Benjamin G. Jackson

Update: I was recently awared the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department's Graduate Research Innovation and Progress (GRIP) Award.

Who I am: A Ph.D. student in Computer Engineering graduating in summer of 2009 from Iowa State Univeristy.

What I have done: Most recently, I have designed, developed, and published scholarly papers on the first short sequence assembler that can achieve a de novo assembly of gigabase genomes from short sequence data. I developed in C++ using STL and MPI a software prototype totaling over 10,000 lines of parallel code demonstrating this result. I created a library based on MapReduce that allows me, by changing the library implementation of two functions, to run the assembler in a single node's memory, use disk based sorting algorithms, or run on thousands of processors with terabytes of memory.

What I offer: I offer the proven ability to research the best ways to solve a complex computational problem and then improve upon them; for example, my assembly work combines the best from twenty years of research with novel concepts. I offer an appreciation for correctness; for example, my consensus mapping work formalizes the problem of finding a consensus map as that of finding a median order and proves the correctness of a method for solving this problem. I offer the ability to rapidly prototype ideas; I was a semifinalist in a nationwide TopCoder competition, and have completed a number of complex software prototypes over the years, including one that won "Best of Show" at an Intel labs demo fair. I offer strong presentation and communication skills.

What I want: I want to drive cutting edge research and development. I want to work for an organization that values innovation. I want to find the best known ways of solving a problem and then improve upon them. I want my work to result in practical solutions that are useful to others, and I want to be instrumental in that translation.

This site supplements the material in my resume and academic CV. Feel free to contact me about employment opportunities.