Curriculum Vitae

Phillipa Avery

eos2102atgmaildotcom

Independent Consultant, July 2010 – Current

Independent research on Tower Defence games, publication of two papers and reviewing of current research for games conferences.
Designing and creating game competitions for Tower Defence and Divide the Dollar games.

PostDoctoral Researcher, University of Nevada, Reno January 2009 – June 2010

Summary: Research methods for strategic deployment in an RTS game for a Naval Research Grant

Created a simple RTS capture the flag game using a Python front end and a C++ application server.
Research methods for a team of units (boats) to coordinate attack strategies with path creation, using coevolution to create movement along an A* path.

PhD Candidate, University of Adelaide March 2005 – September 2008

Summary: Research and development of a coevolutionary computational system.

Developed a coevolutionary system to evolve a fuzzy logic rule based computer player for the game of Tempo (using C++).
Researched the area involved, and performed scientific experiments to further learning.
Wrote and presented papers for international conferences and journals.

Tutor/Teacher’s Assistant, University of Adelaide June 2005 – December 2008

Summary: Course development, Public speaking, Training skills, Program debugging, Java programming

Provided teacher’s assistant responsibilities for the Evolutionary Computation and Adaptive Business Intelligence courses.
Created and conducted lectures, assignment specifications and assessment design, and student consulting and running of workshops.
Tutored small classes of students for first year undergraduate computer science courses.
Marked assignment and exam papers.
Assisted in training of new university tutors.

Tutor/Course Manager, University of South Australia March 2002 – June 2005

Summary: Coursework organization, Public speaking, Training skills, Program debugging, Java programming, Java Beans, SQL on Oracle

Co-ordinated the 2005 Software Engineering Projects Programme for honours and non-honours projects.
Designed and implemented assignments for the Information System Maintenance and Reengineering (ISMR) programme.
Tutored both large and small classes of students for the subjects: User Interfaces (2002-2003), Programming in Java (2002, 2004), Database Technology (2003-2004) and Component Engineering (2004 – 2005).
Performed individual tutoring for Indigenous students in an IT bridging course.

Summer Internships

CSIRO, University of SA December 2004 – March 2004

Created a data model and database with a web based interface using a Jboss/J2EE Web Server application, to provide batch processing of information and database functionality online.

Women’s and Children’s Hospital, University of SA December 2003 – March 2004

Bioinformatics, Requirements engineering, PHP, Apache web server, HTML, MySQL
Created the prototype for a web-based user interface with a MySQL database backend system used to record variations in the BRCA1-2 genes.

Help desk operator / Software tester

Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care May 2000 – February 2001

Summary: System life cycle documentation, Software testing, Problem solving, Government work

policies/procedures, Customer service

Wrote test cases and business specifications for Aged Care software systems.
Created and maintained task and system documentation.
Solved help desk inquiries by determining if and where a problem may lie with the software and creating a change request if a problem exists.

University of Adelaide, PhD March 2005 – September 2008

University of South Australia, Comp Sci Degree February 2001 – November 2004

GPA: 6.2 (out of 7)

Best student paper for IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation (2008)
Student representative for the Faculty Learning and Teaching Committee (2006-2007)
Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences Divisional Scholarship for PhD Studies
DSTC 2005 Annual Student Award for the best University of South Australia DSTC-relevant honours/masters thesis
Dean’s Merit List 2001 – 2004
Chancellor’s Letters of Commendation 2001, 2003-2004