I have spent years working in the field of bioinformatics, first as a research associate at UC San Diego and then as a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia. While I have been a part of several successful research teams and a variety of different projects, the primary focus of my recent studies has been on the design and analysis of systems for assembling socially constructed metadata. This metadata - created by 'non-professional volunteers' and embodied in structures ranging from folksonomies to ontologies - provides the structured knowledge needed to organize large bodies of information.