David E. H. Peterson
Welcome
Thanks for visiting. Most people call me Dave or by my initials, DP. I am a husband, family member, developer, bicyclist, outdoorsmen, dog owner, sports fan, beard enthusiast, beer enthusiast, boat owner and Minnesotan.
Personal
Location
I currently reside in the Nokomis Neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Marriage
I have been married since June 2011 to my wife, Megan. Our wedding ceremony took place in the Lyndale Peace Garden near Lake Harriet. It rained. We were assured that meant we were bound for a lot of luck. We have a dog named Bailey.
Bicycling
I regularly commute by bicycle to work, including as often as possible in the winter months. I also ride trails for leisure as well as off-road mountain biking at nearby trail systems such as Lebanon, Cuyuna and Levis Mound.
Beer
At this time, my favorite local breweries are Harriet, Schell's and Bent Paddle, my favorite regional/national beers are Bells Two Hearted Ale and Lagunitas Pils, and my favorite "Big three" beer is Coors Banquet.
Sports
I am a die-hard University of Minnesota Gopher basketball, football and hockey fan (in that order) and cheer for all Minnesota sports teams. I am also legally a Green Bay Packer fan by marriage.
Professional
Education
I received my Bachelors of Science in Computer Science, with emphasis in Software Engineering, from the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
Career
I am an application, report and data developer for the Office of Institutional Research at the University of Minnesota. I primarly use Ruby on Rails in combination with JavaScript for web development. I also do data modeling and reporting with Oracle Business Intelligence and Tableau. I am involved with the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Survey consortium, the AAU Data Exchange Technology Advisory Group and the Campus Codefest Steering Committee.
In addition to my responsibilities at the University, I do occasional freelance Ruby on Rails development projects.
Resumé
For a full professional resume, please email me. My LinkedIn profile works well as a substitute. You may also take a look at my Github profile or the projects listed on this site.
Featured Projects
Comparison Group Generator completed in 2013
The Comparison group generator is an application meant to help Higher Ed profesionals and those interested in high education to find institutions which are similar to an institution of their choosing. It's main purpose was for aiding in the creation and analysis of Peer/Aspirational comparison groups for institutional bench marking, but it can also be used to help explain the similarities and differences between the over 1,450 not for profit four year institutions of higher education. Developed in Ruby on Rails.
A presentation on the application titled "Comparison Shopping: Developing a Web based Application to help Inform the Review and/or Selection of Institutional Comparison Groups." won the Best Overall Presentation award at the 2013 AIRUM Conference.
Freshman Cohort Flow completed in 2014
The Freshman Cohort Flow is a visualization to show the changes in a cohort of University of Minnesota freshman overtime. The potential outcomes are continuing enrollment, graduating, transferring to another campus or no longer being enrolled. The visualization leverages d3, specifically the Sankey diagram plug-in, which is normally used to visualize energy transfer between processes.
FleaQuest completed in 2013
FleaQuest is a welcoming community where all may contribute by adding listings and sharing knowledge to grow the site for the greater good of the vintage and antiques community. Developed in Ruby on Rails.
AAUDE Data Submission development in progress
I was the lead developer in collaboration with the AAU Data Exchange (AAUDE) to build an application which improved their data exchange processes. The application aimed to create an interface for managing meta data about various files which were to be exchanged, as well as providing a platform to validate and exchange the files. This application is not available to non-AAUDE members.
Campus Codefest development in progress
In 2013, a few University developers and I created an event we called Campus Codefest. The event was inspired by a new wave of developer meet ups framed as hackathons or unconferences. The CCF was a blend of those two concepts, a semi-structured, two day event focusing on growing the University software development community by focusing on projects that matter to developers.
To pull off the 2013 CCF, we relied on UserVoice to collect project ideas and EventBrite to orchestrate registration. Certain features were lacking across both of those tools. This Ruby on Rails application was created to bridge the gap between the project ideas, event registration and volunteering to help with ideas as well as create a place to hold other CCF information. I was the primary developer, with some help from Chad Fennell and Ben Demaree. It is an open source project, available to University of Minnesota staff and students at https://github.umn.edu/organizations/ccf.
The Good, the Bad and THE BEAST
Contact
If you have any questions or comments please contact me via email.