Hello from Matt in Boston!

Hey, community! This is Matt from the Boston area, specifically Somerville.

The short version of my background is: I learned software development after college and ever since, I've worked in or adjacent to the public sector, as a web developer for the state, a volunteer coordinator with the Boston branch of Code for America, and as a technical implementer / project manager for a civic tech startup.

I recently went back to school for a Master's in Conflict Resolution, and one of the applications I see for graphs is modeling conflict factors and the relationships between them. The idea is, by modeling the drivers and mitigators of conflict, we can understand the best places for effective intervention.

This use case inspired me to start writing a simple language called Aspen that makes it easy to generate graph data from text. I'll post more about Aspen in the Projects & Collaboration topic, but you can check it out at https://aspen-lang.org. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

When I'm not writing graphs, I'm writing about peace, mindfulness, yoga, and ecology at Peace In, Peace Out; studying and/or teaching yoga; or volunteering on the campaigns of local political candidates.

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Hey Matt,

Just saw your presentation at the Graphs4Good zoom call. I recognized you immediately for your work on aspen. What I did not know until then was that you're also in a Conflict Resolution grad program. I felt compelled to connect with you via LinkedIn.

Let's work together some time to make the world a better place.