Projects

WhatsStackIOS - End to End Encrypted iOS Messaging App

Deployment and Code:

Deploying to the app store was impractical, but here's a video of the app and a presentation
Source Code

Tech stack:

React Native, Redux, Firebase, Xcode, git

Features:

One to one, group, and image messaging
End to end encryption
Two factor authentication
Slick, modern interface aesthetic

Development Environment: Agile, with three other developers

Description: This was my group's final project at Fullstack Academy. After months of working primarily on websites and webapps, we decided to go way out of our comfort zones by making a security oriented app on a different platform with a totally new tech stack. The amount of new technical material, tight deadline, and unfamiliar development tools made the project extremely challenging, but I'm very proud of the final project, our team's work, and the amount we learned.

Plate Scraper - Web Scraper for Recipe Sites

Deployment and Code:

Chrome Extension Deployment
Chrome Extension Source Code
Website Deployment
Website Source Code

Tech stack:

Express, React, Cheerio, Request-Promise-Native, Chrome API, Mocha, Chai, CSS, git

Features:

Get recipe titles, ingredients, and instructions as plaintext in one click
Text is minimally formatted, easily-editable and downloadable
Supports the top 15 (by traffic) recipe aggregation sites
Available as a Chrome extension, or regular no-installation required webapp
Intuitive, easy to use interface
Won in-house award for technical complexity

Development Environment: Solo

Description: This was a solo web-scraping project I began early in 2018 and finished at Fullstack Academy. I actually started it before Fullstack began, but even though I managed scrape and parse sites with a node.js script, I had no idea how to integrate that with the website's frontend. I finished the project during Fullstack once I had learned more, and adapted it into a Chrome extension for a class project. It was my very first original project idea, so this site will always be my child.

Starship Depot - E-commerce Site

Deployment and Code:

Deployment
Source Code

Tech stack:

Express, Sequelize, React, Redux, Stripe, Mocha, Chai, CSS, git

Features:

User and product databases
Sort, filter, and browse products
Track cart contents and order history
Checkout carts with secure credit card payment system
Account system with both site-unique accounts and OAuth
Tracks and persists cart contents, even if the user has no account or is signed out, including through reloads, multiple visits, and logging into or creating an account

Development Environment: Agile, with three other developers

Description: This was my first group project at Fullstack Academy. We drew on all the knowledge from the first part of the course to design and implement an e-commerce site, which somewhat whimsically sold spaceships, and had all the features and technologies we had been studying. On top of this, we were working as a team in an agile environment for the first time, and doing group version control and some TDD.

The Wisdom Generator - Quote Generation with a Markov Chain

Deployment and Code:

Deployment
Website Source Code
Markov Chain Source Code

Tech stack:

Javascript, Express, HTML, CSS, git

Features:

Generates quotes of varying lengths using a Markov Chain
Node.js files which can generate chains and quotes using the input of your choice

Development Environment: Solo

Description: This site procedurally generates quotes in the style of John Danaher, based on a Markov chain generated from his social media posts. The Markov chain script is generalizable and could be used to generate chains and quotes from any input text. The website uses a precomputed Markov chain derived from Danaher's posts to generate the quotes. This project was especially exciting because it was inspired by the Thomas Friedman op-ed generator, which had seemed like an impossible mystery to me until I started programming.

Not Yelp - Use Yelp API to find new restaurants

Deployment and Code:

Deployment
Source Code

Tech stack:

Javascript, Express, React, UIKit, CSS, Yelp API, git

Features:

Uses the Yelp API to retrieve data on restaurants
Query restaurants by city, filter results by open status, price, and highest rating
Sort on the page by price and rating
Responsive design works on screen sizes from full desktop to tiny mobile
Dynamically updating page buttons, jump to page feature
Site's graphics and icons adhere to Yelp's brand requirements

Development Environment: Solo

Description: This site uses the Yelp API to find restaurants. A user can search by city, find the highest rated restaurants, and filter the results by price and whether or not the restaurant is open. Results can also be sorted on the page. The backend uses Express to serve the site and keep the Yelp API key hidden, and the modular frontend was created with React. The site is fully responsive and was styled with UIKit, my first experience with a CSS framework.

Portfolio - Professional Infomation Site

Deployment and Code:

Deployment
Source Code

Tech stack:

HTML, CSS, git

Features:

Pretty much just links, text, CSS, and animations I suppose

Development Environment: Solo

Description: Why, it's the very site you're on now! I've always loved parallax scrolling and I took the photo of the Hudson Bridge in NYC. This site used to be the only thing I'd ever made with just HTML and CSS, but I added some vanilla JS because I was embarrassed by the lack of interactivity (I spent WAY too long on the crazy-complex randomized title animation). It's included in the projects section because I'm a completionist.

Bio

I graduated from University of Chicago with a Political Science degree, and spent a couple years exploring and working in different roles. I discovered that I loved jobs where I could learn, grow, and develop my skills, which led me to programming.

I had no traditional computer science background, but I taught myself Javascript and rapidly fell in love with coding. I loved the creativity of breaking down complex technical problems and solving them piece by piece, and I loved the way every project and algorithm taught me something new. Much as I learned on my own, I wanted to explore programming with classmates and a curriculum, so I applied to Fullstack Academy of Code.

Fullstack is a 17 week intensive full stack (obviously?) web development bootcamp, focusing on JavaScript, Express, Sequelize, React, and Redux. I got a lot out of the technical parts of the program, and learned even more from working with my classmates and doing group projects. As a professional engineer, I've worked as TA at a different bootcamp, as well as at ClassPass, a small fitness startup, Northwestern Mutual, a gigantic 160 year old insurance company, and currently at Compass, a medium size real estate tech company. The first two roles were primarily frontend with React and Redux and some backend in Python and Kotlin, and Compass is a fullstack role with React and Go.

Hi, I'm

Learn more about me here, or see my work on GitHub.

The skills and projects sections of this site are very badly out of date.

Skills

Projects

WhatsStackIOS - End to End Encrypted iOS Messaging App

Plate Scraper - Web Scraper for Recipe Sites

Starship Depot - E-commerce Site

The Wisdom Generator - Quote Generation with a Markov Chain

Not Yelp - Use Yelp API to find new restaurants

Portfolio - Professional Infomation Site

Bio

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