Hey there! My name is Brendan Rood.
I'm a Computer Scientist from Minnesota. I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Minnesota Duluth in 2024. My main areas of interest are in System Administration, Computer Security, Web Design, and Data Compression.

All my life I have been happiest when I have been creating tools that others find useful for their own work. This is why I enjoy these subfields, each allows me to optimise the tools I create to ensure their users can be as efficent and productive as possible.

System Administration: I had the pleasure of establishing a Network-Attatched Storage and Server for the Motion and Media Across Disciplines Lab at the University of Minnesota Duluth. There, I found novel ways to provide additional features with the same equipment. By the end of my time there, I had set up 1) Data Storage and Management 2) Filesharing services over a campus-wide web interface 3) An email service for automated tasks and diagnostics 4) A comprehensive documentation suite for every scrap of knowledge about the lab that I could write down 5) Sufficent documentation for my successors to continue providing excellent services for the lab.

Computer Security: I have worked on both research and teaching in the area of Computer Security during my time at the University of Minnesota Duluth. I worked with Professor Peter Peterson Ph.D. and the Laboratory for Advanced Research in Systems designing interactive mediums for teaching security misconceptions, as well as educating around 150 undergraduate students on the subject of Computer Security. Learning how to effectively teach complex concepts like Computer Security was no easy feat, but improved my communication skills considerably.

Web Design: During my time in the LARS Lab, I found that I was unable to effectively document the work I was doing and to record the results of meetings. After discovering https://tree.nathanfriend.io/, I fell in love with the unique and intuitive syntax of the notes it provided, and began to incorporate it into my routine. Unfortunately, the quality of the existing notetaking program was not to my liking, so I endeavored to refine the concept and produe my own version. Since then, I have continuously worked on the Rapid Tree Notetaker, a similar tree-based notetaking tool, but which provides vastly improved performance, design, and shareability than the original. In developing the RTN, I have gained in-depth knowledge about HTML, JavaScript, Node & NPM, CSS, Apache, PHP, Data Compression, and more! No single project has taught me more, nor has been so rewarding. I look forward to continuing to develop the RTN for the forseeable future.