Author

About me

Jan Theodore Galkowski received his Bachelor's degree at Providence College in physics, with a strong background in liberal arts. He continued with a Master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, majoring in electrical engineering and computer science, serving as research and teaching assistant at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory with Professors Patrick H Winston, the late David Marr, and Berthold K P Horn as advisors. Guy Steele, Gerald Sussman, Marvin Minsky, Danny Hillis, Richard Stallman, Drew McDermott, Dave McDonald, Tomas Lozano-Perez, Carl Hewitt, and other folks were part of that most exciting of communities at the time. Mr Galkowski joined IBM upon completing his studies, holding several positions relating to development of software from 1976 until 1986. He was chosen by the IBM Corporation for two years of additional graduate study at Cornell University. Returning to IBM in 1988, he continued his career in software engineering until IBM sold the division to Loral in 1994. Mr Galkowski set out on his own as a contract software developer in late 1995, and has worked for a variety of small and large clients as contract employee and as owner-lead of a software consultancy which specializes in database design and development, image-based workflow using Web media, and innovative techniques for applying cartographic and photogrammetric information.

His other interests include spatial statistics, sailing, robotics, numerical analysis, new age music, geology, geophysics, advancement of science, Epcot, DisneyWorld, evolutionary games and population dynamics, Bayesian statistics, non-parametric statistics, and looking for nifty and often fringe or forgotten techniques for introducing simplicity in software and science.

Read his blog to see what else he's interested in.

In July of 2007, Mr Galkowski proudly accepted a position as Senior Software Engineer for Akamai Technologies of Cambridge, MA, USA: Why Akamai Rocks.

Mr Galkowski is a member of SIAM, of the American Statistical Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, of AFCEA, of the Mathematical Association of America, and is an Associate of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

He is fond of reading (mostly technical) books, coding in ANSI C, Ch, and R, and dreaming up nifty new ways to navigate robots, and of pirate lore. He is also a materialist, meaning that kind of atheist. (Some atheists are just too spiritually inclined for his liking.) He proudly displays Dawkins' scarlett letter "A":


Visit Atheist Nexus


Favorite poet?

Wallace Stevens:

IDEA OF ORDER AT KEY WEST

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.
If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.

It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of the sea,
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and of our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.


Favorite music? Generally "New Age", including Yanni, David Lanz, Andreas Vollenweider, Enya, but also love classical baroque, much smooth jazz, and movie themes. But I enjoy pop, and although the good creative stuff is rarer today, it is/was out there: U2, Coldplay, Crowded House.

My work

I am a student of mathematics, a statistician, an embedded systems programmer, and an engineer emphasizing quantitative methods and software in my practice.

I work for Akamai Technologies in Cambridge, MA, Kendall Square

I also dig robots, particularly problems related to their location, navigation, to mapping, and to use of vision and other sensors.

The physics of sailing and sailboats is fun.