Megan Thorsen
mthorsen@gmail.com

OBJECTIVE: To obtain a full-time position building interactive software for exploring and analyzing data.

Business Analyst, FriendFinder Networks, Sunnyvale, CA June 2010-present

Analytic Software Scientist II, FICO, San Jose, CA May 2005-Dec 2009

• Collaborated with team to design data visualization and interactive analysis tools in Java.
• Implemented graph, tree, clustering, link, and chart, table, and other visualizations and algorithms.
• Focused primarily on the areas of visualization, interactivity, and UI design. Also worked on algorithms development and implementation, software architecture design, and other aspects.
• Learned about information visualization, UI design, software design, data mining.
• Gained experience in project management and the full product development life-cycle.

Operations Manager, Diamond Games (now BetSoft Gaming), Santa Monica, CA Sep 2004-Mar 2005

• Managed 2-person Quality Assurance team.
• Provided technical support for client base.
• Managed product release schedule.
• Continued to fulfill duties of prior position (see below).

QA and Web Developer, Diamond Games (now BetSoft Gaming), Santa Monica, CA Aug 2003-Sep 2004

• Collaborated to produce innovative online casino-style games for clients including sportbooks.
• Managed website rollouts and product releases.
• Wrote specifications and site content.
• Tested our products and websites.

Clinic Team Member, Harvey Mudd College/United Devices, Claremont, CA Sep 2001-May 2002

• Participated in a unique capstone experience of solving a real-world problem for an industry leader.
• Collaborated with small team to convert bioinformatics software to a distributed architecture. Software was in C, Pascal, and Perl.
• Focused on documentation and document integration using LaTeX and CVS.
• Learned client-facing skills through interactions with our liaison.

Technical Intern, Orincon Corporation, San Diego, CA May 2001-May 2002

• Applied game theory and artificial intelligence research to information warfare.
• Implemented artificial intelligence algorithms in Java. Used Javadoc and UML extensively.
• Created Java Beans and integrated them into Orincon's flagship software.
• Assisted in the grant application process.

Associate Software Systems Engineer, JPL/Federal Data Corporation, Pasadena, CA May 2000-May 2001

• Worked with a team to develop new Java API for installation, JSR 38.
• Continued collaboration during academic year.
• Learned UML, Javadoc, design patterns, Java Beans.

• US Patent 20070118439: Product Space Browser
• US Patent 20070282699: Purchase Sequence Browser
• US Patent 20090044279: Systems and methods for fraud detection via interactive link analysis
• US Patent 20090058859: CONSTRUCTION OF DECISION LOGIC WITH GRAPHS
• US Patent 20090064053: Visualization of Decision Logic

Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA Aug 1998 - May 2002
Bachelor of Science in Mathematics/Computer Science with Cognitive Science minor

• Computer Science coursework includes artificial intelligence, neural networks.
• Mathematics coursework includes game theory, operations research, probability.
• Cognitive Science coursework includes cognitive psychology, perception and cognition, cognitive anthropology, mind and language.

UCLA Computer Science, Los Angeles, CA Sep 2002 - June 2003
Graduate work in Computer Science.

• Computer Science coursework includes automated reasoning, reasoning with partial beliefs, pattern recognition, animats.
• Research: neural/computational model of psychological causation.

• Fair Isaac Innovation Award, Fair Isaac, 2006
• Fair Isaac Innovation Award, Fair Isaac, 2005
• Mathematical Contest in Modeling (MCM) Meritorious Award, 2001
• Harvey S. Mudd Merit Scholarship, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA, 1998

Java, Python, Perl, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, SQL, C++

• MentorNet mentor, October 2007-July 2008
• Association for Computing Machinery, May 2006-May 2009