I'm a software developer, civic hacker, and student.

civic hacking "Civic hacking" is creative use of technology to innovate our civic lives, especially our participation in government. GovTrack.us, a site that I built and have been running since 2004, is an open-source website that tracks what's happening in the U.S. Congress. I also work on the community and policy end of congressional transparency & technology through participating in discussions such as The Open Senate Project, attending conferences, and doing some writing where I can.

see: civic tech, publications

work By day, in a sense, I'm the chief software architect at LARSA, Inc., a small structural engineering software company with a really great product. Engineers use it to make sure bridges don't fall down.

linguistics I also am an A.B.D. graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania in the linguistics Ph.D. program. My dissertation is on the phonetic realization of [voice] and its acquisition (L1). I did a master's thesis on computational models of OT grammar acquisition. I hope (dearly) to finish in early 2010.

see: publications, software projects

other projects I have a lot of other personal software projects which I'm trying to spend less and less time on as I try to focus on the other things.

see: software projects

random bits Let's see... I'm a locavore and I like things to be orderly. More random bits about me.

resume A.B., Princeton University, 2004; A.M., University of Pennsylvania, 2008; PhD candidate, University of Pennsylvania, expected 2010. PDF

identities AIM: TwigsCogito, gchat: tauberer, Facebook, Wikipedia, stackoverflow