Matthew Tierney

Office: 209 Maxwell Dworkin 33 Oxford St. Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Phone: (503) 998-2076 Email: tierney ||| eecs.harvard.edu

Publications and talks
Directions to Maxwell Dworkin Laboratory
Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS)

Research Bookmarks
Todo List

I am currently an Undergraduate Student at Harvard University (class of 2009) concentrating in computer science, specializing in wireless networks and systems. I work under the supervision of Matt Welsh on CitySense and am currently developing the CitySense Application Manager, with guidance also from Matt's graduate student, Rohan Murty.

Research

• Publications and talks
• SYRAH: Systems Research at Harvard

Operating Systems and Networking

• CitySense Funded by the NSF GENI Project as well as a grant from Microsoft Research (SensorMap) this is the first urban-scale wireless networking testbed. Personal funding also obtained from the Harvard College Program for Research in Science and Engineering (PRISE) and the Harvard College Research Program (HCRP).
  • csperf Analogous system to `iperf` that allows one to analyze network performance.
  • CitySense Network Performance Analysis System
  • CitySense User Account Management System

Mathematics and Computer Science Theory

• Fast Matrix Multiplication and Representation Theory
  When I made my transition from mathematics to computer science, a natural first step was exploring application of representation theory to fast matrix multiplication. Thanks to Salil Vadhan for introducing me to this topic.

• "Finding Varieties in Nonlinear Systems of Equations using Algebraic Geometry and Maple" Using Wu's method of automatic geometric theorem proving, one can solve homogeneous systems of nonlinear equations analytically. This technique thus has great implications on our ability to understand the equilibrium relationships amongst agents in nonlinear systems. One particular problem that motivates this work is finding equations that describe the relationships between NO_x and CO_x gases (i.e. greenhouse gases).
  • International Science and Engineering Fair 2005: Press from ISEF and the American Mathematical Society.

Publications and Talks

• Mosoko: a mobile marketplace for developing regions. Jonathan Ledlie, Nathan Eagle, Matthew Tierney, Mark Adler, Harri Hansen, and Jamey Hicks. In Proceedings of Designing Interactive Systems for Communities in the Developing World, Cape Town, South Africa, February 2008.
• CitySense: A Vision for an Urban-Scale Wireless Networking Testbed. Rohan Murty, Abhimanyu Gosain, Matthew Tierney, Andrew Brody, Amal Fahad, Josh Bers, and Matt Welsh. Harvard University Technical Report TR-13-07.
• CitySense: An Urban-Scale Wireless Networking Testbed. Matthew Tierney. Talk presented at Program for Research in Science and Engineering 2007 Symposium.


• Introduction to Ubuntu Linux. Matthew Tierney. Presentation at President and Fellows of Harvard University User Assistants' "Training Camp" 2006.
• Atmospheric Reaction Equations. Matthew Tierney. Presentation at Nonlinear Systems Group (Portland State University, 2005). Talk abstract.

• Fall 2007 CS50 - Intro to Computer Science I "Virtual" TF. Held online office hours 1-2 hours per week.
• Fall 2006 Bureau of Study Council Tutor (CS50, Math 23a, Math 21a).
• 2003-2004 McKinley Elementary School Special-Ed Kindergarten TA
• 2003-2005 Westview High School National Honor Society Math and Science Tutor
• 2000-2001 Five Oaks Middle School Algebra I TA

Bio: I have been an undergraduate student concentrating in Computer Science at Harvard University since 2005. He completed his high school studies at Westview High School in Portland, OR. I graduated from Westview in 2005.

Current activities:

• Research Assistant, Core Engineering Team Member (2006-Present). CitySense.
  • Funded by grants from the NSF (GENI Project) and Microsoft. PI: Matt Welsh
  • See research section for more details.
• Web and Audio Interface Developer (2007-Present). Mosoko
  • Project at Nokia Research Center Cambridge (NRCC)
  • Building "Craiglist for the Next Billion." First target deployment: Nairobi, Kenya.
  • Developing administrative front-end for managing Mosoko user accounts using Ruby on Rails, PHP, JavaScript, AJAX.
  • Beginning Feb 2008, I will work on Asterisk (an open-source platform for telephony operations) portions of Mosoko
• Software Design Engineer Intern (2006). Microsoft Corporation.
  • In Summer 2006, I interned as a Software Design Engineer at Microsoft in the Collaboration Technologies team of the Windows Networking and Device Technologies group, working directly with Gianluigi (Gigi) Nusca as his mentor and Scott Briggs as his manager. He built a distributed web cache using new P2P technology (PNRP) that was intellectually-inspired by Squirrel and Pastry.
• IT Chair, Interim (2006). The Harvard Crimson.
  • Managed IT development at the oldest university newspaper in the United States. On-call 24x7 as interim IT Chair during Fall 2006. Oversaw Fall 2006 "comp." Personally developed an integrated PDF export system for newspaper for Fall 2005 "comp."
• Linux Instructor (2006). The Presidents and Fellows of Harvard University.
  • Trained 70+ User Assistants during the annual "UA Training Camp." Also a UA during 2006.
• Junior Research Fellow (2005). Clay Mathematics Institute.
  • Worked with MIT Professor Pavel Etingof at CMI Research Academy in Representation Theory.

Other software releases and past activities: (Also see research links above)

• AIM Bot AI
  After receiving some inspiration to automate the RSA Number Factoring system, I worked on developing AIM bots in PERL using the OSCAR Protocol module. This was a fun exploration that resulted in a few interesting results regarding applications that could scrape information off the internet.
• IM Security
  A natural iteration over the RSA Number Factoring experience was examining the security behind certain protocols that exist on the Internet. Kelly Heffner provided access to this exploration (in addition to Prof Mike Smith and Rachel Greenstadt).
• RSA Number Factoring (SRSA@Home)
  Built an factoring system that implemented the General Number Field Sieve that distributed the work of sieving over a voluntary, ad-hoc network of computers.
• Crimson Staff Writer
  Wrote for The Harvard Crimson in Fall 2005 before switching to joining their IT Board later that fall. Writer profile can be found here.

Research-related links:

• USENIX Events
• LaTeX Reference
• Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide

• Howard Aiken (circa 1950), "The problem in this business isn't to keep people from stealing your ideas; its making them steal your ideas!"
• Technology and Courage