Steven Merrill

Steven Merrill is an interactive and web designer and developer. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from Bradley University with a degree in Multimedia and Music and a minor in Computer Science and Information Systems. He has worked locally, and consulted for clients around the state, including doing work on the e-commerce platform used by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, building an interactive Flash map for a leading sterilization company, and building an interactive Flash application detailing the history and proper application of warning labels on Caterpillar equipment.

Mr. Merrill has over five years of building attractive, functional websites for Peoria area clients. While working at Infogenic Systems, Mr. Merrill worked on implementing content-managed web presences for non-profit clients such as the Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, Peoria Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, Heart of Illinois Regional Port District, and Young Professionals Organization and commercial clients like Pottstown Meat and Deli, David Koehler’s campaign for State Senate, and the Shoppes at College Hills. He built a newsletter platform that powers a number of newsletters for area not-for-profit clients. He has also worked on enterprise-class web applications for Caterpillar, including a complete workflow system to track orders for custom cab parts.

Mr. Merrill is a passionate advocate of web standards, and upon being hired as a Temporary Instructor in the Multimedia Program, he worked with Chad Udell and Robert Rowe to implement a new standards-based curriculum which is used in both the Introductory and Advanced Web Design classes, in which students learns not only design principles, but also how to express them using valid, semantic HTML.

Mr. Merrill has also taught special topics courses on development of multimedia for cell phones and other mobile devices. Brian McMurray, one of his students, won fifth place in a national contest with his mobile Digg application written in Flash Lite.

Mr. Merrill currently serves as the College Webmaster, where he is working on migrating all of the college’s sites to the open-source Drupal content-management platform. The Multimedia site in particular was recently launched on Drupal, and uses many Drupal tools and Yahoo! Pipes to aggregate and share student activities. Students and teachers can edit their profiles and post articles. They are given access through Drupal’s integration with Bradley University’s LDAP system. He has also helped in the creation of a Slane College podcast, which includes interviews with Bradley University staff, students and alumni who exemplify imagination, creativity and communication. One such podcast episode was done over Skype with David Howse, an alum in Boston.

When not in front of a computer, Mr. Merrill performs around the state as a tenor vocalist. He has played roles in productions by Opera Illinois, Sugar Creek Symphony and Song, and the Woodruff High School Gilbert and Sullivan Dinner Theatre. He has also performed solos with the Bradley Chorale, Braldey Community Chorus, Peoria Bach Festvla, Peoria Early Music Ensemble, and Trinity Lutheran church’s concert series. He is employed as the Tenor Section Leader and as a Cantor at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria.