About Me

Since 2017 I'm a software engineer on the Shiny team at RStudio. Previously I worked at Adzerk (2014-2017), ViaSat (2014), The Fresh Diet (2013), LonoCloud (2012), and Relevance (now Cognitect, 2010-2012). Prior to entering the software industry I attended RIT and completed an enlistment in the US Army Reserve as a Civil Affairs specialist. I served two tours in Iraq and was discharged honorably in 2011 as a Staff Sergeant. I earned an Information Technology degree from RIT in 2012.

Professional Computing

Since starting with RStudio in 2017 I am a professional R programmer and am actively growing my skills in the areas of visualization, statistics, and R. I am leveraging my previous experiences with Lisp and reactivity in a new domain in my role on the Shiny team.

Previously I was a professional Clojure programmer and contributed to the language's development. My interests revolved around Clojure, ClojureScript, and the open source "ecosystem" that surrounds the two. With Micha Niskin I developed and maintain Hoplon, a Clojure and ClojureScript framework promoting a spreadsheet-inspired model for web application development. Also with Micha, I co-created the Boot build tool.

Recreational Computing

As a hobby I study and tinker with historical and experimental programming languages, concepts, and environments. Lately I've been interested in the concept of a multi-touch concatenative language editor and environment. I have an enduring interest in John Backus's "function level" programming paradigm that he first described in his 1977 Turing Award Lecture. I'm also interested in structural and residential program editors and have experimented with my own for editing Lisp structurally as was once done in BBN-family Lisps like Interlisp. Previous interests of mine include Functional Reactive Programming, SWI Prolog, and Unix programming.

Speaking

Training

I assisted teaching the Shiny workshop at rstudio::conf in San Diego, CA (2018).

I helped with ClojureBridge in Durham, NC (2015).

In 2014, with Clinton Dreisbach, I co-taught the first ClojureBridge in Durham, NC. I previously co-taught the Computing with Clojure workshop at OSCON 2012 with Clinton.

With Craig Andera, I developed and produced "Clojure Fundamentals - Part 1", an introductory online course for Pluralsight (2012).

During my time at Relevance I helped develop and deliver Clojure and Datomic training to audiences both public and private. I also delivered ad-hoc training to clients on other topics such as git and Ruby.

Editing

I was the technical editor for Clojure for the Brave and True (2015) by Daniel Higginbotham. I also wrote its Foreword.

Hackerspaces

While I'm less involved with the maker movement than I once was, I co-founded and was the first president of both Interlock Rochester in Rochester, NY and Splat Space in Durham, NC.