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Member Spotlight: Reidy Brown

How many physicists does it take to salsa? Just one, and she'll bring the music! Reidy Brown is November's spotlighted wrrl. This busy shutterbug and wannabe Latin dancer is a former physicist (really!) and is now a software engineer at Blackboard, Inc.

As a software engineer at Blackboard, Reidy worked with the Java development team that built CourseInfo Enterprise v1.0. Currently she is working on Blackboard's portal system and Module Development Kit. We mentioned she's busy. She's also involved with accessibility and coordinates the design, development, management, and strategy across teams to ensure that Blackboard is moving towards accessibility throughout all the different product lines. Reidy credits DCWW with helping her find her new job and says, "this job is another DCWW resume listing success story."

They say about the obviously simple things in life, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out." While Ms. Brown wasn't a rocket scientist, she did train as a physicist. In more than five years of working in lab jobs, she found she enjoyed and had an aptitude for design and presentation skills. Reidy explains: "When I decided I didn't want to spend my entire life in a physics lab, I traded on the skills I'd gained in PhotoShop and other presentation software (physics papers can be surprisingly graphics heavy) to move into the design arena." The transition from graphics led her into web design, then web development, and then programming. There were sidetracks as an analyst for an area consulting company and as cofounder of Perennity Corporation, where she is a board member.

The lesson to be learned, she emphasizes, is that she gained "tangible design and presentation skills" that helped to lead her into a new and exciting career path. She also gained problem-solving and analytical skills that are invaluable for software engineers. Science, like information technology, is ever changing, so it's important to stay on top of new developments. Reidy credits the environment in giving her the frame of mind to always be learning.

Reidy obtained her Bachelor of Science degree from Vanderbilt University. At Blackboard, interestingly enough, she is not alone in her chosen field. As it turns out, the company has several physicists, including a couple of astrophysicists, a nuclear physicist, and our spotlighted wrrl. Reidy is also a member of ACM, a scientific computing society. (Likely her colleagues are too!)

Work will be getting interesting (read, hectic) when Web Accessibility In Mind (WebAIM) -- a grant from the Learning Anywhere Anytime Program Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education -- gets into gear. Reidy is Blackboard's representative to the program, which is designed to improve accessibility for people with disabilities to online learning environments.

Since Reidy spends a lot of time online, you might see her virtually at a few online hotspots such as:

• the W3C for web standards, such as Web Accessibility Initiative's guidelines
• Java Sun site for developer resources, from news to tutorials to Java API documentation
• Smaller for the latest "killer app" for her Palm, such as the travel guides

When she isn't computing, she likes to cycle, hike, and read. Reidy likes to ride her bike to work, simultaneously getting a little fresh air and some exercise. During the weekends, you might find her hiking at Great Falls Park or at the local bookstore with her nose in a gripping mystery story. Some day when there's more time, she wants to take up salsa dancing and maybe do a little acting.

Contributed by Beth Archibald Tang

Curious to see who our previous member spotlights were? Check out our archives!

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