Parker is a software engineer, cartographer, and programming languages researcher based in Berkeley, CA. He focuses primarily on exploring the implications of emerging programming languages targeting the browser, especially in the realms of animation, image processing, domain-specific languages, and type systems.
Berkeley, California, United States
At Berkeley, I research how we can apply techniques from programming languages, human-computer interaction (HCI), and visualization research to build useful and usable programming tools for data journalists, climate researchers, social scientists, and other non-traditional programmers. I'm particularly interested in inferring, reverse engineering, or "decompiling" programs from visual inputs (e.g., SVG data graphics) and user interfaces that support programming by direct manipulation (also called output-directed programming).
Currently I'm:
Developing cartokit, a direct manipulation programming environment and compiler for interactive cartography on the web
Developing reviz, a compiler and browser extension to automatically reverse engineer data visualizations from the DOM
Earlier in my PhD, I:
Led a 9-month user study to identify novel design opportunities for geospatial analysis and visualization systems, published at ACM CHI 2023
Served (twice, 1x Head, 1x Staff) as a Graduate Student Instructor for UC Berkeley’s undergraduate programming languages and compilers course (~200 students)
I'm affiliated with PLAIT Lab, the EPIC Data Lab, and the Programming Systems Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and advised by Professor Sarah E. Chasins.
Berkeley, California, United States
I joined the team at Grist on a contract to design, build, and deploy the maps, graphics, frontend, and cloud infrastructure for Misplaced Trust, an investigation into the extractive practices occurring on stolen Indigenous land that benefit land-grant universities across the West.
Led the development of interactive maps and data graphics featured throughout the piece, using TypeScript, Svelte, SvelteKit, TailwindCSS, D3, MapLibre, deck.gl, scrollama, and Vite.
Designed, built, and deployed the frontend architecture for the piece.
Created a pipeline to build and deploy all interactives as standalone static assets to S3.
Developed scripts for cleaning, transforming, joining, minifying, compressing, and deploying the geospatial datasets featured throughout the piece, using Node.js, TypeScript, tippecanoe, and PMTiles.
Assisted with bug fixes for the Python pipeline that produces the unified state trust lands dataset, developed by the excellent data reporters at Grist.
2019 — 2021
Greater Seattle Area
At Formidable, I was deeply involved with with our open source program, specializing in frontend software development, emerging programming languages, UI animation, and data visualization.
Recipient of Formidable's inaugural Open Source Fellowship to build renature, a new physics-based animation library for React inspired by the natural world.
Author of reason-urql, the official Reason bindings for Formidable's GraphQL client, urql.
Author of next-urql, a higher order component for executing GraphQL operations server-side in Next.js applications using urql.
Contributor to urql, a lightweight and flexible GraphQL client for React.
I also embedded with client teams to build production-facing web applications using JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Node.js, and GraphQL. Specific projects included:
Leading frontend web development on a team of 5 for a large-scale social media platform for specialty cars. Developing the core car and profile search experiences using AWS Elasticsearch and AWS Lambda. Assisting in implementation of our ETL pipeline and transactions architecture for search indexing. Technologies used included React, Next.js, TypeScript, Terraform, AWS Lambda, AWS Elasticsearch, AWS DynamoDB, and Amazon SQS.
Leading a CMS migration to Contentful for the e-commerce site of an international athletic apparel company. Bringing two production facing experiences from design to production using the new CMS architecture in under 6 months. Technologies used included Contentful, React, Next.js, Sass, and AWS Lambda.
Leading a team of 5 at a company specializing in predictive project management software. Leading development of the data visualization realm of the platform showing estimate confidence ranges derived from Monte Carlo simulations. Mentoring and leveling up more junior developers through pair programming, brown bag learning sessions, and guided code review. Technologies used included TypeScript, React, Redux, redux-saga, and Sass.
2018 — 2019
Greater Seattle Area
At Formidable, I embedded with client teams to build production-facing web applications using JavaScript, TypeScript, React, Node.js, and GraphQL. Specific projects included:
Building a secure, real-time trading platform with a cryptocurrency startup. Writing the core frontend flows supporting instant trading. Assisting with websocket implementation for real-time monitoring of currency fluctuations. Technologies used included TypeScript, React, the Websocket API, and RxJS.
Building out a next generation web platform for a biotech company specializing in flow cytometry software. Developing the basis for a design system and pattern library for the organization. Technologies used included React, Redux, redux-saga, and styled-components.
I also work regularly to support Formidable's open source program. Specific contributions include:
Maintaining webpack-dashboard, a CLI tool for inspecting your webpack bundle.
Assisting with the initial implementation of the VictoryBoxPlot component for victory, a React component library for modular charting and data visualization.
Adding TypeScript definitions to redux-little-router, a tiny router that integrates with your Redux store.
2016 — 2017
Seattle, WA
Leading React and Redux development in TypeScript on Integral’s FrameWork application, a large-scale, map-centered data management system for the Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters.
Leading development of an internal library of React components with supporting tests using Enzyme and Mocha.
Developing an Express API in Node.js to manage client-server communication in FrameWork, including full CRUD functionality (in combination with SQL Server) and user authentication and management with Firebase.
Contributing to peer development through presentations, demos, and code reviews on React Native, redux-saga, and GraphQL. Leading migration of internal codebase to React, Redux, and ES6.
Implementing responsive design for Integral’s applications using CSS3 and Sass.
Education
2012 — 2016
Middlebury College
Bachelor’s Degree
2012 — 2016
2014 — 2014
Middlebury C.V. Starr School in the Middle East – University of Jordan
Arabic and Refugee Studies
2014 — 2014