
Computer programmer and entrepreneur
San Francisco Bay Area

Computer programmer and entrepreneur
San Francisco Bay Area
Technology entrepreneur. Founder and CEO of Insoshi, an open-source social networking platform. Author (with Aurelius Prochazka) of RailsSpace: Building a Social Networking Website with Ruby on Rails (Addison-Wesley, 2007). Formerly founder and CTO of Quark Sports, a fantasy sports website. Interests in web development, open-source software, and distributed collaboration.
Ruby on Rails, distributed version control (Git), test-driven development, data modeling, MySQL, Linux, OS X
(Internet industry)
January 2008 — Present (1 year 7 months)
Insoshi is an open-source social networking platform in Ruby on Rails. We are backed by Y Combinator, a top seed-stage venture capital firm.
(Sole Proprietorship; Myself Only; Computer Software industry)
2005 — December 2007 (2 years)
Web development and technical consulting. Clients include Auditude, Idealab, and the Caltech Alumni Association. Author of the book RailsSpace, a best-selling introduction to the Ruby on Rails web development framework.
(Privately Held; 1-10 employees; Sports industry)
June 2003 — October 2005 (2 years 5 months)
Responsible for design and maintenance of two sports websites, a webserver, and a database server; management of relationships with outside partners and contractors.
(Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Research industry)
June 2003 — June 2005 (2 years 1 month)
Research in theoretical astrophysics (gravitational waves from compact binaries)
(Educational Institution; 5001-10,000 employees; Higher Education industry)
September 1997 — June 2003 (5 years 10 months)
Primary physics instructor for several hundred students, winner of the Caltech Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching
Ph.D. , Physics , 1997 — 2003
Dissertation research applying chaos theory to general relativity; investigation of dynamics of potential gravitational wave sources (especially binary black holes); analysis and numerical integration of nonlinear differential equations.
A.B. , Physics , 1992 — 1996
magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa
* Richard P. Feynman Book Fund Teaching Assistantship, Caltech (2002)
* ASCIT Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Teaching, Caltech (2000)
* Distinguished Research Fellowship, University of Maryland at College Park (1996)
* Phi Beta Kappa, Harvard College (1996)
* Detur Book Prize (top 4% of class), Harvard College (1993)