Project Manager Software Engineer

Arpi Mardirossian, Ph.D.

**** *. ***** ***** **., Glendale, CA 91206

****.************@*****.***, 818-***-****

EDUCATION

Ph.D., Industrial and Systems Engineering 08/2007

Concentration - Operations Research, Minor - Computer Science

Dissertation Topic - Music Information Retrieval and Visualization

University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering

M.S., Operations Research Engineering 05/2004

University of Southern California, Viterbi School of Engineering

B.A., Mathematics and Economics 05/1998

Occidental College

INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE

Project Lead 12/2009 – present

Music X Project with the Integrated Media Systems Center and KUSC

Developing a dance based music visualization that dynamically synchronize dances to music and

selects visualization colors based on the mood of the music.

Information Design Consultant 01/2008 – present

ToCarte LLC

Technologies used: Google Visualization API, Flex, MySQL, Photoshop.

Design and develop static and dynamic visualizations of related data for use in the presentations of

highly successful finance seminars.

Perform extensive data cleansing and analysis.

Freelance Web Developer 10/1999 – present

Technologies used: HTML, DHTML, AJAX, CSS, JavaScript, JSP, MySQL, Photoshop.

Design, create and maintain web sites for a range of clients from corporate to non-profit.

Perform the full spectrum of web development tasks, including design and layout, graphics creation,

logo design, banners, web programming, content creation, and ongoing updates.

Outsource and manage projects when applicable.

Interface and Media Design Manager 03/2008 – 12/2008

Buzznet Inc.

Technologies used: Flex, PHP, Photoshop.

Organized the development of a fully interactive audio product with components used to explore

(search, browse, recommendations, and playlists), experience (music and video player,

visualizations), and interact with (activities, games) a music collection.

Developed algorithms for music recommendation and visualization for use in the audio product.

Designed and acted as project manager for the development of several music and video player

applications.

Designed and developed a visualization application.

Designed and developed interactive widgets used to boost ad revenue.

Software Engineer 07/2000 – 09/2002

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Public Communications Service, Information Technology

Technologies used: Java, C++, JavaScript, JSP, HTML, SQL Server, MySQL, version control.

Determined requirements for, designed, developed, and tested applications.

Lead team of engineers as a project manager in developing and presenting various software

applications to clients including a Business Intelligence utility.

Assessed business requirements and proposed new project ideas.

Wrote stored procedures, designed and maintained databases, and created a variety of queries to

analyze and transfer data.

Created annual financial analysis and forecasting reports of clients.

Consultant 01/1999 – 10/1999

Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe LLP, Financial Services Group

Conducted financial analyses for clients, including present value, yield and cash flow analyses, asset

valuation, and structuring of municipal bond offerings.

Created MS Excel templates and macros for financial statements.

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

Lecturer 08/2007 – present

University of Southern California

Daniel J. Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

Teach both graduate and undergraduate courses in Operations Research.

Topics covered include linear programming, networks, dynamic programming, Markovian models,

queueing, and computer simulation.

Teach online courses through the Distance Education Network.

Research Assistant 10/2002 – 08/2007

University of Southern California

Technologies used: Java, Matlab, MySQL.

Funded by a National Science Foundation Information Technology Research (NSF-ITR) grant on

Music Information Retrieval (MIR) as well as a Digital Dissertation Fellowship from the Institute of

Multimedia Literacy at the University of Southern California.

Designed and tested several methods to assess music similarity using pitch and key features.

Designed and developed music visualizations including both static aggregate and dynamic time-based

visualizations.

Developed an intuitive and user-centered interface to be used for music visualization.

Implemented the Spiral Array CEG key-finding algorithm.

Developed an evaluation method for key-finding algorithms.

PUBLICATIONS

Arpi Mardirossian. “Investigations in Music Similarity: Analysis, Organization, and Visualization

Using Tonal Features.” Ph.D. dissertation, Industrial and Systems Engineering, University of

Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 2007.

Arpi Mardirossian and Elaine Chew. “Visualizing Music: Tonal Progressions and Distributions.” 8 th

International Conference on Music Information Retrieval, Vienna, Austria, 2007.

Arpi Mardirossian and Elaine Chew. “Music Summarization via Key Distributions: Analyses of

Similarity Assessment Across Variations.” 7th International Conference on Music Information

Retrieval, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 2006.

Arpi Mardirossian and Elaine Chew. “Key Distributions as Musical Fingerprints for Similarity

Assessment.” 1st IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Information Processing and Retrieval,

Irvine, CA, 2005.

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Arpi Mardirossian and Elaine Chew. “SKeFiS -- a symbolic (MIDI) key-finding system.” Extended

abstract (3 pages). 1st Annual Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange, ISMIR 2005,

London, UK, 2005.

Arpi Mardirossian. “Pattern Theoretic Model of Square Dance Calling.” B.A. thesis, Department of

Mathematics, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, 1998.

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

8th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval. “Visualizing Music: Tonal Progressions

and Distributions.” Vienna, Austria, 09/24/2007.

Southern California Computing in Music Inaugural Symposium. “Modeling Music’s Look, Feel and

Behavior.” University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, 02/17/2007.

7th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval. “Music Summarization via Key

Distributions: Analyses of Similarity Assessment Across Variations.” Victoria, Canada, 10/11/2006.

1st IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Information Processing and Retrieval. “Key

Distributions as Musical Fingerprints for Similarity Assessment.” Irvine, California, 12/14/2005.

Epstein Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering Ph.D. Seminar. “Key Distributions as

Musical Fingerprints for Similarity Assessment.” University of Southern California, Los Angeles,

CA, 11/30/2005.

4th Annual Institute of Industrial Engineers Doctoral Colloquium. “The Rating Game – Methods for

Evaluating Key Finding Algorithms.” Atlanta, Georgia, 05/15/2005.

Graduate and Professional Student Senate Interdisciplinary Conference. “A Hierarchical Description

Tree and Similarity Measure for Content-Based Retrieval of Tonal Music.” University of Southern

California, Los Angeles CA, 04/02/2004.

Graduate Technology Alliance Technical Exposition. “A Hierarchical Description Tree and Similarity

Measure for Content-Based Retrieval of Tonal Music.” University of Southern California, Marshall

School of Business, Los Angeles CA, 09/16/2003.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Demo and Exhibits Committee Chair 05/2008 – 09/2008

9th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval

Co-Organizer 01/2007 – 02/2007

Southern California Computing in Music (SCCiM) Inaugural Symposium

Co-Organizer 05/2005 – 09/2005

1st Annual Music Information Retrieval Evaluation eXchange

6th International Conference on Music Information Retrieval

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