Jeffrey Phillips Freeman

Just another data scientist.

That's the official title. The 40-odd open-source projects, three companies, seven invented algorithms, and the occasional TV crew quietly disagree — though I'd never be the one to bring it up. (The footer keeps me honest.)

deployed_codeExplore the work fork_rightFollow my Git
~9 languages / AI · graphs · GPU · radio / since 2001
fig.1 — a career, as a dependency graph
live
drag a node · hover to trace the edges
25+
years turning hard problems into shipped software
40+
open-source projects, shipped & maintained
7
algorithms invented — named things that didn't exist
3
companies founded, two more than intended
01 / whoami
Filed under “data scientist” because “professional obsessive” wasn’t in the dropdown.
Jeffrey Phillips Freeman
SPECIMEN · DOC. FREEMO
designationdata scientist
habitatthe terminal
handle@DocFreemo
threat leveldangerously curious
badgeThe specimen

A polyglot engineer who got curious in 2001 and simply never stopped

Jeff builds across an unreasonable spread of fields — artificial intelligence and genetics, graph databases, GPU computing, amateur radio, and the open social web. The common thread was never a technology. It's the stubborn suspicion that a hard problem is solvable if you stare at it long enough.

Over twenty-five years he's been an engineer, a project lead, and a CTO — once responsible for an entire company's IP portfolio, at peak directing dozens of engineers at a time. He founded three companies (Swapoo, Syncleus, and CleverThis) and has been quoted on newspaper front pages and live television around the world. He'd like it on record that he finds all of this slightly embarrassing.

descriptionRead the full CV Say helloarrow_forward
02 / thesis
Sees edges where other people see chaos. Occasionally draws a graph to explain why he drew a graph.

Most hard problems are the same problem wearing different clothes. Social networks, package dependencies, routing a packet across a mesh of radios — it's all secretly a graph. I just keep noticing the edges other people walk straight past.

— the one belief behind all of it read the argumentarrow_forward
03 / the dossier
Six bullet points from a deck that originally said “rockstar ninja.” Consider this a public apology.

Six things people put on a slide about me

Reproduced here with the footnotes the original sorely lacked.

01

translatePolyglot engineer

Fluent in roughly nine languages — Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Bash, Assembly, C, C++ and friends. Fluent in none of them before the first coffee.

02

trending_upAlways early

An early adopter of things you'll Google next year. Active across NoSQL, graph databases, GPU compute, Docker, and the kind of AI that keeps researchers up at night.

03

podcastsOn the record

Has explained graph databases on live television. Featured on the front page of USA Today and across CNBC, MSNBC, Fortune, and a few more stages than is strictly reasonable.

04

workspace_premiumExperienced

25 years of shipping software, including a stint as CTO running an entire company's IP portfolio. The early years were character-building. We don't open those repos.

05

groupsProven leader

Has directed dozens of engineers at once and returned all of them in working order. Leadership, it turns out, is mostly knowing when to get out of the way.

06

rocket_launchEntrepreneur

Three companies under his belt — Swapoo, Syncleus, and CleverThis. That's two more than most people finish, and roughly three more than he intended.

04 / standards
Has opinions about semicolons, protocols, and where the comma goes in a JSON object. Willing to fly somewhere to argue about it.
verifiedStandards & governance

Advisory roles

Member, and in some cases Advisory Committee member, for the standards bodies that keep the web and the industry honest.

W3C Advisory Committee ITU member ISO member ANSI member IEEE Senior Member ACM Senior Member ASIS&T member

Active participation in standards development, protocol design, and technical governance across the web stack, from ActivityPub and the Fediverse to graph-database query languages and open radio protocols.

05 / selected work
A representative handful. The full count is north of 40.

An open-source innovator

Founder and owner of a frankly excessive array of libraries and applications. Six worth a closer look:

All projectsarrow_forward
06 / on the record
Said by other people, so I don't have to. Take it up with them.
format_quoteReferences

Things colleagues put in writing

Jeff is a technical genius — one of the smartest scientists I have ever met. He is going to achieve great things.
Shervin Pishevar
Director · Menlo Ventures
A brilliant developer and software architect, but also an innovator — one of the most forward-thinking people I know, constantly addressing hard problems few others are thinking about.
Drew Morris
Board Member · Syncleus
A strategic thinker with exceptional technical skills. He was instrumental in helping my company develop business requirements and a cost-effective technology solution.
Michael Brozzetti
CEO · MEGA Investments
Two ways this ends

Go read some code — or send me an interesting problem

Both are excellent outcomes. One of them involves me, which I'm reliably told is a selling point.

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