About Me
Hi! My name is Ben, and I'm originally from Madison, Wisconsin. I graduated with my Bachelor's Degree in both Computer Science and Mathematics from Northwestern University in June 2026, and stuck around to complete my Master's in CS by December 2026. I really enjoy problem solving and collaborating with others, and have found my favorite experiences while coding always involve classmates and me hunkering down for hours on end.
The languages that I'm most familiar with are Python and C++, though I am also quite comfortable with Java, JavaScript, C, and C#. Last summer, I was at WPS Health Solutions as an application developer intern, and I'm currently looking for 2027 early career roles in Software Engineering.
When not coding, you'll likely find me making music, whether it be playing upright bass in Northwestern's Philharmonia Orchestra, playing electric bass in my band, or playing a combination of both in student productions on campus. This past year, I played in Pippin as well as an entirely student-written production titled The Ballad of Ricky Jo. I also enjoy playing tennis and softball, watching baseball, and reading.
If you'd like to connect or collaborate, please feel free to get in touch.
Projects
Catan, built from scratch
A full implementation of the Catan board game, built with a team under strict engineering discipline: test-driven development, boundary value analysis, EasyMock for isolating dependencies, and SpotBugs and CheckStyle enforced on every commit.
I worked on the core game model, classes like BoardHandler, Port, Hex, Robber, and GameModel, and wrote integration and unit tests as the codebase grew.
Guitar Hero, played on a Micro:bit
A Guitar Hero–style game utilizing three separate Micro:bits, all communicating wirelessly. One connected to a glove to detect finger flexion, another inside a 3D-printed guitar pick to detect strumming, and a third running the actual game logic and display.
We converted self-recorded guitar strums into arrays used in PWM cycles for audio playback, and wrote drivers for most of the sensors. One of my favorite projects I've ever worked on!
Interactive coral reef
A 3D underwater scene for a computer graphics course, which required OBJ model parsing, Phong lighting, texture mapping, caustic light patterns on the seafloor, volumetric light rays through the water, and a skybox cubemap holding it all together.
Time the shark's animation cycle to hunt down and eat a goldfish, or tap spacebar to propel the jellyfish upward. A full camera system lets you move through the scene, with both orthographic and perspective views.
Sleep is for the Week
A Vampire Survivors–style game built for a game design course focused on interactive and progressive gameplay. Waves of enemies scale up as you survive longer, and the player steadily unlocks new abilities and upgrades.
I built four unlockable weapons, each with a distinct attack pattern that changes how you play as your run progresses. I also handled character and camera movement, tuning aspects such as movement smoothing and predictive camera tracking.
