Drew Colthorp

Drew has over 10 years of experience with web development, dealing often with javascript-heavy web applications, database optimization, caching, and scaling. In 2008, Drew co-led a tutorial on refactoring Ruby On Rails web applications at the premier Rails conference, RailsConf. He’s also led development on several mobile applications targeting iPad, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry.

At Atomic Object, Drew has on worked on a number of projects, including

• Catalog Choice, a mail preference service for controlling direct mail marketing;
• Realius, a web-based game and collaborative prediction system which offers tools to gather data on user perception of real estate value;
• PersonalDesigner, a kiosk application that lets users paint their rooms virtually with a paint program-like interface;
• Priority Health’s mobile member ID iPhone application;
• and numerous other web and mobile applications.

Drew graduated with honors in 2006 with a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics. He was recognized as one of two outstanding seniors in his computer science graduating class.

While a student at Grand Valley State University he participated in an NSF-funded research program where he developed software using cutting-edge mathematics (bivariate Daubechies wavelets) to detect airplanes in aerial photographs. He also engaged in original research in a computer science independent study where he developed a new technique for compressing scientific data. A paper on this work was published in the 2007 IEEE Electro/Information Technology Conference.

His technical interests include algorithms, data structures, and programming languages. In his spare time, Drew enjoys reading, music, cooking, and brewing his own beer.