or      

curriculum vitae : “brief account of one’s life and work,” 1902, from L. curriculum vitae, lit. “course of one’s life”

Jake Rowan Byrne B.Eng M.Sc.

I’ve had a growing interest in both mechanical and electronic engineering since my early studies of metalwork and engineering at second level education (secondary/high school). This interest spurred me to study at and graduate from Dublin City University with an Honours Degree in Mechatronic Engineering (Final Year Project: The Wireless Transmission of Electrical Energy, based on the work of Nikola Tesla, funded in part by the John Holland Undergraduate Student Research Scholarship in 2005).

The research into Tesla’s work led me to question the discrepancies between “text-book” knowledge and historically developed  knowledge. This got me thinking about how knowledge is a socio-culturally created construct, ultimately shaping and often biasing contemporary disciplines (like engineering).  This line of enquiry found me at  Trinity College Dublin where I completed a Masters of Science in Technology and Learning at the School of Computer Science and the School of Education (Where I felt I could explore both my Technological and Sociological interests).

During my masters I completed a number of projects, culminating in two capstone projects:

“Meta” Dissertation:
First Impressions of Novice Educational Researchers to an On-Line Reflection Tool Designed to Help Make Their Biases Explicit (2007)

I am currently still at Trinity College Dublin, in my final year of a PhD at the Centre for Research in IT in Education, where my project, CAWriter, looks at supporting PhD students with their knowledge formation through supports for academic writing.

During my time as a PhD candidate I have been involved in both teaching and volunteer work. I have been a demonstrator on a number of courses: CS1013 (2010-2011) – Programming Project (Aim: build a game using Processing.org) and 2E9/2E10 (2009-2012)- Buggy Project (Aim: Use an XBee module to wirelessly control a buggy around a track). I have also supervised and examined a number of students conducting “meta/capstone-thesis” for the 1st year Technology and Learning Masters Students. (2008-2009, 2010-2011 & 2011-2012). My volunteer work has me mentoring at the Bridge to College program (@ Bridge21) for a number of years now (2007-2012). I also help run the Computer Science Transition Year Workshop in Collaboration with the Bridge to College program (B2C), where we take students (16-17yrs) and teach them the basic of programming using the Scratch Programming Environment developed at MIT.

As you can see my experiences are interdisciplinary and even transdisciplinary in nature, involving a range of concepts from philosophy, the social sciences, computer science, engineering and contemporary design techniques (user centred/participatory design, user experience, etc.) which provide me with a rich set of skills that may be used when designing/prototyping technologies for, and with end users in real world contexts.

I am currently the managing director and a design consultant at MetaTech, a Human Systems Design company.

… As this is a curriculum vitae, which literally means “course of one’s life”, I will project my future hopes and aspirations here soon… suffice to say that  it will include research, design, learning and engineering…

Patents

Issued September 20, 2012

The invention provides a system and method system for measuring agricultural parameters, for example the quantity of an agricultural product such as grass. The system comprising means for triggering a measurement of data and repeating the measurement at a plurality of locations over an area; means for communicating the measurement data to a processing means; and means for calculating the quantity of agricultural product for the area using the processing means. The invention solves a problem of how to effectively and simply measure an agricultural product, such as grass, and provides a benefit by allowing the farmer to quickly and accurately measure their grass in a particular field or area.

Publications

Book Chapter

Byrne, J. R., & B. Tangney (2012).  “CAWriter” a Computer Supported Collaborative Tool to Support Doctoral Candidates Academic Writing: A Pedagogical and Human-Computer Interaction Perspective. (Juan A.A., Daradoumis T., Roca M., Grasman S.E., FaulinJ., Ed.) in Collaborative and Distributed E-Research: Innovations in Technologies, Strategies and Applications.. 181-205.

Conference Proceedings 

Byrne, J. R., & B. Tangney (2010).  CAWriter: A CSCW/CSCL Tool to Support Research Students’ Academic Writing. In Proceedings of the 24th BCS Interaction Specialist Group Conference (BCS ’10). British Computer Society, Swinton, UK, UK, 458-462.