About Me
My name is Kyle J. Summers and I am an engineering student, web developer, and entrepreneur, yet the division between these identities is often blurred and undefined (certainly NaN).
Student
As of September 2011, I will be a third-year undergraduate at the University of Michigan, studying Computer Science in the College of Engineering and pursuing a minor in Spanish Language, Literature, and Culture.
Research
I serve as a research assistant for projects involving web application development. I currently work as a Web Application Developer for the Michigan Interactive & Social Computing research group at the School of Information, where I am contributing to the Rumors project.
The project is designed to analyze tweets on Twitter to determine whether or not they appear to be rumors and to provide users with feedback on the legitimacy of information, including sources that correct misinformation. The project is focused on political rumors. I am currently developing a Firefox browser extension designed to color code tweets in one's Twitter timeline based on whether or not an algorithm (server-side) determines that they are rumor-like.
Previous to working for the School of Information, I was a web developer working on a research project that resulted in the Mobile Participation System. This system was created by Ari Chivukula and myself and is a software-based student response system for use by universities. I co-authored a paper on this system, which won the John A. Curtis Lecture Award for the best paper in the Computers in Education Division at the 118th ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition.
Student Government
I am the current Chief of Staff of the Michigan Student Assembly. I serve as an overall project manager for executive initiatives, oversee communications, interface with staff and develop information technology solutions. One of the IT projects is UPetition, which is an online petition service that I created for use within the University of Michigan community. The service has been used by over 9,000 individuals.
Facebook Camp Hackathon
In March 2011, I had an awesome time participating in Facebook's Camp Hackathon at the University of Michigan with Brian Ford, Sharon Lee and Andrew Robinson. After 24 hours of programming (and the occasional RipStick joy ride), our team won the grand prize at the Michigan competition with a Facebook application we created called Social Jam. Social Jam allows Facebook users to create music with their friends. We're excited to go on to compete against teams from other universities at Facebook's headquarters in November.
Web Development
I began teaching myself about web technologies when I was 11. Since then I've worked on several freelance, personal and research projects. I am knowledgable with the following technologies: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, Linux and Apache. jQuery is my JavaScript library of choice. I am generally quite good at making things functional, but not always aesthetically pleasing — I'm working on that, though. I think Paul Irish's HTML5 Boilerplate system is pretty cool. I like spaces instead of tabs (though I won't fight you on it).
Contact Me
You can contact me via email at kjs@kylejsummers.com or call me. You can also connect with me elsewhere online.
Colophon
This webpage is based on the HTML5 Boilerplate by Paul Irish, et al. It uses jQuery for the photo effect and jQuery UI for the click-to-call dialog. The font for the headings is Crimson Text, available via the Google Web Fonts API. Body text is set in Arial. The background pattern is Vichy from Subtle Patterns. HTML5 Logo by W3C.