photos: gallery, another gallery, TIER gallery, imagestation
stories: melisssaisfaraway mailing list
church: First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley
school: School of Information Management and Systems, UC Berkeley
profiles: orkut, friendster, linkedin
bookmarks: del.icio.us

I'm doing research on technologies for developing regions with UC Berkeley (Cal) and Intel Research in Berkeley. In past lives, I've done an MSc in Data Communications, Networks, and Distributed Systems (DCNDS) at University College London, and worked for a couple of up-starts (they don't quite qualify as startups anymore) companies, Actional and Ensim. If you want the nitty-gritty details, you can take a look at my old cv/resume. And if you want the dirt you're going to have to track me down and call me. :) Eventually I'll be getting myself into this, but in the meantime, I'm happily ensconced here.

I love reading books - mostly sci-fi/fantasy, but also a few in the technical, non-fiction, and Christian genres. I also have a number of hobbies, including watercolor, Chinese brush painting, and arabic calligraphy. I'm terrible, but I figure with a few more decades of practice, my work might become at least passable. More often than not, you'll find me hiking and camping in Yosemite. The banners on my pages are all created from pictures I've taken on past trips, with Half-Dome at sunset on this page, a view of the ocean Lost Coast Trail on the main page, and a snake I encountered on the beach for my book lists.

I'm fascinated by personality theory (I'm INTJ and 5) and other cool things like optical illusions. According to politicalcompass.org I'm a leftist (-5.38) libertarian (-3.90), which makes me politically similar to (woot!) Ghandi and the Dalai Lama.

According to QuizFarm, I am Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. Which (by their definition, not necessarily mine) means that I am an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. I believe that God's grace enables me to choose to believe in him, even though I myself am totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives me assurance of my salvation, and He also enables me to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. I am influenced heavily by John Wesley and the Methodists. Note: I consider myself to be a non-denominational evangelical Christian, not Methodist. The previous definition is entirely from the quiz and not necessarily my own perspective.... Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 79% Emergent/Postmodern 68% Classical Liberal 54% Charismatic/Pentecostal 36% Reformed Evangelical 36% Roman Catholic 36% Fundamentalist 32% Neo orthodox 29% Modern Liberal 29% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

Past Announcements
04.29.05: I went to Tijuana last week (just before the conference, and just after I moved) for a needs assessment trip. (Thanks, Heather!).

04.23.05: Berkeley/UNIDO's Bridging the Divide conference was an incredible source of discussion and information about some of the amazing groups using technology for development work. Some of my notes are now online.

04.15.05: I've moved to Berkeley! Oh, and by the way, I'm also doing a Masters in Infomation Management & Systems at UC Berkeley (I should call it "Cal" now) as of this fall, which triggered the move.

10.26.04 I've been quoted in the Oakland Tribune: Intel targets developing countries. See here for details on and pictures of the DTN Train demo that I gave at the open house.