Robyn Overstreet

I’m a web developer and technology teacher. I specialize in PHP, and I also code CSS, Javascript, AJAX, and Actionscript. I’m a Zend Certified Engineer.

I design and build custom content management systems, including CMSes for Flash. I also specialize in customizing WordPress for use as a CMS.

I teach web development in many different contexts, from corporate trainings to community groups, to one-on-one tutoring.

I have a Master’s degree from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, or ITP. ITP is a unique program that fuses technology and art, and encourages students to follow their curiosity, to jump in and get their hands on tools to build their ideas. While I was there, I learned electronics, and programmed on the PIC microcontroller. I built interactive projects in Java (and its clever off-spring, Processing), Flash, Director (remember that?), Perl, PHP, MySQL and so forth, and I also worked with clay, plaster, wood, aluminum, and plexiglass.

I come to technology from a background as a writer. I studied poetry and wrote poems. My undergraduate degree is in Creative Writing and I did some graduate work in Poetry at The City College of New York. My focus was in formal verse — poems in traditional forms such as the sonnet and sestina.

I still maintain that formal poetry and computer code have a lot in common with each other. I think they are beautiful in similar ways. When I first learned HTML back in the day, I found a symmetrical beauty similar to that of the sonnet.

I live in Brooklyn, New York.