Splash Biography

J.D. ZAMFIRESCU, MIT alum; ex-Googler; startup founder

Major: Computer Science

College/Employer: LU

Year of Graduation: 2005

Brief Biographical Sketch:

J.D. has been teaching for ESP since 2002, when he taught an introductory Computer Science class for HSSP. J.D. received his Master's degree in computer science at MIT in 2006; his research focused on networks and distributed systems. After working at Google for a year, J.D. left to help start AppJet, a startup looking to make building web applications easy, which developed into EtherPad, a realtime multiplayer notepad in your browser. EtherPad was acquired by Google in 2009. Since 2011, J.D. has focused on teaching, helping spread Splash, and making cool stuff.

Learn more at http://zamfi.net

Past Classes

(Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

M285: The Internet: How does it work?? in Splash Fall 17 (Nov. 04, 2017)

Possibly the largest engineering project ever created: the Internet puts millions of smartphones and computers all milliseconds away from each other, and it's hard to imagine life without it. This fully distributed system works because of a few protocols that all Internet devices follow. In this class, we'll explore the physical and logical foundations of the Internet, and get hands-on with the four fundamental protocols most commonly used: Ethernet, IP, TCP, and HTTP. Bring a laptop (optional, but encouraged) to follow along with our exploration!

M286: Programming with Puzzles in Splash Fall 17 (Nov. 04, 2017)

Learn to program in two easy hours! Students should bring a laptop. In this course, we'll solve puzzles using code and in the process you'll learn the basics of JavaScript, one of the world's most used programming languages. Time permitting, we may also make animations using p5.js, an easy-to-learn framework for drawing and animating.

M36: The Internet: How does it work?? in Splash Spring 15 (Jan. 31, 2015)

Possibly the largest engineering project ever created by man: the Internet puts millions of phones and computers all milliseconds away from each other, and it's hard to imagine life without it. This fully distributed system works because of a few protocols that all Internet devices follow. In this class, we'll explore the physical and logical foundations of the Internet, and get hands-on with the four fundamental protocols most commonly used: Ethernet, IP, TCP, and HTTP. Bring a laptop (if you like) to follow along with our exploration!