Fergus Ray Murray

frm@oolong.co.uk · http://www.oolong.co.uk/

Employment

April 2005 – October 2006
Edinburgh International Festival (EIF). Online Officer: Maintaining web site by writing, commissioning and editing copy; image editing; overseeing development. Photoshop, HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, custom CMS

April 2006 – October 2006
Chai Teahouse. web developer (PHP) and part-time tea seller

November 2004 – April 2007
Private tutoring. and physics, typically about 1hr/week

April 2004 – April 2005
Resonata. My project to develop an online educational toy based on physics and music, supported by new media fund Alt-W. Working in spare time, then full-time in February and March
November 2003 - February 2005
Scottish Widows. Administrator: Maintaining confidential databases, some customer support

June 2002 - May 2003
Autism and Computing . Working part-time as a programmer/researcher , on an project about the mind as a dynamical system

June - October 2001
BBC Research & Development department. MSc project placement as a programmer/researcher. Looking into the ways available at that time of delivering realtime 3D web content, creating a Java3D display engine integrated with an existing robot football package. Regular meetings with the Studio Group, 10,000-word writeup for my MSc and the BBC library.

Education

2006-2008
University of the West of Scotland. PhD candidate at School of Computing. Biologically-inspired reaction-diffusion networks.

August 2005

Edinburgh Science Festival. 2-day short course on science communication

2000-2001
MSc Computer Games Engineering
University of Essex
1996-1999
BSc Physics and Philosophy, Hons
University of Bristol

1994-1996
A Levels:  Physics, Maths, Law.
La SWAP Consortium, London

1992-1994
GCSEs      
Acland Burghley School, London

Computer Skills

Programming – graphics, simulations, web development:

• PHP – customising CMSs and an online shopping system, and much WordPress development - see http://oolong.co.uk/play (my generative art blog),  http://oolong.co.uk/zoo (sculptures)  and http://oolong.co.uk/oo
• Perl/MySQL – Lead Developer for Everything2.com, a large site built on a database of user-submitted written content, where I have made a series of user interface improvements and added features to help users find content
• C/C++ with OpenGL, creating generative art and running experiments –  C++ was the main language I used for my PhD
• Java, including Java3D; geometrical toys, games – 2D and 3D graphics, AI, simulations
• Processing, a dialect of Java used for education and generative art
• JavaScript – customising and integrating text-formatting plugins for  Everything2, and some simple scripts

Web design – designing and maintaing personal site since 1999, plus freelancing and some design work for the sites mentioned above; fluent in HTML and CSS, web standards, very conscious of accessibility

Photo editing –  extremely experienced using both Photoshop and GIMP

MS Office – extensive experience in both office and academic environments. Equally comfortable with OpenOffice

Linux – have been using Ubuntu for preference since 2004

Windows – using Microsoft products by default since Windows 3.11.

Flash – video editing and some ActionScript

Other Skills and Interests

Writing and editing – I founded and continue to lead the science writing group at Everything2.com. I have written on physics, maths, computing and chemistry, and food, music and politics. Writing has appeared in The Skinny

Photography – digital and film;  extremely experienced using both Photoshop and GIMP. Photos have appeared in The Metro, The Sun and the book Shut Them Down!

Sculpture – making mainly small animals in polymer clay, but also epoxy putty and air drying clays, and some humans and abstracts. Have worked with ceramic clay in the past.

Tea - brewing, drinking, writing and talking about

Food – ten years of serious cooking, including experience of catering for around a hundred people in a camping environment, and volunteering at the Forest Cafe

Childcare/camping – with voluntary organisation FSC since childhood, later spending a couple of weeks each year looking after children, mostly with special needs, in tightly-knit teams

References available on request.