Staff and Board

Gerald J. Sussman, Professor of Electrical Engineering at MIT

Gerald has been involved in artificial intelligence research at MIT since 1964. He co-authored Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs and Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics and is the recipient of numerous awards, including ACM's Karl Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award and the Amar G. Bose award for teaching. He is a fellow of numerous institutions including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Association for Artificial Intelligence, the ACM, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the New York Academy of Arts, and Sciences.

Geoffrey Knauth, Computer Science Instructor at Lycoming College

Geoffrey is an independent software contractor, has worked as a programmer, senior associate, systems engineer, and systems analyst at various companies and has contributed to the GNU Objective-C project. He is fluent in Russian and French and has a working knowledge of German, which helps him maintain relationships with computer scientists, mathematicians, and physicists of the Russian Academy of Sciences and with United States economists, scientists, and agencies. He holds a BA in Economics from Harvard University and is the treasurer of the FSF.

Henri Poole, founder of CivicActions

Henri Poole is an internet strategist with three decades' experience in information technology and more than a decade's with online communities and commerce. He was the first technologist to set up a blog for a member of the US House of Representatives. He has presented at conferences in Europe and in the US, and was the technical editor of Demystifying Multimedia. He co-founded CivicActions, a grassroots campaign technology consulting firm in 2004, helping provide network-centric free software technology solutions focusing on transforming the world.

Hal Abelson, Professor of Electrical Engineeering and Computer Science at MIT

Hal was designated as one of MIT's six inaugural MacVicar Faculty Fellows and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the MIT School of Engineering's Bose award, the IEEE Taylor L. Booth Education Award. He is co-director of the MIT-Microsoft iCampus Research Alliance in Educational Technology and of the MIT Project on Mathematics and Computation and co-chair of the MIT Council on Educational Technology. He serves on the steering committee of the HP-MIT Alliance. He developed and teaches the MIT course Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier and co-authored Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. He is a founding director of Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, and the FSF.

Benjamin Mako Hill, Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Washington

Benjamin Mako Hill is a social scientist, technologist, and activist. In all three roles, he works to understand why some attempts at peer production — like many of the most successful free software projects — have built large volunteer communities while the vast majority never attract even a second contributor. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. He is also a faculty affiliate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and an affiliate at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science — both at Harvard University. He has also been a leader, developer, and contributor to the free software community for more than a decade as part of the Debian and Ubuntu projects. He is the author of several best-selling technical books and an advisor to the Wikimedia Foundation. Hill has a Masters degree from the MIT Media Lab and a PhD from MIT in an interdepartmental program between the Sloan School of Management and the Media Lab.

Bradley M. Kuhn, president of the Software Freedom Conservancy

Kuhn began his work in the free software movement as a volunteer in 1992, when he became an early adopter of the GNU/Linux operating system, and began contributing to various free software projects. He worked during the 1990s as a system administrator and software developer for various companies, and taught AP Computer Science at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati. Kuhn's nonprofit career began in 2000, when he was hired by the FSF. As FSF's Executive Director from 2001-2005, Kuhn led FSF's GPL enforcement, launched its Associate Member program, and invented the Affero GPL. From 2005-2010, Kuhn worked as the Policy Analyst and Technology Director of the Software Freedom Law Center. Since 2010, Kuhn has been the full-time Executive Director of the Software Freedom Conservancy, which provides a non-profit home to Free Software projects. Kuhn holds a summa cum laude B.S. in Computer Science from Loyola University in Maryland, and an M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Cincinnati. His Master's thesis discussed methods for dynamic interoperability of free software languages.

Matthew Garrett

Matthew is a developer specializing in the interactions between operating system kernels, platform firmware, and system security. He is particularly interested in mechanisms for avoiding the false tradeoff between user security and user freedom, ensuring that users have ultimate control over which software their devices will and will not run. He won the 2013 Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software and is a recognized speaker on the topic of the importance of free software in wider society. He holds a PhD in genetics from the University of Cambridge.

Kat Walsh

Kat Walsh is a copyright, internet policy, and technology lawyer. She was most recently at Creative Commons, where she was one of the drafters of version 4.0 of the CC license suite, and previously worked for the American Library Association in their information technology policy office. Kat came to the free software community through free culture. An early Wikipedian and advocate for free cultural works, she was on the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustees from 2006-2013 (Chair 2012-13), where she advised on strategic, policy, and legal issues, and currently serves on its advisory board. She is also on the board of the Xiph.org Foundation. Kat holds a J.D. from George Mason University School of Law and a B.A. from Stetson University; she is a member of the Virginia State Bar and the US Patent Bar.