I was trained as an undergraduate in Japanese Language and Literature, Buddhist Studies, and Sanskrit Language here at UM. At the graduate level I studied Linguistics, specializing in phonology and finite-state morphophonology. I also taught myself, in many very late nights, computer programming in C on the Classic Mac OS platform.

After I received my M.A. in Linguistics from UM I worked for the University of Pittsburgh Learning Research and Development Center (LRDC) for 6.5 years on artificially intelligent tutoring system components in LISP, Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, and Objective C (occasionally serving part-time as a low-rent sysadmin).

I was delighted to return to Michigan in 2008 and even more delighted to return to Ann Arbor in July 2009 to work in Hatcher Graduate, where I had spent so many hours of quality time as a bright-eyed young fellow in awe of a "real" library of serious knowledge.