Alva L. Couch was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina where he attended the North Carolina School of the Arts as a high school major in bassoon and contrabassoon performance. He received an S.B. in Architecture from M.I.T. in 1978, after which he worked for four years as a systems analyst and administrator at Harvard Medical School. Returning to school, he received an M.S. in Mathematics from Tufts in 1987, and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Tufts in 1988. He became a member of the faculty of Tufts Department of Computer Science in the fall of 1988, and is currently an Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Tufts. Prof. Couch is the author of several software systems for visualization and system administration, including Seecube(1987), Seeplex(1990), Slink(1996) Distr(1997), and Babble(2000). In 1996 he also received the Leibner Award for excellence in teaching and advising from Tufts. He has assisted in maintaining the Tufts computer systems for Computer Science teaching and research since 1985, when he was a Ph.D. student. He can be reached by surface mail at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 161 College Avenue, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155. He can be reached via electronic mail as couch@eecs.tufts.edu. His work phone is (617)627-3674.
A senior while this work was in progress, Noah Daniels received his BS in Computer Science, cum laude, from Tufts University in May 2001, and formerly studied Physics at Swarthmore College. He is currently a systems engineer for Analog Devices, Inc. in Wilmington, Massachusetts. His current position entails supporting a large network of SunOS and Solaris-based microchip testers in the backend manufacturing division of Analog. Prior to this, Noah was a system and networking consultant for Interliant, Inc. (formerly Net Daemons, Associates) in Woburn, Massachusetts. His interests within the realm of computer science include algorithms, system administration, and the Darwin kernel. When not in front of a keyboard, Noah enjoys playing the violin, running, and being around (and attempting to ride) horses. Noah can be reached via email at ndaniels@eecs.tufts.edu, and via postal mail at 509 Main St. Apt. B, Waltham, MA 02452.