Ed Summers
Silver Spring, Maryland, USA
📨
🏠
💾
I am a software developer and research designer with two decades of
experience bridging the worlds of data management and the Web. I have
worked in academia, startups, corporations and government. I thrive
while working in agile, highly collaborative teams that focus on
knowledge sharing and a commitment to sustainability.
Skills
- web technology: APIs, REST, linked data, web archiving
- languages: Python, JavaScript, Ruby, PHP, Perl, Go, Java, C,
Scheme
- data analysis: Pandas, SciPy, Spark, Presto
- infrastructure: Linux, AWS, Docker, Ansible, Terraform
- databases: PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Redis, ElasticSearch, Solr,
MongoDB
- visualization: D3, Plotly, vis.js, Gephi
- practice: agile, automated testing, continuous integration,
standards, documentation
Work History
Senior Software Developer
Digital Library Systems and Services
Stanford University
01/2022 -
- Full stack software development (Ruby, Python, JavaScript)
- Web archive creation, preservation and access
- Digital repositories, data preservation
- Web services (REST) / Service design
Design Researcher
Webrecorder
10/2021 - 02/2023
- Requirements and use case gathering
- Technical writing for data specifications
- Software development (Python, JavaScript)
Research Faculty
Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities
University of Maryland
08/2014 - 12/2021
- Full stack software development (JavaScript, React, Python,
PostgreSQL, ElasticSearch)
- Social media data analysis and visualization (Python, JavaScript,
D3, VisJS)
- Linked Data publishing (Python, NodeJS)
- Sustainable data preservation workflows (AWS)
- Automated testing and continuous integration (GitHub)
- Configuration management (Git, Docker, Ansible)
- Agile requirements gathering & project management
- Instructor & Mentor: software development (Python, JavaScript),
data science (Python, Pandas, Spark)
Consultant
The Brookings Institution
Washington, DC
June 2021 - September 2021
- Social media data collection and ETL (Twitter, Reddit, Python)
- Network analysis and visualization (Python, React, vis.js)
- Report writing and research data publishing
Visiting Researcher
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Gaithersburg, Maryland
August 2018 - August 2021
- Conducted a multi-year field study to analyze data acquisition
methods used in building the world’s largest public archive of computer
software (NSRL).
- Software development and research design for data data preservation
packaging formats (Python, Git, Jupyter, PostgreSQL, BagIt, DFXML,
OCFL)
Information Technology Specialist
Library of Congress
Washington, DC
03/2006 - 08/2014
- Digital preservation and repository software design and development
(Python, Java, MySQL)
- Lead software developer on the National Digital Newspaper
Project (Django, MySQL)
- Created a web based quality assurance tool for handling high volume
image digitization projects
- Social media archiving (Twitter)
- Designed and implemented the Library of
Congress Linked Data Service
- Specification writing and testing W3C
Consultant
George Washington University
Washington, DC
10/2013 - 12/2014
- Django Web Development
- Voyager ILS integration (Oracle)
- Serial Solutions Summon API integration
Consultant
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
Madison, WI
09/2013 - 06/2014
- Web data harvesting (Python)
- Data packaging and publishing (Git, AWS)
Consultant
Hypothes.is
San Francisco, CA
01/2013 - 10/2013
- JavaScript and Python development
- Development of the open source Annotator and Annotator Store
projects
- Design and implementation of [cross format annotation] annotation
support
- Functional/unit testing (Selenium, Pytest, Travis-CI,
SauceLabs)
Consultant
GlueJar
Montclair, NJ 11/2011 - 04/2012
- Django software development
- AWS (EC2, RDS, Route 53)
- Google Books API harvesting
- Google, Facebook, Twitter social media integration
- Automated testing and continuous integration (Jenkins)
Consultant
Yale School of Medicine
New Haven, CT
07/2005 - 12/2005
- Python object oriented design
- Automated testing
- Implemented a reporting framework
- Quixote, Pylucene, MySQL, Red Hat administration
Senior Software Engineer
Follett Corporation
McHenry IL
07/2002 - 03/2006
- Web service design and implementation
- Java, PHP and Perl software development
- Automated testing and performance tuning
- Database administration (Oracle, SQL Server)
- XML metadata harvesting and ingest
- Requirements gathering and project planning
Consultant
Performix Chicago IL
02/2004 - 04/2005
- Object oriented design
- Refactored large Perl codebase
- Perl, Apache, mod_perl, DB2
Consultant
Queens Borough Public Library
New York, NY
06/2004 - 05/2005
- Character encoding conversion
- Controlled vocabulary mining
- Perl data processing training
Consultant
Notre Dame University
South Bend IN
06/2004 - 12/2004
- Training in object oriented programming and unit testing
- High volume metadata harvesting
- Guidance and implementation search technologies
- Ported Java Common Query Language parser to Perl
Senior Software Engineer
CheetahMail
New York NY
02/2000 - 07/2002
- Team lead in a group of 8 programmers
- Developed data processing infrastructure for Fortune 500
clients
- Designed/developed real time reporting system
- Creation and maintenance of web service API
- Expertise in SMTP and HTTP protocols
- Web services development
- Technical representative for partners and sales
- Networking and systems administration as required
Metadata Specialist
Old Dominion University
Norfolk, VA
04/1998 - 02/2000
- SGML and XML data processing for the VIVA Consortium
- Created current awareness system to alert students/faculty to new
items in their field of interest.
- ILS and OCLC metadata workflow management
Visiting Assistant Professor University of Illinois
Champaign-Urbana, IL
08/1996 - 03/1998
- Web development (ASP, SQL Server)
- Collection development and cataloging in Sociology and Political
Science
- Preservation of 19th century criminology pamphlet collection
- Managed reference services in the Social Science Library
Selected Projects
These are some projects and experiments where I’ve been directly
involved in the technical development.
Selected Publications
- Demagoguery,
Democracy, and Digitality. In Teaching Demagoguery and Democracy:
Rhetorical Pedagogy in Polarized Times. November, 2021.
- Bystander
intervention on social media: Examining cyberbullying and reactions to
systemic racism. The Brookings Institution. October, 2021.
- Legibility
Machines: Archival Appraisal and the Genealogies of Use. PhD
Dissertation. University of Maryland. December, 2020.
- Appraisal
Talk in Web Archives. Archivaria. May, 2020.
- What We Talk
about When We Talk about Archiving the Web. American Archivist.
March, 2020.
- Archival
Circulation on the Web: The Vine-Tweets Dataset. Cultural Analytics.
June, 2019.
- Algorithms
and Agenda-Setting in Wikileaks’ #PodestaEmails Release.
Information, Communication & Society. 2019
- Appraisal
Practices in Web Archives. SocArXiv Papers, 2018.
- Twitter
and Tear Gas: Book Review. Internet Histories, 2017.
- Ferguson
and the death of Michael Brown on Twitter: #BlackLivesMatter, #TCOT, and
the evolution of collective identities. Ethnic and Racial Studies,
40(10).
- #sayhername: a
case study of intersectional social media activism. Ethnic and
Racial Studies, 40(10).
- Bots, Seeds and People: Web
Archives as Infrastructure. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM Conference
on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing, CSCW
17.
- Automating
Transparency. The Source. April, 2015.
- MJ no more: Using
Concurrent Wikipedia Edit Spikes with Social Network Plausibility Checks
for Breaking News Detection. 2013.
- Linking Things on the Web:
A Pragmatic Examination of Linked Data, 2013.
- Key Choices in the Design
of Simple Knowledge Organization System (SKOS), 2013.
- Library Linked
Data Final Report, W3C Incubator Group Report, October 2011.
- SKOS Simple Knowledge
Organization System Primer, W3C Working Group Note, August 18th,
2008. http://www.w3.org/TR/skos-primer/
- LCSH,
SKOS and Linked Data, Proceedings of the International Conference on
DublinCore and Metadata Applications, 2008.
- Following
Your Nose to the Web of Data, Information Standards Quarterly,
2008
- Building OAI-PMH
Harvesters With Net::OAI::Harvester Ariadne, no. 38, Jan 2004.
- Cyril:
Expanding the Horizons of MARC21, Library Hi Tech, v. 22, no. 1,
2004.
- A Consortial
Approach to Cooperative Cataloging and Authority Control: The Virtual
Library of Virginia Experience, Resource Sharing and Information
Networks, v. 16, no. 1, 2003, p. 33-53.
- Paying
Homage to Perl (PHP), The Perl Review, January, 2003.
- MARC it your way: MARC.pm, Information Technology and Libraries,
March, 2002.
- Comprehensive
Access to Periodicals: A Database Solution, Library Collections
Acquisitions and Technical Services, v. 24, no. 2, 2000, p. 33-44.
- Chaos–Show Me the
Metadata, Against the Grain, v.11, no.1, 1998.
- Gateways
to Social Work/Welfare on the Net, C&RL News, v.59, no. 3, 1998,
p.163-167.
Education
- PhD, College of Information Studies, University of Maryland,
2015-2020.
- MLS, School of Communications, Information and Library Science,
Rutgers University, 1995-1996.
- BA English and American Literature, Rutgers University,
1987-1991.
Awards