Hi there! I’m Robert. Welcome to my homepage. Here you’ll find a little bit about who I am, a little bit about my past work, and how to find me elsewhere on the web.

About Me

I’m an engineering-minded individual with a passion for systems, photography, and generally nerdy things.

I think you can blame the nerdiness on my Dad who thought the ARRL Amateur Radio Handbook was appropriate night time reading material for a six year old. By the time I was ten, it paid off and I had my Technician license. Little did either of us know this would send me down a track that would lead to my career.

In the amateur (ham) radio groups it was common to mix in adjacent hobbies like computers and computer programming. My Dad and I went to breakfast with hams regularly. One breakfast, one of the hams called me over and asked if I had my own computer. I mentioned that my Dad had one that I used. He was insistent. Did I have a computer. He gifted me a full working Commodore 64 with manuals, disk drive, and many disks. It was overwhelming. I was only in the second or third grade. Between the computer and the manual, it was enough to get me to learn programming. From that point forward I practiced programming regularly, building it into a craft.

Since then I’ve acquired some other hobbies along the way. At the moment, the most interesting thing to me is photography—especially street photography. I walk the streets for hours at a time, looking for that opportune moment. My pictures aren’t readily available: To me it’s satisfying to see the image in camera and I’ve not taken the time to organize and choose the most worthy of sharing. Too many choices.

Something within me also pulled me toward writing. In grad school, the goal grew from just building something, to writing about it and promoting it endlessly. I was always about the building and didn’t do the writing necessary to do the building justice. Something about that experience has left me perpetually drawn to writing. At Dropbox, I channeled this into writing design documents, but such opportunities were few and far between. It left a burning desire within me to write a book. I channeled that energy to make Mindfully Autistic, Finding Love on Earth, and Olivia the Angel.

Past Work

This should not be treated as a resume, just a summary. If you need a resume, please contact me using the information at the top of the page.

• Fall 2010 to Summer 2017: Grad student at Cornell University. My academic work can be found on my academic work page.
• July 2017 to September 2020: Work at Dropbox within the persistent systems area of the company.