# Parker Ziegler > Ph.D. Student, Computer Science • University of California, Berkeley Location: Berkeley, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/parker 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. He uses a lot of TypeScript, ReScript, Rust, and WebAssembly, and is interested in designing new DSLs and computing tools on top of these languages to support non-traditional programmers in the social sciences, climate sciences, and journalism. ## Work Experience ### Graduate Student Researcher, Ph.D. Student in Computer Science @ University of California, Berkeley Jan 2021 – Present | 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. ### Software Engineer and Graphics Reporter @ Grist Jan 2023 – Present | 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. ### Software Engineer IV @ Formidable Jan 2019 – Jan 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. ### Software Engineer III @ Formidable Jan 2018 – Jan 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. ### Geospatial Developer @ Integral GIS Jan 2016 – Jan 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. ### Summer of Maps Fellow @ Azavea Jan 2016 – Jan 2016 | Philadelphia, PA • Acted as the lead project manager, developer, geospatial data analyst, user experience designer, and cartographer for two spatial analysis projects with Ecotrust and Transportation Alternatives. • With Ecotrust – performed urban canopy analysis for the City of Portland, OR. Designed maps and infographics modeling urban canopy cover; performed advanced canopy classification and change detection analysis with remotely sensed data; developed geographically weighted regression models to test correlations between canopy cover and racial, socioeconomic, and housing characteristics of Portland neighborhoods; and designed multipage layouts – with integrated graphics, maps, and text – discussing the findings. • With Transportation Alternatives – explored connections between traffic crashes and poverty in New York City. Gathered, cleaned, and analyzed socioeconomic and crash data from city, state, and federal open data repositories; developed correlation statistics, correlation matrices, regression models, and diagnostics in R to teset relationships between traffic crashes and poverty; authored a policy report with integrated maps and graphics; and developed a public-facing, interactive web application built on Carto and D3 to visualize the crash data. • Presented findings to organizations through formal presentations and authored multiple technical blog posts about my development process. ### GIS Teaching Assistant and Cartographic Designer @ Middlebury College Department of Geography Jan 2015 – Jan 2016 | Middlebury, VT • Assisted in teaching critical GIS techniques and concepts in Middlebury’s introductory GIS class, including: local, zonal, and focal operations with raster data; terrain modeling; spatial and attribute joins; custom projections; SQL queries; network analysis; and Python scripting. • Acquired, cleaned, and warehoused data for labs from a variety of data sets (Landsat, U.N., World Bank, U.S. Census, Chicago Data Portal). • Performed geospatial analysis and cartographic design for professors, thesis students, and non-profits. Example projects include designing maps and graphics for the Andean Alliance for Sustainable Development, developing an interactive map of the geography of eviction in San Francis- co, building an interactive community resources map for the Zuni Youth Enrichment Project, performing historical GIS analysis and cartographic design for a thesis discussing Georgia’s convict leasing system. ### Education and Children's Media Content Intern @ National Geographic Jan 2015 – Jan 2015 • Designed and produced interactive, thematic map layers for middle and high school students using National Geographic’s MapMaker Interactive online GIS. Map topics included biodiversity in the Amazon, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, and the Cholera epidemic in Haiti. • Designed and edited lesson plans, activities, and online interactives for National Geographic Education. Specific initiatives included the Top Crop: Farming for the Future interactive and the Amazonia: The Human Impact lessons and case studies, for which I served as producer. • Assisted in managing the National Geographic Education website and National Geographic’s massive open online course (MOOC) “Facilitating Learning through Outdoor Watershed Education” through content production and backend development using a Django CMS. • Served as an events aide for National Geographic’s 2015 Explorer’s Symposium and a liaison for communication between Emerging Explorers and NG Staff. ### Adult Education, Teaching, and Curriculum Intern @ Arab American Association of New York Jan 2014 – Jan 2014 | Brooklyn, New York • Designed curriculum for and instructed summer ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languag- es) courses for adult, Arab American immigrants in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. • Researched progressive pedagogies in language education for immigrant learners and advised Adult Education team on curriculum updates and best practices. • Assisted with AAANY’s citizenship test preparation program. • Assisted with AAANY’s advocacy and community organizing initiatives, including letter writ- ing campaigns, protests in solidarity with other Arab American associations, and the annual Bay Ridge Arab American Bazaar. ### Research Assistant @ Amherst College Jan 2013 – Jan 2013 | Amherst, Massachusetts • Focused on the 2013 Shahbagh riots and human rights issues surrounding the International Crimes Tribunal in Bangladesh. • Engaged in web-based research using traditional media, social media, blogs, and multimedia from Shahbagh, and wrote regular research reports for Professor Chowdhury. • Author of a research report discussing the relationship between Shahbag and the transnational protest ethos brought about by the Arab Spring. Available in two parts at: http://alalodulal.org/2014/02/10/the-youth-in-riot-again/ and http://alalodulal.org/2014/02/12/youth-in-riot-2/. • Presented research at the 2014 Middlebury College Student Research Symposium. ### Arabic Summer Intern @ Five College Center for the Study of World Languages: UMass Amherst Jan 2013 – Jan 2013 | Amherst, Massachusetts • Analyzed and suggested revisions to current curriculum for Five College first-year Arabic courses. • Authored an original 100-page companion text to Al-Kitaab, Part 1 for beginning Arabic students. ### Lab Assistant: New England BioLabs Summer Molecular Biology Workshop @ Smith College Jan 2012 – Jan 2012 | Northampton, Massachusetts • Assisted in Arabic-English translation for group of 12 female Iraqi students from the University of Baghdad. • Instructed and demonstrated laboratory procedures, made solutions, and assisted participants in proper technique. ## Education ### Bachelor’s Degree in Double Major in Geography and Arabic Middlebury College Jan 2012 – Jan 2016 ### Arabic and Refugee Studies Middlebury C.V. Starr School in the Middle East – University of Jordan Jan 2014 – Jan 2014 ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/parkerziegler - Website: http://parkerziegler.com/ --- Source: https://flows.cv/parker JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/parker/resume.json Last updated: 2026-03-20