Cecilia R. Aragon, Ph.D.

P.O. Box 8582
Berkeley, California 94707
(510) 527-4466

Objective

Summary

• 10 years in leadership roles: CEO, manager, technical group lead; responsibility for overall budget, strategic planning, and business development
  
• 20 years in computing: software developer, architect, researcher, instructor, technical manager
  
• 3 years as an entrepreneur: founded, grew, and sold business
  
• Record of innovation and achievement: award-winning author, researcher, and pilot; track record of delivering products on time and within budget
  

Employment

• 2005 - present: Staff Scientist, Computational Research Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California. Researcher, group lead and architect for several scientific collaborative software projects involving visualization and analysis of very large data sets. Duties included overall technical design, user interface design, database and middleware design, strategic planning, budgeting, primary responsibility for product delivery, line management of technical staff, internal and external presentations and evangelism. Managed research projects in visualization and human-computer interaction. Published in peer-reviewed journals and technical conferences. Produced technical, budget, and business reports, project review presentations, staffing and project plans, human subjects protocols, and technical project proposals. Developed software in Java, C++, Python, JavaScript/CSS, and IDL.

• 1996 - 2005: Computer Scientist, Computational Sciences Division, NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. (1996 - 2000: employed by Caelum Research Corp.) Group lead, Domain Exploration for the Information Design project. Data visualization, 2D and 3D graphics and user interface software design and implementation for remote access and scientific collaboration software over very large heterogeneous databases of aeronautical and aerospace data. Software and Web application development in Java, C++, JavaScript, and Perl.

• 1987 - 1996: Software Consultant, Aragon Consulting, Berkeley, California. Software development in 2D and 3D graphics, user interface design, image processing and aerodynamic modeling, using Java, C++, C, JavaScript, and Perl under Unix, Mac and Windows environments. Projects included: Wind tunnel data visualization and distribution project; designed and implemented 2D and 3D data visualization tools, Sybase and Oracle database connectivity, and Web-based graphical user interface (GUI) for wind tunnel data management in Java and Perl. Design review for real time GUI for PC-based flight simulator, validation of aerodynamic modeling software, and creation of instructional interface. Image processing: modified code that transferred digital images from optical disks to magnetic storage devices, using TCP/IP and proprietary protocols. User interfaces for network management systems, using C++, InterViews, and Motif. Designed and implemented graphics interface for super collider simulator, using C++ and X Windows.

• 1991 - 1994: Founder and CEO, Top Flight Aviation, Inc., Livermore, California. Founded, grew, and sold professional aerobatic flight school. Developed business plan and secured funding, was responsible for overall strategic business direction including all finances and accounting, developed and implemented marketing and advertising plan, managed staff of 24, developed aviation curriculum and provided flight instruction at all levels, supervised design and building of aircraft, test flew completed aircraft, performed at airshows and competitions in the U.S. and Europe. Business was acquired after three years with ROI of over 50% per year.

Education

Research Interests

Selected Publications

• "Virtual Assistants in Collaborative Scientific Experiments: An Astrophysics Case Study," S. Poon, R. Thomas, C. Aragon, B. Lee, CSCW 2008: ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, San Diego, CA (to appear, 2008). Best Paper Award Nominee (one of 12 out of 235 submissions).

• "Using Visual Analytics to Maintain Situational Awareness in Astrophysics," C. Aragon, S. Poon, G. Aldering, R. Thomas, R. Quimby, Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology (IEEE VAST), Columbus, OH (to appear, 2008).

• "Sunfall: A Collaborative Visual Analytics System for Astrophysics" (PDF), C. Aragon, S. Bailey, S. Poon, K. Runge, R. Thomas, Proceedings of SciDAC, Seattle, WA (to appear, 2008).

• "Object classification at the Nearby Supernova Factory"   (PDF), S. Bailey, C. Aragon, R. Romano, R. C. Thomas, B. A. Weaver and D. Wong, Astronomische Nachrichten Vol. 329, Issue 3, pp. 292-294 (2008).

• "Sunfall: A Collaborative Visual Analytics System for Astrophysics," C. Aragon, S. Bailey, S. Poon, K. Runge, R. Thomas, IEEE VAST poster, Sacramento, CA (2007). Winner of Best Poster Award.

• "A Fast Contour Descriptor Algorithm for Supernova Image Classification," C. Aragon and D. Aragon, SPIE Symposium on Electronic Imaging: Real-Time Image Processing, San Jose, CA (2007).

• "How to Find More Supernovae with Less Work: Object Classification Techniques for Difference Imaging," S. Bailey, C. Aragon, R. Romano, R. C. Thomas, B. A. Weaver and D. Wong, Astrophysical Journal 665:1246T (2007).

• "Nearby Supernova Factory Observations of SN 2006D: On Sporadic Carbon Signatures in Early Type Ia Supernova Spectra," The Nearby Supernova Factory: R. C. Thomas, G. Aldering, P. Antilogus, C. Aragon, S. Bailey, C. Baltay, E. Baron, A. Bauer, C. Buton, S. Bongard, Y. Copin, E. Gangler, S. Gilles, R. Kessler, S. Loken, P. Nugent, R. Pain, J. Parrent, E. Pecontal, R. Pereira, S. Perlmutter, D. Rabinowitz, G. Rigaudier, K. Runge, R. Scalzo, G. Smadja, L. Wang, B. A. Weaver, Astrophysical Journal 654:L53-L56 (2007).

• "The Impact of Usability on Supernova Discovery," C. Aragon and S. Poon, Workshop on Increasing the Impact of Usability Work in Software Development, CHI 2007: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, San Jose, CA (2007).

• "Supernova Recognition using Support Vector Machines," R. Romano, C. Aragon, and C. Ding, Proceedings of the 5th International Conference of Machine Learning Applications, Orlando, FL (2006). Winner of Best Application Paper Award.

• "Improving Aviation Safety with Information Visualization: A Flight Simulation Study," C. Aragon and M. Hearst, CHI 2005: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Portland, OR (2005).

• "Airflow Hazard Visualization for Helicopter Pilots: Flight Simulation Study Results," C. Aragon and K. Long, American Helicopter Society 61st Annual Forum, Grapevine, TX (2005).

• "Using Visualization in Cockpit Decision Support Systems," C. Aragon, IEEE SMC 2005: Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics, Hawaii (2005).

• "Improving Aviation Safety with Information Visualization: Airflow Hazard Display for Helicopter Pilots," C. Aragon, University of California Berkeley, Computer Science Ph.D. Dissertation (2004).

• "Usability Evaluation of a Flight-Deck Airflow Hazard Visualization System," C. Aragon, 23rd IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference, Salt Lake City, UT (2004). Winner of "Best Student Paper" Award.

• "A Prototype Flight-Deck Airflow Hazard Visualization System," C. Aragon, SAE World Aviation Congress, Reno, NV (2004).

• "Data Visualization of Invisible Airflow Hazards During Helicopter Landing Operations," C. Aragon, Grace Hopper Conference, Chicago, IL (2004).

• "Making the Invisible Visible: Augmented-Reality Airflow Hazard Visualization for Pilots," C. Aragon, invited talk, Adaptive Displays Conference, SIGGRAPH 2004, Los Angeles, CA (2004).

• "Prediction of aerodynamic coefficients for wind tunnel data using a genetic algorithm optimized neural network," T. Rajkumar, C. Aragon, J. Bardina, and R. Britten, Data Mining III, Third International Conference on Data Mining, A. Zanasi, C. Brebbia, N. Ebecken, and P. Melli, eds. (2002) 473-485.

• "Experimental and Computational Data Analysis in CHARLES and DARWIN," D. Korsmeyer, J. Walton, C. Aragon, A Shaykevich, L. Chan, ISCA-97-, 13th International Conference on Computers and Their Applications (1998). (PDF)

• "Randomized Search Trees," R. Seidel and C. Aragon, Algorithmica 16 (1996) 464-497.

• "Optimization by Simulated Annealing: An Experimental Evaluation; Part II, Graph Coloring and Number Partitioning," C. R. Aragon, D. S. Johnson, L. A. McGeoch and C. Schevon, Operations Research, 39:3 (1991), 378-406.

• "Optimization by Simulated Annealing: An Experimental Evaluation; Part I, Graph Partitioning," D. S. Johnson, C. R. Aragon, L. A. McGeoch and C. Schevon, Operations Research, 37:6 (1989), 865-892.

• "Randomized Search Trees," C. Aragon and R. Seidel, Proc. 30th IEEE Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science (1989), 540-546.

• "A Unified Approach to Building Accelerator Simulation Software for the SSC," V. Paxson, C. Aragon, S. Peggs, C. Saltmarsh, L. Schachinger, Proc. 1989 IEEE Particle Accelerator Conference (1989).

Awards and Honors

• Best Paper Award Nominee, ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, 2008
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Spot Award, 2008
• Best Poster Award, IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology, 2007
• Most Highly Rated Presentation, Grace Hopper Conference, 2007
• Best Application Award, 5th International Conference of Machine Learning Applications, 2006
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Spot Award, 2006
• Eugene L. Lawler Award, 2004
• Best Student Paper Award, 23rd IEEE Digital Avionics Systems Conference, 2004
• U.S. patent pending for video image stabilization system (Unshaker^TM)
• NASA Space Act Award (twice)
• Caelum Research Corporation Employee Excellence Award
• Bell Laboratories Graduate Fellowship
• National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship
• McKinney Prize in English
• Tau Beta Pi
• 4.0 undergraduate GPA
• National Merit Scholar
• United States Aerobatic Team (twice)

Software Projects

• Sunfall: Supernova image search, data catalog, and science discovery software framework.
• AHVS: 3-dimensional airflow hazard visualization system in high fidelity rotorcraft flight dynamics simulator.
• Virtual Flight: Secure remote access to numerical simulation and flight dynamics model data, prediction of aerodynamic coefficients with a genetic algorithm optimized neural network.
• DARWIN: Remote access and scientific collaboration software. Data visualization, 2D/3D graphics and user interface software design and implementation over very large heterogeneous databases of aeronautical and aerospace data.
• Unshaker^TM: Video image stabilization system. Linear and non-linear spatial and time-domain pixel filtering to remove motion artifacts and subpixel jitter in RGB image sequences.
• Flight Unlimited: Design review for real-time GUI, validation of aerodynamic modeling software, and creation of instructional interface for PC-based flight simulator program.
• Appcert: Solaris application binary interface checking tool.
• ECCB: Network retrieval of document images from optical archives using TCP/IP and proprietary protocols over Ethernet. High-speed capture and real-time enhancement and compression of document images using CCD sensors and hardware-based convolutional filtering and CCITT compression.
• SSC Simulation: Simulation of physics and control of particle accelerator in modular, object-oriented fashion, developing uniform GUI, scientific visualization, and data representation.
• RST: Randomized search tree implementation, benchmarking and performance tuning.
• Time-Domain Waveform Coding: Combinatorial optimization applied to acoustic signal processing, coefficients chosen in Fourier transform domain to reduce time domain quantization noise.
• BTNMS: Telephone network visualization and management tool for operations center. 2D graphical user interface design and implementation.
• Mod3D: Device-independent 3D graphics modeling system
• Simulated Annealing for Graph Partitioning: Combinatorial optimization algorithms applied to network topology.
• DNA Sim: Simulation of physical structure of DNA double helix, bond strengths and resonant frequencies.