Welcome to Paul's Personal Work Space
Hello. This is a kind of home office where you may you may find information about my the kinds of research and development that I've been involved with - it is a personal perspective on work and study. My career is currently in transition, so this site, which was originally hosted at Oxford University, is also! As I write, I've just completed my present employment as Web Officer at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, which started in October 2009 (actually on St. Frideswide's Day) and ended in June 2012. From July I shall be based in Doha, working for the Qatar Museums Authority.
Previously I was employed by Computing Services between 2000 and 2008, so not surprisingly these pages relate mainly to IT. However, I have other research/academic interests, which led me to complete a Master's in religious studies, a new chapter for me, and so I got to know firsthand what it's like to be a student in the 21st century rather than the 20th! Yet even then I didn't leave IT completely, helping out with the Web site for St. Cross, the college where I was based.
I try also to convey some other aspects about my working environment. So far it has mostly been relating to Oxford, where I've witnessed marked changes in the city's landscape with the redevelopment of the Radcliffe Infirmary site. A both pleasant and sometimes technically challenging aspect of Oxford University's distributed nature is that departments like Computing Services are housed in Georgian buildings with a rabbit warren of corridors, winding staircases, attics and basements. :-)
Amongst my current research topics is the design of social networking sites, a project I'm calling Sigala. It has grown out of a paper I gave in December 2010 at the World Conference on Buddhism and Science, in which I applied Buddhist teachings that focus on the cultivation of true friendship.
[photo credit: Mananya Pattamasoontorn]
Note on Using This Site
This Web site is developed in Web technologies (mainly XHTML and CSS) in accordance to standards specified by W3C and should be simple to navigate. Please let me know (via the contact page) if you have problems with access.
