISWC 2008: 7th International Semanctic Web Conference, 26/10/2008, Karlsruhe, Germany. (Submitted)

Owens, A. (2008) A Nine Month Progress Report on an Investigation into Mechanisms for Improving Triple Store Performance. Technical Report, Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton.

2007

Smith, D. A., Owens, A., schraefel, m., Sinclair, P., André, P., Wilson, M., Russell, A., Martinez, K. and Lewis, P. (2007) Challenges in Supporting Faceted Semantic Browsing of Multimedia Collections. In: The Second International Conference on Semantic and Digital Media Technologies (SAMT2007), 5-7 December 2007, Genova, Italy.

André, P., Wilson, M. L., Russell, A., Smith, D. A., Owens, A. and schraefel, m. c. (2007) Continuum: designing timelines for hierarchies, relationships and scale. In: UIST2007 (ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology), Newport, Rhode Island.

André, P., Wilson, M. L., Owens, A. and Smith, D. A. (2007) Journey planning based on user needs. In: CHI '07 extended abstracts, April 2007, San Jose, CA.

Smith, D. A., Owens, A., schraefel, m., Sinclair, P., André, P., Wilson, M., Russell, A., Martinez, K. and Lewis, P. (2007) Reflections on Challenges in Supporting Faceted Semantic Browsing of Multimedia Collections. Technical Report, School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton.

2005

schraefel, m. c., Smith, D. a., Owens, A., Russell, A., Harris, C. and Wilson, M. L. (2005) The evolving mSpace platform: leveraging the Semantic Web on the Trail of the Memex. In: Hypertext, 2005, Sept 6-9 2005, Salzburg.

schraefel, m. c., Smith, D. A., Russel, A., Owens, A., Harris, C. and Wilson, M. L. (2005) The mSpace Classical Music Explorer: Improving Access to Classical Music for Real People. In: V MUSICNETWORK OPEN WORKSHOP: Integration of Music in Multimedia Applications, July 4 and 5, 2005, Vienna, Austria.

Wilson, M. L., Russell, A., Smith, D. A., Owens, A. and schraefel, m. c. (2005) mSpace Mobile: A Mobile Application for the Semantic Web. In: End User Semantic Web Workshop, ISWC2005, 07/11/2005, Galway, Ireland.

Owens, A. (2005) Semantic Storage: Overview and Assessment. Technical Report IRP Report 2005, Electronics and Computer Science, U of Southampton. (Unpublished)

2004

Harris, C., Owens, A., Russell, A. and Smith, D. A. (2004) mSpace: Exploring The Semantic Web. A Technical Report in Support of the mSpace software framework. Technical Report, ECS, University of Southampton. (Unpublished)

email: alisdair@alisdairowens.net