Matthew Blanco

Education

Northeastern University

Boston, MA

09.2019 - 05.2024

B.S. Computer Science & Design

GPA: 3.7 / 4.0

Honors in Design

Extracurriculars: NUHOC (Huskiers and Outing Club) Oasis Software Accelerator

IE University

Madrid, Spain

09.2022 - 12.2022

B.A. Design Exchange Student

GPA: 3.72 / 4.0

Extracurriculars: IE Climbing Club

Work Experience

Creative Coding Program Assistant - Northeastern University
07.2024 - 08.2024
Vienna, AT

- Assisted teaching underclassmen students, of various degrees, Processing programming language throughout weekly project sprints.

- Held workshops to teach students programming and version control principles including Git and basic functional programming.

- Presented weekly projects to showcase what Processing and P5.js are cabable of within a graphic design practice.

- Worked with professors to divide assistant responsibilities and make sure students were aware of course resources

UI & Visualization Developer - Center for Design
05.2022 - 05.2024
Boston, MA

- Designed and Developed a modular UI to search, filter, and analyze company data from Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, Italy’s largest bank, to a rendered network and circular packing visualizations.

- Collaborated with other team members to properly implement visualization prototypes iterating off of feedback from team members and stakeholders

- Created an independent open-source ReactJS component library used throughout the visualization and in other Center for Design projects.

Front-End Engineer - RECUR
01.2023 - 05.2023
Boston, MA

- Updated default brand styling when creating new brand marketplaces.

- Abstracted UI to more easily switch between brands and different visual styles.

- Added additional profile customization by allowing users to select and display items between brands.

Visualization Researcher & Designer - MIT Visualization Group
01.2022 - 08.2022
Boston, MA

- Created Olli, an open-source JavaScript library improving accessibility of data visualization with screen readers for blind and low-vision users.

- Implemented an adapter design pattern allowing the tool to be used alongside any visualization library such as Vega, Vega-Lite, and Observable Plot.

- Intentionally developed the library to be as light-weight as possible reducing overall dependencies and overhead when added to websites.

- Published the project to NPM and submitted the work as an academic poster that was accepted to IEEE VIS 2022.

Programming Language Researcher - NUPRL
01.2023 - 06.2023
Boston, MA

- Contributed to the development of an open-source dynamic taint analysis tool for the JavaScript programming language.

- Added support to track program taint through JavaScript Promises and Async and Await operations through adding multiple function call stacks throughout the analysis and intercepting Promise events.

- Supported in part by National Science Foundation REU Project # 2109395.

Teaching Assistant - Computer Science Fundamentals - Northeastern University
09.2020 - 12.2020
Boston, MA

- Graded assignments on a weekly basis providing thoughtful feedback on students code giving comments on both functionality and design of solutions

- Communicated with fellow TAs and faculty on assignment expectations and abnormal homework submissions

Software Engineer Intern - Alluxio
06.2019 - 09.2019
San Mateo, CA

- Developed automatic documentation generation for CLI commands by scraping current documentation files in Markdown and modifying the format to better suite the command line.

- Used Docker simulate an Alluxio cluster in order to test and improve metric collection and dashboard layouts to better visualize the health of an Alluxio cluster.

- Authored a blog post about setting up new metric collection software with Alluxio

Projects

Exploring Hidden Worlds: Investigating a New Future of Code

2024

skills: JavaScript HTML CSS ThreeJS D3

- Designed a 3D visualization exploring a new visual representation of code.

- Prototyped methods to visually represent complex networks.

- Wrote custom program to statically analyze JavaScript specifically searching for directory hierarchy and scoping between functions, classes, conditionals, and loops.

- Supported by URF Summit Award and Honors in the Discipline while at Northeastern University.

Northeast Outing Club Association Brand Overhaul

2024

skills: InDesign Figma Illustrator

- Led a small team of designers creating a comprehensive brand guideline for NEOCA a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

- Prototyped and Redesigned NEOCA's website to better convey the organization's message, mission and goals.

- Wrote an extensive outreach & fundraising strategy incorporating visual guidelines with the organization's mission and values.

Leadership

Huskiers and Outing Club (NUHOC)

09.2021 - 06.2024

Positions: President, VP Organization, VP Trips, VP Communication

- Organized dozens of day trips and weekend trips to the White Mountains keeping students safe while hiking and exploring various trails.

- Managed NUComers, a 120 person weekend at NUHOC's lodge property outside Shelburne, NH for underclassmen who have never been to the property before. Introducing them to the club and to the White Mountains.

- Facilitated an open and welcoming community for underclassmen to learn and get involved in the club.

- Hosted talks and workshops on outdoor prepardness, safety, and trip planning.

Oasis Software Project Accelerator

09.2021 - 04.2022

Positions: Program Coordinator

- Managed a cohort of upperclassmen mentors to advise groups of underclassmen in project development

- Led workshops on project development skills such as version control, front-end web frameworks, databases, and visual languages

- Planned weekly meetings for project work sessions for groups to get together make progess on their respective projects

Publications

2024. Exploring Hidden Worlds: Investigating a New Future of Code Northeastern University RISE 2024

2024. Harnessing Information Visualization as a Vehicle for Translational Design Design Research Society (DRS2024)

2022. Olli: An Extensible Visualization Library for Screen Reader Accessibility IEEE VIS2022 Posters

2022. Augur: Dynamic Taint Analysis for Asynchronous JavaScript ASE2022 Conference on Automated Software Engineering

Awards

2024. Meserve Award - Design

2024. URF PEAK Summit Award

2023. Honors in the Discipline

2020. Max Thomas Explore the World Scholarship

2019. Eagle Scout