Dara Curran Email & Phone Number

Ireland

Key member of the transition team responsible for the integration of Text IQ's product line into Relativity's flagship product.Architected and lead the team responsible for the transition of the personal information detection product from a monolithic architecture to a micro-service multi-tenant system. I provide technical guidance to a number of engineering teams across departments.

(Acquired By Relativity)

Transitioned Text IQ's flagship privileged document identification from single-box to large horizontal scaling.Architected and led development of Text IQ's personal information detection and entity normalisation products.

Architected and led the team responsible for the cloud version of the CMX Analytics product, utilising AWS native technologies. Worked on developing a Kubernetes-based infrastructure platform on which Cisco DNA currently runs.

Key member of transition team shaping our startup wifi analytics product to scale following its acquisition by Cisco. The software became part of the CMX Analytics suite of products.

Led a team responsible for the research and development of a series of machine learning tools for contact centre call analysis.

(Acquired By Cisco)

Responsible for the research and implementation of machine learning algorithms applied to indoor wifi-based location analytics.

Led a team responsible for the research and development of highly-scalable GPS location analytics algorithms for the AdMobius's product line using Hadoop.

I co-founded PelicanWeb in May 2002 and managed the company on a part-time basis since then. As well as the technical and research duties described below, I am responsible for all company administration including financial management, recruitment, marketing, the creation of funding applications and the production of documentation as part of the tendering process for potential projects.I researched and developed a number of web-based applications for a variety of clients and purposes and my main interest in this field lies in the construction of state-of-the-art content management systems. The requirements for content management system performance have increased dramatically recently, owing to significant competition and customer needs in the marketplaceI led a development team in the construction of several internet applications, including our flagship multi-lingual content management system, now employed by a number of high profile public sector websites.

Worked on a neural network based intrinsic plagiarism detection system

My current work as Embark Postdoctoral Fellow encompasses a number of aspects relating to the simulation of cultural learning, defined as a means of non-genetic information exchange between individuals. My research to date, has examined:• DiversityDiversity measures how different each member of the population is from all others and is traditionally measured at a genetic level. My work has examined how the diversity of a population can be influenced by learning.• Dynamic EnvironmentsTraditional evolutionary computation problems reside in a purely static environment. However, in most real-world problems, solutions are likely to vary as time passes and external factors affect the environment.• Culture and CooperationThe study of cooperation between individuals has long been the focus of much research. In particular, the emergence and stability of cooperative behaviour is of crucial importance to researchers wishing to understand cooperation in the natural world.

I began working as an Evolutionary Computation Consultant as part of a project undertaken by the Cork Constraint Computation Centre (4C). The project is in conjunction with Treemetrics, a software company specialising in optimising value recovery in forestry. My role was to develop a suitable genetic algorithm solution to efficiently distribute forestry products taken from a number of different forests to a number of mills in such a way as to satisfy each mill’s requirements.I am currently collaborating with Dr. Conor Nugent, Dr. Steve Prestwich and Dr. James Little at 4C on the publication of initial results.

As Applied Computing Teacher, I was responsible for lecture delivery and for the provision of a support role for students experiencing academic difficulties. .The teaching aspect of my role included lecture preparation and delivery, project and assignment development, tutorial delivery and exam preparation and correction.

During my time as Assistant lecturer in the NUIG I.T. department, I was responsible for the development and delivery of the Artificial Life course, a new Advanced Topics course for 4th year students (CT433), covering evolutionary programming and artificial life simulation development. The development of the course required extensive research and the identification of appropriate materials to discuss.I also assisted in the preparation of the Database Systems course for 3rd year students (CT332). This involved researching and preparing written materials as well as the development and correction of project-based assignments given to the class. Topics covered included transaction processing, scheduling, recoverability, distributed databases, object oriented databases and database security.

As assistant lecturer I was responsible for the development and delivery of detailed C programming tutorials for 2nd year undergraduate information technology students (CT229).The tutorials covered topics discussed during lectures but also included material specifically requested by the students through formal and informal feedback.In addition, I produced and corrected a series of project-based assignments for the class throughout the year.The tutorial and project topics covered a variety of important algorithms including sorting techniques, trees and queues.

As teaching assistant, my duties included the correction of Database Systems assignments for 3rd year undergraduate Information Technology students (CT332).The assignments broadly covered each topic discussed in class including scheduling of transactions and crash recovery.

My duties at Virtual Access consisted of the development of embedded software for the company’s router systems. I was responsible for developing new features on the router, debugging and test tool development. I researched, documented and developed a number of test tools, which are now used for automated testing of the router’s capabilities, as well as a number of core developments such as the router’s DHCP server and its VPN compatibility.

I was employed at Omnia software chiefly as a web software developer. This involved substantial programming in ASP and Perl as well as the design of underlying database structures in both Access and DB2. During my work at Omnia I was responsible for a number of web sites, in particular the complete design and development of an online document repository system. The design and code developed with this system were later used as the basis for other projects.

Phd, Artificial Intelligence

My PhD work was based on research in evolutionary computation, particularly with regard to learning models inspired by natural systems..

B.Sc., Information Technology