Katya Sadovsky - UC Irvine

Biography

I was born and raised in the city of Donetsk, Ukraine.  While in high school in the Ukraine, I became interested in computing and enrolled in specialized programming courses through a local university.  After graduating from high school, I attended the Donetsk National Technical University, department of Applied Mathematics and Programming.  My family and I immigrated to the United States in January of 1995, and I finished my B.S. degree in Computer Science at UC Irvine.

Since December of 1999, I have been working at UC Irvine's Administrative Computing Services department.  During this time I've been involved in the implementation of one the first e-commerce systems on campus, "survived" the evaluation, acquisition and subsequent implementation of a workflow engine, and worked on various Facilities and Human Resources related software projects.  I was also a technical member of a two-person team that selected and implemented uPortal as the campus business portal in 2001.

Currently, I am one of the senior technical staff in the department. I continue to be a technical lead on the business portal project, while also serving as project manager.  As a member of the Enterprise Architecture team, I review and recommend technologies, solutions, and development frameworks, and participate in application design activities and system reviews.  As a cross-team technical expert, I consult and assist development of complex Web-based, database driven applications.  I co-chair the campus web developers group. 

In addition, I am a frequent presenter at JA-SIG and EDUCAUSE conferences and a past JA-SIG conference committee member and chair.

Platform Statement 

Having been involved with JA-SIG and uPortal for over seven years, I am committed to ensuring the continued success of the organization and its projects.  JA-SIG evolved from a tight group of Java enthusiasts to an international higher-ed IT organization, and becoming a membership-based organization is a great step toward improved sustainability.

However, with the limited budgets, institutions have to pick and choose where they spend their money.  I believe JA-SIG can do more to advertise existing membership benefits and possibly continue to grow its membership structure and levels.  Also, there is a great number of developers who would be happy to contribute to JA-SIG's projects and attend conferences but who need help convincing their management that it's a worthwhile investment.

Accessibility testing is something that I have lately become involved with at UCI.  With the newly re-designed UI, uPortal looks better than ever, and, hopefully, future collaboration with the Fluid group should yield better usability of the portal.  I would be interested in exploring how JA-SIG can help the uPortal development community also improve UI accessibility.  When it comes to selecting portal software, accessibility is a deal-breaker for many institutions that are required to comply with various state and federal regulations.

Over the years JA-SIG paved the way for such consortia as Sakai, Kuali, and Fluid.  It's great to see these communities represented at JA-SIG conferences, although I feel we can do more to develop stronger ties with these communities and further promote collaboration and integration of software systems.  As a member of the UC Kuali FS implementation technical team and as project manager of UCI's uPortal instance, I am in a position to represent the needs of both communities.

In conclusion, having worked on a number of campus-wide projects, I have come to believe that ability to negotiate and compromise is key to the success of a project with a diverse team, and is a necessity for a good leader.