Lead Developer, Repower@Home at Alliance for Climate Protection
Washington D.C. Metro Area
- Current
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- Lead Developer, Repower@Home at Alliance for Climate Protection
- Past
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- User Experience Designer and Web Developer at Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
- Web Application Developer at University of California, Berkeley
- Teaching Assistant at University of California, Berkeley
- User Researcher (intern) at Dabble
- Lab Manager at School of Print Media, RIT
- Web Developer at JazzTimes
- Editorial Assistant at Umbrage Editions
- Research Assistant at RIT’s Digital Media Library Task Force
- Multimedia Producer at Rochester Institute of Technology
- Intern at Finlay Printing
- Education
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- University of California, Berkeley
- Rochester Institute of Technology
- Connections
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153
connections
- Industry
- Online Media
- Websites
Jon Lesser’s Summary
I am a creative technologist with experience designing and implementing web applications. I am interested in how people interface with technology and how to design technology that people can use.
Jon Lesser’s Specialties:
Qualitative and quantitative usability methods. Programming experience with Java, Python, and PHP. Web development with HTML, XML, CSS, and JavaScript (jQuery). Solid visual design skills. Expert knowledge of Photoshop and InDesign, experience with Maya and SketchUp. Experience with machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. Formal training and practical experience in project management. Arduino hacking.
Jon Lesser’s Experience
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Lead Developer, Repower@Home
Alliance for Climate Protection
(Non-Profit; Renewables & Environment industry)
November 2009 — Present (1 month)
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User Experience Designer and Web Developer
Center for History and New Media, George Mason University
(Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)
November 2007 — November 2009 (2 years 1 month)
* Led a 10 month transformation of Zotero.org from a product support website into a community website with over 50,000 registered users and thousands of user created groups.
* Created interaction flows and wireframes for major features on Zotero.org and worked with visual designers to turn the wireframes into XHTML templates styled with CSS.
* Used object-oriented PHP (Zend Framework), MySQL, Apache, and JavaScript (jQuery) to architect and build a scalable, high-performance website that serves millions of requests per month.
* Designed and implemented an ATOM over REST API with the lead developer of the Zotero Firefox extension that enables the Zotero extension, Zotero.org, and eventually outside developers, to manipulate users, groups, and millions of synced Zotero library items.
* Presented my work on Zotero at the American Studies Association conference (Albuquerque, 2008) as part of a panel titled, “Digital Crossroads: Online Tools for Open and Collaborative Research”.
* Lead programmer on TeachingHistory.org, a collaboration between Stanford University and GMU. I worked with education experts and project leaders to define requirements and priorities. Used Drupal to create a website with 14,000 pages of content for history educators.
* Developed research and wireframes for online exhibit building interfaces to be integrated into Omeka, an open source CMS designed for small to medium sized museums and libraries. -
Web Application Developer
University of California, Berkeley
(Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)
January 2007 — June 2007 (6 months)
* Designed and built software for an NSF funded experiment with Professor Coye Cheshire that explored the development of trust within online networks.
* Used Python (Django), XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript (jQuery) to implemented a web application in which research participants could engage with different forms of exchange in real time. -
Teaching Assistant
University of California, Berkeley
(Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)
September 2006 — December 2006 (4 months)
* Developed and led lab sections on Java and graded assignments on networking and cryptographic protocols for Professor John Chuang’s “Distributed Computing Applications and Infrastructure” course.
* Held regular office hours and worked with students one-on-one. -
User Researcher (intern)
Dabble
(Privately Held; Information Technology and Services industry)
May 2006 — August 2006 (4 months)
* Identified and characterized active users by mining logs and user generated data with SQL scripts
* Engaged active users in semi-structured interviews about their usage of Dabble.com.
* Provided design feedback and usability recommendations based on my research. -
Lab Manager
School of Print Media, RIT
(Printing industry)
September 2002 — June 2005 (2 years 10 months)
* Managed twenty-five lab assistants in the School of Print Media and administered their quarterly evaluations.
* Improved the lab’s efficiency with a PHP/MySQL web application that replaced several paper-based procedures and greatly increased information sharing between lab assistants. -
Web Developer
JazzTimes
(Publishing industry)
May 2004 — August 2004 (4 months)
* Redesigned the navigation of JazzTimes.com and implemented a refreshed visual design.
* Reduced maintenance overhead by migrating presentation code from HTML to CSS, integrating a system of common headers and footers, and reorganizing the backend directory structure. -
Editorial Assistant
Umbrage Editions
(Publishing industry)
June 2003 — August 2003 (3 months)
* Assisted in the production of high-quality visual books including "2-4-6-8" by Brian Finke, "The Last Paradise" by Nicolas Righetti, and "Pandemic: Facing Aids", the companion to Rory Kennedy’s HBO documentary.
* Set and proofread copy, preflighted QuarkXPress documents for press, and organized and managed thousands of original photographs. -
Research Assistant
RIT’s Digital Media Library Task Force
(Libraries industry)
March 2003 — May 2003 (3 months)
* Researched and reported on software and standards relevant to digital libraries.
* Helped develop and administer a needs assessment survey to RIT faculty. -
Multimedia Producer
Rochester Institute of Technology
(Educational Institution; Higher Education industry)
September 2001 — May 2003 (1 year 9 months)
* Produced multimedia content for online courses in color science taught by Professor Bob Chung.
* Used Final Cut Pro to capture, edit, and compress video and then Adoble Acrobat to combine PDF laboratory instructions with streaming video demonstrations. -
Intern
Finlay Printing
(Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Printing industry)
July 2001 — August 2001 (2 months)
Between high school and college, I took an internship with Finlay, a medium-sized, sheet-fed printer. I rotated throughout the facility experiencing each aspect of their workflow from prepress to bindery. I also did some development using FileMaker Pro and created PDF proofs for client approval.
Jon Lesser’s Education
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University of California, Berkeley
MIMS , Information Science , 2005 — 2007
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Rochester Institute of Technology
BS , New Media Publishing , 2001 — 2005
Additional Information
Jon Lesser’s Websites:
Jon Lesser’s Interests:
typography, photography, making electronics, printing (screen and letterpress), drumming, recording (audio and video), visiting museums, backpacking
Jon Lesser’s Groups:
Association for Computing Machinery
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UC Berkeley School of Information -
Obama for America -
RIT Alumni Group - Rochester Institute of Technology -
Rochester Institute of Technology - College of Imaging Arts and Sciences Alumni -
RIT Students, Alumni, Faculty, and Staff -
code4lib -
PUB - (RIT) -
Baltimore Node
Jon Lesser’s Honors:
UC Berkeley School of Information Graduate Fellowship, 2007
RIT Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar, 2005
Nathaniel Rochester Society Scholar, 2004
International Newspaper Group Scholar, 2003
Jon Lesser’s Contact Settings
Interested In:
- career opportunities
- consulting offers
- new ventures
- expertise requests
- business deals
- reference requests
- getting back in touch
