Darren Minifie
Department of Computer Science
University of Victoria
Email: minofifa@uvic.ca
Tel: +1.250.818.5167
Web: http://noisyair.com
Education
- MSc student, University of Victoria, Victoria, commenced September 2008.
- Bachelor of Science, Computer Science & Microbiology, University of Victoria, completed
August 2008.
Publications
Conferences
- Minifie. D and Coady. Y, “BUSSPASS: Composite-Services to Improve Quality of Life for Persons with Visual Disabilities”, MobEA. 2008. http://www.research.att.com/~rjana/MobEA2008/final/MobEA2008-03.pdf. (document)
- Wong. J, Gibbs. C, Coady, Y, Yazir. Y, Minifie. D and Muzio. J, “Communicating Like Nemo: “Scale-ability” from a Fish-Eye View”, Google Scalability Conference. 2008. (document)
- Minifie, D. and Coady, Y. 2009. Getting mobile with mobile devices: using the web to improve transit accessibility. In Proceedings of the 2009 international Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4a) (Madrid, Spain, April 20 - 21, 2009). W4A '09. ACM, New York, NY, 123-126. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1535654.1535684 (document)
- Tzanetakis, G., Benning, M., Minifie, D. and Ness, S. Assistive Music Browsing using Self-Organizing Maps. PETRAE (2009). Corfu, Greece. (document)
Presentations
Jan 2010 - C5 Conference. University of California - San Diego
- Presented work on WIKSSI, a collaborative tool for language learning. The application focuses on multimedia and crowdsourcing to capture and present educational content to users.
Nov 2008 – CanAssist Lecture Series. University of Victoria
- Outlined the difficulties individuals with disabilities face when using public transit. Presented several problems relating to accessibility and the current state of the web.
Dec 2008 – MarGrid Mobile
- Demonstrated MarGrid Mobile, a touch-based music browser for mobile devices. Emphasized the text-free interface, and auto-classification of one’s music collection, using Music Information Retrieval techniques, as a solution for individuals with vision loss.
Awards & Grants
- Oct 2007 – Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) Scholarship.
- Jan 2008 – NSERC Undergraduate Research Award.
- Dec 2008 – Alliance for the Equity of Blind Canadians (AEBC) Scholarship.
Academic Work Experience
Research - NSERC-USRA:
January 2008 - May 2008, University of Victoria
- Implemented a Google Maps-based Web application to help disabled travelers use public transit.
Teacher’s Assistant TA
September 2008 - present, University of Victoria.
- Marker and Lab Instructor for CSC 110 (Fundamentals of Computer Science I) and CSC 111 (Computer Science Fundamentals for Engineers).
Research - Department of National Defense:
April 2009 - present, University of Victoria.
- Helped to implement and evaluate Eclipse-based software visualization tools intended to aid in the understanding of large, Assembly language codebases.
Industry Experience
IT Training
October 2009 - Present, BCAT (BC Provincial Government)
- Provide individual IT training to people with disabilities, helping them use modern technology to participate in the labour force. The training focuses on basic computer skills, accessibility software, and specialized adaptive hardware.
Web Development and Design
December 2007 - October 2008, The Internet Shakespeare Editions.
- Web development using Java, XML, Apache Cocoon, Javascript and SQL databases.
May 2006 – December 2008, Namatea Tea Company.
- Web development using PHP and mySQL.