Brian McKinley Davies

Welcome to my page on the web. This is probably more information about me than anyone who isn't me would ever need to know.

I am a native of Fairbanks, Alaska -- my middle name is a stamp of my geographic authenticity. My elementary school years were spent in suburban New York while Dad was working at Columbia University, then we moved back to Fairbanks when I was ten, where I attended West Valley High School. As the son of a seismologist, you spend a lot of your life going where the earthquakes are. (Though since then Dad has spent ten years in the Alaska House of Representatives before winding up at his current post in cold climate housing research.) I credit a couple of years of living in a log cabin with an outhouse, wood heat and one phone line for the entire neighborhood for my undying love of technology, which has turned over time into two degrees in computer science and a career in educational software.

The first of those degrees came in 1993 from Bowdoin College, a private liberal arts college in scenic Brunswick, Maine. To this day, I am haunted by cravings for pine trees and clam chowder. I'm an alumnus of the Bowdoin chapter of Alpha Delta Phi, a coeducational social club / literary society. After Bowdoin, I went to Northwestern University to get a Ph.D. and spent two years there before my rosy visions of academia were thoroughly squashed. I dropped out with a master's degree, which stands as the greatest consolation prize I've received in my entire life.

I have spent the years since living in Chicago, working as an educational software designer and developer. I started at the Institute For The Learning Sciences -- for the lab's answer to the timeless question, "Why does school suck?", check out Engines For Education. In 1999 I joined Cognitive Arts, a custom educational software house, where I am currently the head of software engineering. The company was recently purchased by the Indian educational giant NIIT, leading to the fantastic perk of periodic business trips to the home office in Delhi.

I travel a good deal, and have posted stories and photos from a number of my adventures. I've been to India on business twice (2003 and 2004). A friend and I took a cross-country road trip when I helped him move from California to Pittsbugh. My last trip was a vacation in Portugal.

When I am home, I spend my free time playing guitar, working on my iMac, playing poker, and training with the Northwestern Karate Club, where I am a brown belt. I also spend a lot of time reading and watching films; here are my recommendations for navigating our cultural wasteland. I share my home with my collection of Byron Birdsall paintings and a 1985 Williams "Comet" pinball machine that is usually in need of some form of repair. I am a member of the Art Institute Of Chicago, and a season ticket holder at the Steppenwolf Theater. I am politically left of center and am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. In 2002, I donated my ponytail to Locks Of Love.