Background

Although born in the pacific northwest, I grew up in the Sonoran desert in one of the southwestern states in the US. Something about this combination left me with a love of both rain and heat (hot rain being the best, of course). My childhood was standard, american middle class with married parents, one sibling, and enough extended family nearby to give me a strong feeling of the importance of family.

Education

For some reason - now hard to remember exactly why - when I got around to beginning my undergraduate education I had a strong urge to study electrical engineering. Maybe it was just my love of robots mixed with a healthy enjoyment of maths. After a few years of EE, I got some good advice about software being a better way of feeding my demons but was too far along as an engineer to just switch to a new program. So, being a little too happy to spend all my time working, I started a computer science degree as well. Although the extra courses added a year to my period at that university, it was worth it; I finished up the two programs in 2005.

The idea of study and research had always seemed like a great way to spend my time and so I began a PhD program in CS immediately after my undergraduate education. Although I enjoyed the work I did and the people I worked with, the amount of political bullshit that is a part of modern academia was enough to make me realize how much I would detest actually working in an academic job. With that job path no longer on the table, I realized that a PhD wasn't worth the time it would take. Up until I started grad school I had been convinced that you had to have a PhD to be a scholar - you had to have one to do research. After a few years of interacting with scholars directly I realized that scholarship is about what one does and those acts are in no way dependent on having a piece of paper with the right letters on it. I left my program with a MS in 2007 and have only occasionally looked back.

Pastimes

I love nature more than is probably healthy. So much so that I hiked from Kata Yai beach to Big Buddha (on Phuket), barefoot, up a dirt road through the jungle because I wanted to feel more like I was actually a part of the environment. Any activity that involves nature will get a strong "yes" and my full attention. I spent a large portion of my free time as a kid hiking up in the mountains behind my parents' house or wandering in desert. Although it isn't always possible in the places I have lived, since those days I take every opportunity to hike or explore the world.

Around 1998 I learned to rock climb and have been doing it - off and on - ever since. Mostly I just climb top rope but I lead climb and boulder from time to time as well. Despite how much I enjoy climbing and my love of the outdoors, I've almost solely climbed in gyms. Some day, I hope to take up outdoor climbing more though.

Over the years I have also spent a lot of time playing soccer (indoor and out), beach volleyball, cycling (street and mountain), and frisbee. Most of my favorite moments in the many places I've lived have involved doing one of these activities with a team. I am always happy being outdoors and doing something (mildly) competitive with other people who enjoy a challenge.

My main, non-outdoor passion is reading; the number of books I own in embarrassingly large. Since I've been traveling more, most of my reading is in the form of news, blogs, and papers but I still try to fit in a real book from time to time. On an average day, I spend 2-4 hours reading and learning - typically split into two chunks, one in the morning with coffee, and one in the afternoon.

Travel

My family took road trips every few years when I was a child. Some of those were just within our state but others went all over the country (or into other nearby countries). Thanks to this and a few road trips of my own when I got older, I've visited every US state except Alaska (and I may remedy that soon!). Beyond the US, I've spent time in Canada, Mexico, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, England, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Turkey, Nepal, Thailand, and Japan. I look forward to seeing even more in the coming years as well.

Some of my travel has been purely for vacation but I have actually lived in some of the places as well. Over the years, I have lived in 5 US states and three other countries. It can be difficult but I strongly recommend living in a country other than the one in which you were born if you can; you never really know your home country until you have. At the moment, I am in France.

Since it can be difficult for people to keep track of where I am, I'm considering adding some information about my current location to this site. No thoughts yet on how detailed that information will be or whether it will be public. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, send them to me!

Work

Ignoring the miscellaneous crap jobs everyone does as a kid, my first jobs were as an electrical engineer. I did work on satellite power systems at one job and analog circuit design at another. In some ways I really enjoyed EE work but mostly it was too slow for my tastes. Those experiences helped convince me that computers were a better direction for me to go.

While in college, both undergraduate and graduate, I worked as a teaching assistant. Teaching can be really rewarding and, in many ways, those were some of my best professional experiences in an academic setting. I'm not sure that I'd ever have any interest in teaching at a school in the US though - too many bad parents and students who are only there for a piece of paper.

During grad school I also worked for two research labs that were jointly developing an image analysis system. We were building a gaze tracking system (hardware and software) for use in various types of research. The project was interesting and so was the research it was being used for. However, the nonsense energy that was required to get papers published was truly depressing.

Since graduating, I've spent several years as a consultant of technical development and management, worked at several software companies (including one of The Big Four) and startups, been tech lead several times and acting CTO once, and started my own company twice. Although I've done all kinds of development (full-stack blah blah blah), I primarily enjoy architecture and have done most of my work on large systems and tools to support those systems.

Currently, I am working on several new tools for research and development while doing the occasional contract when something sufficiently interesting comes up. I'm also in the process of starting up an NGO to provide small-scale assistance to poor families in a more transparent way.

Contact

Depending on what country I am in at the moment, I may or may not be available by phone or text. At some point, I will add a link here so that you can send me a message requesting my current phone number.

The best way of contacting me will always be by email to mark (at) mark-christensen.com. Unless it is urgent, don't expect a response in under a week or two.