Brief Bio
I completed my Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in January 2003. The main focus of my research has been in the area of collaborative filtering. I successfully ran the first medium scale test of a collaborative filtering system on Usenet news in February of 1996.
In the spring of 1996 I joined with four others to found Net Perceptions, thus beginning a five year hiatus from my PhD studies. During my five years at Net Perceptions I served as Vice President for Product Development where I took the development of the recommendation engine software from its infancy as thesis code through five major releases. I sometimes don't like to admit it, but I hold two patents on our early work in collaborative filtering.
In August of 2003 I joined the computer science faculty here at Luther college. During that time I have become very interested in Python as a language for teaching computer science. Having spent more than ten years in industry I have used several languages in an industrial setting including C, Fortran, Lisp, C++, and Java. I believe that students need to learn to use an industrial strength language like Java or C++. But, there is no more reason for students to begin with one than there is for beginning Physics students to start out with general relativity.
First Lutheran