Karen Arla Rustad
2721 Ashby Place
Berkeley, CA 94705
952-210-6598
karen@ischool.berkeley.edu
http://www.littlegreenriver.com
Education
University of California, Berkeley; Berkeley, CA
Master of Information Management and Systems; degree expected May 2012
UC Berkeley School of Information Fellowship recipient
Current GPA: 3.88
Scripps College; Claremont, CA
B.A. Media Studies,
magna cum laude, 2008
Work Experience
Graduate Student Researcher, UC Berkeley; January 2012 - present
I am building a Django-based web application for viewing, coding, and analyzing sensitive online privacy complaint data sets for Professor Deirdre Mulligan.
IOLab TA, UC Berkeley; August - December 2011
I helped teach Information Organization Lab, an I School course on beginning web development using HTML, CSS, JavaScript/JQuery, and a variety of other technologies and tools. I gave lectures with live code demonstrations on beginning JavaScript/JQuery, CSS3 and design basics, and a two-part specially-written Django tutorial.
Google Summer of Code Participant, Code for America; May - August 2011
I designed and helped build the initial prototype of CfA Brigade, a Ruby on Rails-based web app for which Code for America recently received a $1.5 million grant from Google. CfA Brigade is a web application and set of strategies to help Code for America promote civic hacking and coordinate and communicate with volunteer designers, developers, and community activists in cities across the United States. My internship was sponsored by the Google Summer of Code open source software development program for students.
Reader, MS 190 Gender and Media, UC Berkeley, August – December 2010
Director of Research and Design, OpenHatch; June 2009 - October 2009
I attended weekly startup incubator meetings and lectures, created market and other research reports, wrote OpenHatch's business plan, met with industry leaders, prioritized user stories within an Agile-style development workflow, drew graphics, helped design web UIs, presented pitch for 200 investors and entrepreneurs, and many other responsibilities. OpenHatch was a web startup (now nonprofit organization) whose mission is to make it easier to contribute to free and open source software development.
Web Product Specialist, Webs.com; November 2008 - May 2009
Wrote and edited FAQ articles. Provided assistance and technical support to customers. Reported concerns and bugs to the developer team.
Web/Video Contractor, SPARC; July - November 2008
Wrote blog posts and managed online content. Helped film and edit "Voices of Open Access," a series of viral videos advocating open access to research for the first annual Open Access Week. Illustrated and animated another open access advocacy video, "Open Access 101".
Web Manager, Scripps Store; August 2007 – May 2008
Web/IT Intern, Genocide Intervention Network; June 2007 - August 2007
Volunteer Experience
Volunteer, GNU MediaGoblin; November 2011 - present
Board member and volunteer developer, OpenHatch; June 2010 - present
OpenHatch is a open source software project and nonprofit devoted to making it easier for new contributors to get involved in open source software communities. To do this, it uses a combination of Python/Django-based web tools and in-person advocacy and events. Besides my board duties, I also contribute code, design, patch review, and release planning to the OpenHatch software project. I have also volunteered for OpenHatch-affiliated events such as PyStar SF, a women-focused programming workshop where I taught a session on Django and Python-based web development.
Member, PyCon talk and tutorial review committees; October - December 2011
PyCon is the premier conference on the Python programming language. I helped review and curate talks and tutorials for PyCon 2012, attending and voting on talk proposals at nearly daily committee IRC meetings.
Board member and volunteer, Students for Free Culture; December 2005 - February 2008
Students for Free Culture is a student organization concerned with intellectual property and technology law and policy.
Publications and Talks
"'Suck It Up, Princess': Outreach and Diversity in FOSS Communities" May 2011.
"Community Management as a User Experience Problem" -- Wikimedia talk November 2011.
"Improving Documentation With 'Beginner's Mind', or, Fixing the Django Tutorial", PyCon talk (forthcoming) -- March 2012.
Skills, Keywords, Buzzwords:
HTML / HTML5, CSS / CSS3, JavaScript, JQuery, Python, Django, Git, SVN, Mercurial, Mac, Linux, IRC, Agile, UI, UX, design, drawing, persona development, qualitative research, writing, public speaking