Resume — Hilary Mark Nelson

Employment History

Senior Web Designer

Purdue Marketing & Media, Purdue University

2010 – the present

When the Engineering Communications office was merged into Purdue Marketing & Media, I continued doing the lion's share of the work on the College of Engineering's web sites, and also took on projects for other schools and colleges.

Senior Web and Graphic Designer

Engineering Communications Office, Purdue University

2002 – 2010

Working on the College of Engineering web sites introduced me to the Python scripting language, and the Zope framework for developing content-management systems. Learning both was a real pleasure. The system allows me to write script and page code in a web browser, save the web form, and test the page on the site. It's a much more fluid and interactive style of development than I'd ever worked with in the past.

Independent Contractor; Web/Database Design and Programming

2000 – 2002

During my years in Berkeley, I had the pleasure of working with Kenneth Tyler of 8th Fold on a number of projects. In the course of our collaborations I was introduced to code-generating programs, unit testing, and the Extreme Programming lightweight project planning methodology, to name just a few of the more interesting things we played with.

Web, Database, and Print Designer

BizDat, Inc. (a.k.a. Woodland Communications, Inc.)

1988 – 2002 (independent contractor after the second half of 2000)

BizDat/Woodland was a small company and I wore many hats there. I did everything from 3D illustration and photo retouching to network management and SQL programming, all of it self-taught.

Freelance Illustration & Graphic Design

1983 – 2002

I began doing traditional illustration in the mid-1980s, and later branched out to computer illustration, page layout and design, interactive media, and web sites.

Film & Video

1984 – 1987

Various minor technical positions in student films, no-budget productions, and a few commercials.

Restaurants

1977 – 1988

Everything Else

1975 – 1982

Education

Design and Implementation of Bioinformatics Infrastructures

University of California Extension Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, CA

2001

Received an A.

This course covered topics that you need to consider when designing bioinformatics infrastructures: sequence-analysis tools, input and output formats, datasources, hardware and networking, maintenance, programming languages, and application frameworks.

Beginning Programming in C

University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI<

1992

A one-semester course in basic programming. Received an A.

Graduate Work in Studio Art

University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

1982 – 1983

Three semesters of Drawing, Painting and Printmaking.

After two semesters of work, I was accepted into the Printmaking department's graduate program. At the end of that third semester I was invited to leave again, since I'd fallen in love with monotypes, even though I'd been warned that the head of the department didn't consider them to be real prints.

In other words, I went there to study art, but got a lesson in politics instead.

Bachelor of Arts

Luther College, Decorah, IA

1978 – 1982

Graduated Cum Laude with a major in Studio Art.

Other courses included Logic, Calculus, French and Norwegian. My Junior year (1980-81) was spent studying in Nottingham, England.