I'm a Software Engineer currently working on Cloud Computing and
Big Data systems.
Welcome to my personal webpage.
For my previous research work, please refer to this page
Ismaël MEJÍA
I'm a Software Engineer currently working on Cloud Computing and
Big Data systems.
Welcome to my personal webpage.
For my previous research work, please refer to this page
Ismaël MEJÍA
I've been passionate about computers since I can remember, for that reason I decided to become a Software Engineer. In that process I developed a great interest for the construction of large software projects which can improve the life and experience of many users. I'm particularly interested in systems known as large scale distributed systems which are the core of most of the web businesses and medium to big enterprises today.
I'm also interested in innovative ways to design scalable distributed systems (Cloud computing, Big Data Systems, Grids, etc...). In particular, I'm interested in adaptability and systems which are able to fix themselves also called (self-* systems). I have many years of experience in the software industry. I was lucky to be part of large projects where I saw the challenges of real systems in different business areas from telcos, taxes and financial systems.
Apart from my experiences in the industry I have always been interested in having solid academic foundations to do my work as best as possible, for that reason I decided to work towards a PhD in this domain, I expect that both my research and industry experience can contribute to create better systems.
I really appreciate when the work I do is useful to as many people as possible, for that reason I love to engage in big projects, in particular I love projects which are challenging but rewarding. I love to design and create products from the beginning to the last stage. I prefer to work in groups, in the future I would like to manage teams to design, build and improve products. My plan is to continue learning and adquiring new technical and management competences in order to do so.
I also feel confortable helping different parties with their problems, I would like to offer my abilities as well as my personal background and culture to help fixing other people problems. I love to discuss and teach since that gives me the chance to give back some of the knowledge I have acquired.
École des Mines de Nantes, France, 2009-
I was a PhD student, part of the ASCOLA group. The purpose of my research was to find better ways to modularize crosscutting concerns in large scale systems (where distribution and concurrency matter). Concretely I extended and formalized the concepts of invasive patterns, distributed aspects and architectural programming.
Universidad de los Andes. Colombia, 2008
I worked in the design of a language and infrastructure to adapt software architectures. We created little language (not turing complete) that let the users describe Software Architectures (like an ADL) but also let them write adaptation rules of the architecture's elements. The result of my work was integrated in a simple SOA architecture called Tongo
Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 2004
I created an educational tool to help students to test most of the concepts of an introductory Theory of computation course: (e.g. Automatas, NDA, regular grammars and Turing Machines
I was a teaching assistant (TA) for the following courses:
CESSA,
(collaboration with SAP R&D)
RAPIDS
(collaboration with University of Chile)
I am currently the cloud responsible at zooloop. As part of my job I must architect and engineer most of the backend systems for the company projects. Most projects are based on the Amazon Web Services cloud service.
I am currently working in a new web analytics system for Publicar. Publicar is the latinoamerican advertisement company that produces the Yellow Pages directory and different portal information sites for six countries in the region.
I also was part of the team who designed and developed the back-end system for the automatic wine distribution platform Taste Wine Co.
As one of the group Software Architects. I had to measure and design the best strategies to integrate the new requirements from the 15 members of the group (banks, investements funds, insurance companies, etc).
I co-designed and co-directed the team who created the solution for personal mobile banking (Banca Movil) which is the main mobile banking solution currently used in the banks of the Grupo Aval (Colombia's biggest financial group).
I was part of the team who created the Personal Banking website. I worked in an infrastructure to integrate the services of the multiple backends of the banks (stratus, SAP, web services, etc) in a new web service based platform
I was a consultant for the World Bank financed project to improve the software of the taxes agency of Colombia. I was part of the team who redesigned and implemented the forms system. We simplified, reduced and standarized almost eighty percent of the declaration forms. We also created a rich web interface to fill them. I also worked with the team who designed the new accounting system. I was also in the frontline solving different issues during the first release of the system.
I worked as a consultant to design, create and integrate a new web frontend for an existing SAP-based backend used to finance the user's debts.
I have benefitted for long time of open-source projects, so finally in 2014 I decided that it was time to start contributing back. First via sharing my own projects (even the silliest ones. Most of these projects have been co-writen with my big pal Rubén:
I have also collaborated actively in open-source projects related to education. I was very impressed with the opportunity of online education and MOOCs, so I enhanced tools to follow such courses, among others:
I've been living in France since 2009. I arrived to this country without knowing any single French word and this experience made me realize and discover many things e.g. the importance of different languages and cultures. It also renewed my love for history and geopolitics.
I love music, many different and sometimes incongruent styles, I love to go to concerts. I also amuse myself playing guitars and synths. I'm not a qualified musician, but from time to time I try to produce some noise with my guitar and computer. Recently I started learning how to play the drums.
Traveling is one of my favorite activities, it's the most gratifying learning experience I've ever had. Thanks to that passion I have gone to really diverse places that I never expected to see such as Thailand, Iceland and the Patagonia. I expect to continue exploring the world and learning from different cultures.
I'm interested in cooking (and eating of course), I'm particularly attracted to South European cooking (Spanish, Italian and Greek), South-Asian cuisine (Indian and Thai), and of course Latin-American cuisine where my favorite dishes are from the Peruvian and Colombian traditions.
I have a recent interest in cognitive psychology and the work of Daniel Kahneman and others in cognitive illusions, unconscious bias and irrationality. I'm really a debutant in the subject, but I find it amusing, in particular when I contrast some of these ideas with the practices of my profession and my daily life.