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Personal Details:

	Place of birth: Bolivia
	Nationality: Italian
	Place of residence: Milan - Italy

Education:

1984-1988:	Heriot-Watt University - Edinburgh (GB)	Degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering (B.Eng honours)
1982-1984:	American School of Paris - Paris (F)	"International Baccaulaureate" Diploma, French-English
1976-1982:	Singapore American School - Singapore

My position with Schlumberger Industries involved the hardware and firmware development of microprocessor equipment for energy measurement applications. In particular, I worked on the modem boards used on remote meter reading and control systems, and developed a new electronic PTZ corrector for gas metering. At Dating I was responsible for the firmware design of magnetic card terminals employed in access control and time and attendance systems. In the above two positions I gained experience in: assembler and C language programming of microcontrollers; RS232 and RS485 communications between peripheral and host; control of remote equipment via telephone lines through use of polling protocols; intrinsically safe equipment, and the low power consumption and code optimisation issues relevant to battery powered devices. I subsequently moved into the field of language services, working as a freelance technical translator and English language teacher both with private schools and for clients such as Bocconi university. More recently, I worked as a programmer with Logika Comp, developing embedded software (in C language) for the control of plastic card personalisation equipment (embossing and magnetic stripe encoding). Using the object-oriented C++ language, I also developed PC applications for the testing of our machines. Because of my knowledge of languages, I also handled production of the English-language technical and sales documentation for our new machines, which went out to distributors in 39 foreign countries. In 1994 I was promoted to Pre-Sales & Applications Engineer. In this capacity I took part in industry trade shows (CeBit in Hannover, Smau in Milan) with the task of liaising with clients from around the world in order to clarify their requirements and define the specifications for new projects accordingly.

In that same year I took part in the development of an innovative "Mailer" system (for the personalisation of credit cards and their insertion into addressed envelopes ready for mailing), for which I handled both the firmware coding and the technical documentation. I was part of a team sent to Tokyo to install the first prototype of the system. During my stay in Japan, I presented the project to the managers of the client company and gave a course on the use of the system to their technical staff. In September 1995, I started my independent Engineering Translations (Italian to English) business, specialising in technical, scientific and industrial topics. I have since branched out from my "native" fields of electronics and ICT to gain experience in a number of other areas including: Scholarly articles, scientific papers and university course materials on subjects ranging from agriculture to macroeconomics (University of Milan - Institute of Agricultural Engineering, CNR-IRTEC, University of Udine, University of Bologna, LIUC-Carlo Cattaneo University in Varese, Sacro Cuore Catholic University - Milan, Rome, Piacenza and Cremona). Documentation of industrial plant and equipment (some recent projects include: rubber and plastics processing, cranes and aerial work platforms, chemical safety data sheets, fire fighting equipment, abrasive blasters, logistics docking terminal doors, wind turbines). Sport and recreation (Elnagh-SEA campers and motorhomes, scuba diving and gym equipment, Maserati cars, Aprea Mare power boats). Shipping and marine services (harbour and ocean towage, pollution response, ship escort). Beginning in 1998 I have also developed and made available on my website www.annanardella.it/index2.html a number of Java applications relating to my scientific areas of interest: artificial life, cellular automata, evolution and emergence, chaos, theory of games.

Last reviewed 5 February 2010