Contact information

4111 Siebel Center for Computer Science
201 N. Goodwin Ave.
Urbana, IL 61801–2302
(217) 244–2274

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Current activities

I am a Medical Scholars Program (MD/PhD) student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), working toward a PhD in computer science. I am involved in research in computer architecture, focusing on architectural interaction with dynamic language runtimes. My advisor is Craig Zilles.

I am a volunteer moderator for The Boston BBS, a friendly, Macintosh-focused BBS with roots in BCS and BMUG. I volunteered as a system administrator for the University of Illinois student chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery. I have contributed to development of open source projects including Python and Trac.

Publications

• N. Riley, C. Zilles. “Transactional Runtime Extensions for Dynamic Language Performance.” EPHAM, Apr. 2008. (PDF)
• N. Riley, C. Zilles. “Hardware Transactional Memory Support for Lightweight Dynamic Language Evolution.” OOPSLA 2006 Dynamic Languages Symposium, Oct. 2006. (PDF)
• N. Riley, C. Zilles. “Probabilistic Counter Updates for Predictor Hysteresis and Stratification.” HPCA-12, Feb. 2006. (PDF)
• N. Riley, C. Zilles. “Probabilistic Counter Updates for Predictor Hysteresis and Bias.” IEEE Computer Architecture Letters, Volume 4, Aug. 2005. (PDF)

Past activities

I graduated from Brandeis University in 1999 with bachelor's degrees in biology and honors in computer science.

Significant commercial software development projects, in reverse chronological order:

• UserCreations Spring, an innovative object-based network desktop environment for Mac OS X; worked with Objective-C, Cocoa and XML (2002).
• Web-based clinical investigator management software for the pharmaceutical industry, written in Java, PL/SQL, Perl, Python, and in-house tools, for Invantage, Inc., now part of Perceptive Informatics (1997–2000).
• Financial and grant management software for use by the faculty and staff of the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Tufts University, written in Borland (now Corel) Paradox; sole designer and developer (1996–1998).
• Interactive educational software for introductory forensic science, written in Silicon Beach Software/Aldus (now Solutions Etc.) SuperCard; co-designer and sole developer (1990–1991).
• Circulation tracking and integration tools for a middle school library, written in Apple HyperCard; sole designer and developer (1989–1990).

I maintained the web site, provided email technical support and development support for a Macintosh Internet Relay Chat client, MacIRC. I volunteered for No Wonder!, a pioneering free Internet technical support service, prior to its merger with Full Circle Software, and change of direction.

Computers

I am primarily a Macintosh user, and have experience administering Debian GNU/Linux, Solaris and FreeBSD. I've programmed in many languages, starting with Applesoft BASIC and 6502 assembler when I was 5; I now write primarily in Objective-C and Python with detours into some other more specialized languages where necessary.

Personal

My recreational interests include software design, bicycling, skiing, martial arts, and playing the violoncello. See my bookmarks page for some Web sites I visit frequently, and my weblog for current news. Bits of my previous Web presence are mirrored here (Brandeis CS, Brandeis staff). My tiac.net site, for anyone who remembers it, won't be put back up—I'm too ashamed.

My parents live in Boston, Massachusetts. Our Web site is rileys.us. The remainder of my immediate family lives in Australia, and I'm not aware of much Web presence among them.

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