Craig Finch - Sage beginners guide : unlock the full potential of Sage for simplifying and automating mathematical computing

Craig Finch is a Ph. D. Candidate in the Modeling and Simulation program at the University of Central Florida (UCF). He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Master of Science degree from UCF, both in electrical engineering. Craig worked as a design engineer for TriQuint Semiconductor, and currently works as a research assistant in the Hybrid Systems Lab at the UCF NanoScience Technology Center. Craig's professional goal is to develop tools for computational science and engineering and use them to solve difficult problems. In particular, he is interested in developing tools to help biologists study living systems. Craig is committed to using, developing, and promoting open-source software. He provides documentation and "how-to" examples on his blog at http://www.shocksolution.com.

I would like to thank my advisers, Dr. J. Hickman and Dr. Tom Clarke, for giving me the opportunity to pursue my doctorate. I would also like to thank my parents for buying the Apple IIGS computer that started it all.

Dr. David Kirkby is a chartered engineer living in Essex, England. David has a B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, an M.Sc. in Microwaves and OptoElectronics, and a Ph.D. in Medical Physics. Despite David's Ph.D. being in Medical Physics, it was primarily an engineering project, measuring the optical properties of human tissue, with a mixture of Monte Carlo modeling, radio frequency design, and laser optics. David was awarded his Ph.D. in 1999 from University College London.

Although not a mathematician, Dr. Kirkby has made extensive use of mathematical software. Most of his experience has been with MathematicaTM from Wolfram Research, although he has used both MATLABTM and SimulinkTM too.

David is the author of a number of open-source projects, including software for modeling transmission lines using finite difference (http://atlc.sourceforge.net/), design of Yagi-Uda antennas (http://www.g8wrb.org/yagi/) which can use a genetic algorithm for optimization, as well as software for data collection and analysis from electronic test equipment. David once wrote a web-based interface to MathematicaTM (http://witm.sourceforge.net/) which allows MathematicaTM to be used from a personal computer, PDA or smartphone.

Soon after the Sage project was started by Professor William Stein, Dr. Kirkby joined the development of Sage. He primarily worked on the successful port of Sage to the Solaris and OpenSolaris operating systems and encourages other developers to write portable code, conforming to POSIX standard, avoiding GNUisms.

Professionally, David's skill sets include computer modeling, radio frequency design, analogue circuit design, electromagnetic compatibility and opticsboth free space and integrated. David has also been a Solaris system administrator for the University of Washington where the Sage project is based.

When not working on writing software, David enjoys playing chess, gardening, and spending time with his wife Lin and dog Smudge.

Readers wishing to contact Dr. Kirkby can do so via his website http://www.drkirkby.co.uk/ where details of his consulting services may be found.

Minh Nguyen has been a contributor to the Sage project since December 2007. Over the years, he has worked on various aspects of Sage ranging from the standard documentation and modules such as cryptography, number theory, and graph theory to the Sage build system. He regularly maintains the Sage website and works on book projects that aim to provide in-depth documentation on using Sage to study cryptography and mathematics. More of his rantings can be found at http://mvngu.wordpress.com.