I like to solve problems. I have a history of working with technology to make more efficient and effective systems. I have used my technical know-how to build tools that have saved thousands of hours of time, and enabled people to focus on the important things, rather than spending time on unproductive drudgery.
Below are some case studies of systems I've developed that enable some of the work I do, and have benefitted the communities that I serve.
CARDTab is a tool to serve the Collegiate Advocacy, Research, and Debate community. CARD is a new debate format that places great emphasis on Advocacy, Research skills, and Community building. The tournament software that we primarily use doesn't allow for judges to specify points in the granular detail called for by this particular event. Tournaments were spending hours beforehand creating complicated google forms that required hand tabulation of individual results–leading to potential mistakes and user errors.
I created CARDTab to solve this problem. CARDTab not only automates the process of collecting and tabulating the relevant data for student awards, it also aggregates that data across tournaments during the season. As a result, students and coaches who participate in CARD have unprecedented access to individual and team statistics.
At the Southwest Speech and Debate institute we were spending countless hours dealing with paper applications, manual data entry of crucial information, and trudging back and forth to the post office box. The registration process was, frankly, the worst part of camp.
I developed and maintained a comprehensive registration application, that largely eliminated the massive paper shuffle, and enabled more consistent data collection, financial management, logistics and planning, and financial aid processing. This tool enabled us to effectively communicate with students, parents, and coaches, while giving staff useful insight into the students in their labs. It saved multiple people hundreds of wasted hours every year. This application revolutionized our camp management process and enabled our camp to grow.
In 2020, the Speech and Debate season was truncated by the onset of the pandemic. Arizona had yet to run its District Tournament to determine its National Qualifiers for the year. The National Speech and Debate Association decided they would run an online tournament for the first time. We needed to figure out qualifiers.
I wrote software to collect results from the 2019-2020 season, and used statistical analysis tools to score and rank students based on their season performance. Using this method, we were able to select and strong, diverse, and competitive field of candidates for the 2020 National Tournament online. For my effort, I was awarded this District Leader Commendation award from the NSDA.
I have also used my software development skills to create tools to help with room assignments, section balancing for competitive equity, and logistical management of tournaments that builds on the tools provided by our standard tabulation software. I look for problems, and try my best to create useful, efficient, and creative solutions.
