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<h1>Staff</h1>
 

	
 
<h2 id="karen">Karen M. Sandler - Executive Director</h2>
 
<p>The staff are listed alphabetically by surname.</p>
 

	
 
<p>Karen M. Sandler is the executive director of Conservancy. Karen is known
 
as a cyborg lawyer for her advocacy for free software, particularly in
 
relation to the software on medical devices. Prior to joining Conservancy,
 
she was executive director of the GNOME Foundation. Before that, she was
 
general counsel of the Software Freedom Law Center. Karen
 
co-organizes <a href="http://www.outreachy.org">Outreachy</a>, the
 
award-winning outreach program for women globally and for people of color
 
who are underrepresented in US tech. She is also pro bono counsel to the FSF
 
and GNOME. Karen is a recipient of the O’Reilly Open Source Award and cohost
 
of the oggcast <a href="http://faif.us/">Free as in Freedom</a>.</p>
 
<h2 id="dimesio">Rosanne DiMesio - Technical Bookkeeper</h2>
 

	
 
<p>Karen received her law degree from Columbia Law School in 2000, where she
 
was a James Kent Scholar and co-founder of the Columbia Science and
 
Technology Law Review. Karen received her bachelor’s degree in engineering
 
from The Cooper Union.</p>
 
<p>Rosanne DiMesio is the Technical Bookkeeper at the Software Freedom
 
Conservancy where she handles incoming and outgoing accounting
 
activities for all its member projects as well as financial operations
 
for Conservancy itself. Rosanne has been volunteering with the Wine
 
Project since 2008 where she focuses on user support and documentation.
 
She has worked as an English teacher, a freelance writer and as IT
 
support. She is passionate about helping free software projects improve
 
their user experience. Rosanne received her Masters in Communication &amp;
 
Theater at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her Bachelor&rsquo;s
 
degree in English from the University of Chicago.</p>
 

	
 
<h2 id="bkuhn">Bradley M. Kuhn - President and Distinguished Technologist</h2>
 
<h2 id="denver">Denver Gingerich - FLOSS License Compliance Engineer</h2>
 

	
 
<p>
 
Denver works part-time managing the technical side of Conservancy's
 
license compliance work, triaging new reports and verifying complete and
 
corresponding source (C&amp;CS).  His roles elsewhere have recently
 
included financial trading software development on GNU/Linux and
 
previously involved writing system software for hardware companies,
 
including driver writing for the kernel named Linux at ATI (now AMD) and
 
Qualcomm.  He founded a company that designs and builds magnetic stripe
 
readers for security hobbyists where he designed the hardware and
 
developed the device's tools and firmware, which are both free software.
 
Denver also writes free software in his spare time, with patches accepted
 
into Wine, the kernel named Linux, and GNU wdiff.  Denver received his
 
BMath in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo.  He gives presentations
 
about digital civil rights and protecting the free software ecosystem,
 
having spoken at conferences such as CopyCamp Toronto, FOSSLC's
 
Summercamp, and the Open Video Conference.</p>
 

	
 

	
 
<h2 id="bkuhn">Bradley M. Kuhn - Policy Fellow and Hacker-in-Residence</h2>
 

	
 
<p><a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley M. Kuhn</a> is the President and
 
Distinguished Technologist at <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software
 
Freedom Conservancy</a> and editor-in-chief
 
<p><a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley M. Kuhn</a> is
 
the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/about/staff/#bkuhn">Policy Fellow and
 
Hacker-in-Residence</a> at <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software Freedom
 
Conservancy</a> and editor-in-chief
 
of <a href="https://copyleft.org">copyleft.org</a>. Kuhn began his work in
 
the software freedom 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 non-profit career began in
 
2000, when he was hired by the Free Software Foundation (FSF).  As FSF's
 
adopter of Linux-based systems, and began contributing to various Free
 
Software projects, including Perl.  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
 
non-profit career began in 2000, when he was hired by the FSF.  As FSF's
 
Executive Director from 2001&ndash;2005, Kuhn
 
led <a href="https://www.fsf.org/licensing">FSF's GPL enforcement</a>,
 
launched <a href="https://www.fsf.org/associate/">its Associate Member
 
program</a>, and invented
 
the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html">Affero GPL</a>.  Kuhn
 
was appointed President of Software Freedom Conservancy in April 2006, was
 
Conservancy's primary volunteer from 2006&ndash;2010, and has been a
 
full-time staffer since early 2011.  Kuhn holds a summa cum laude B.S. in
 
Computer Science
 
began as Conservancy's primary volunteer from 2006–2010, and became its first
 
staff person in 2011.  Kuhn holds a summa cum laude B.S. in Computer Science
 
from <a href="http://www.loyola.edu/academic/computerscience">Loyola
 
University in Maryland</a>, and an M.S. in Computer Science from
 
the <a href="http://www.cs.uc.edu/">University of
 
Cincinnati</a>.  <a href="http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/articles/thesis/">Kuhn's
 
Master's thesis</a> discussed methods for dynamic interoperability of Free
 
Software programming languages.  Kuhn received
 
the <a href="http://www.oscon.com/oscon2012/public/schedule/detail/25039">O'Reilly
 
Open Source Award in 2012</a>, in recognition for his lifelong policy work on
 
copyleft licensing.  Kuhn has <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/">a blog</a>
 
and co-hosts the audcast, <a href="http://faif.us/"><cite>Free as in
 
copyleft licensing.  Kuhn has <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/">a
 
blog</a> and co-hosts
 
the audcast, <a href="http://faif.us/"><cite>Free as in
 
Freedom</cite></a>.</p>
 

	
 
<h2 id="deb">Deb Nicholson - Director of Community Operations</h2>
 
<p>Deb Nicholson is the Director of Community Operations at the Software Freedom Conservancy where she supports the work of its member projects and facilitates collaboration with the wider free and open source software community. After years of local organizing on free speech, marriage equality, government transparency and access to the political process, she joined the free software movement in 2006. While working for the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>, she created the Women&rsquo;s Caucus to increase recruitment and retention of women in the free software community. She piloted messaging and directed outreach activities at the Open Invention Network, a shared defensive patent pool for free and open source software. She won the O’Reilly Open Source Award for her work as <a href="https://mediagoblin.org/">GNU MediaGoblin</a>&lsquo;s Community Liaison and as a founding board member at <a href="https://blog.openhatch.org/2017/celebrating-our-successes-and-winding-down-as-an-organization/">OpenHatch</a>. She also continues to serve as a founding organizer of the <a href="http://seagl.org/">Seattle GNU/Linux Conference</a>, an annual event dedicated to surfacing new voices and welcoming new people to the free software community.</p>
 

	
 
<p>Deb received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Bradford College and lives with her husband and her lucky black cat in Cambridge, Massachusetts.</p>
 

	
 
<h2 id="karen">Karen M. Sandler - Executive Director</h2>
 

	
 
<p>Karen M. Sandler is the executive director of Conservancy. Karen is known
 
as a cyborg lawyer for her advocacy for free software, particularly in
 
relation to the software on medical devices. Prior to joining Conservancy,
 
she was executive director of the GNOME Foundation. Before that, she was
 
general counsel of the Software Freedom Law Center. Karen
 
co-organizes <a href="http://www.outreachy.org">Outreachy</a>, the
 
award-winning outreach program for women globally and for people of color
 
who are underrepresented in US tech. She is also pro bono counsel to the FSF
 
and GNOME. Karen is a recipient of the O’Reilly Open Source Award and cohost
 
of the oggcast <a href="http://faif.us/">Free as in Freedom</a>.</p>
 

	
 
<p>Karen received her law degree from Columbia Law School in 2000, where she
 
was a James Kent Scholar and co-founder of the Columbia Science and
 
Technology Law Review. Karen received her bachelor’s degree in engineering
 
from The Cooper Union.</p>
 

	
 
<h2 id="brett">Brett Smith - Director of Strategic Initiatives</h2>
 
<p>Brett Smith began his FLOSS advocacy in 2000 at college, organizing
 
student groups and discussing the issues with professors and journalists.  He
 
also spent a couple of those summers interning at the Free Software
 
Foundation, and working in various assisting roles there when he returned to
 
campus.  Later on he worked as the FSF's License Compliance Engineer from
 
2006-2012, helping to shepherd the GPLv3 drafting process and do outreach
 
after the license was released.  From there, he worked as a Systems Engineer
 
at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and
 
an <a href="https://arvados.org/">Arvados</a> maintainer at Curoverse before
 
joining Conservancy as Director of Strategic Initiatives in 2016.  He holds a
 
BS in Computer Science from the University of Kentucky.</p>
 

	
 
<h2 id="deb">Deb Nicholson - Director of Community Operations</h2>
 
<p>Deb Nicholson is the Director of Community Operations at the Software Freedom Conservancy where she supports the work of its member projects and facilitates collaboration with the wider free and open source software community. After years of local organizing on free speech, marriage equality, government transparency and access to the political process, she joined the free software movement in 2006. While working for the <a href="https://www.fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a>, she created the Women&rsquo;s Caucus to increase recruitment and retention of women in the free software community. She piloted messaging and directed outreach activities at the Open Invention Network, a shared defensive patent pool for free and open source software. She won the O’Reilly Open Source Award for her work as <a href="https://mediagoblin.org/">GNU MediaGoblin</a>&lsquo;s Community Liaison and as a founding board member at <a href="https://blog.openhatch.org/2017/celebrating-our-successes-and-winding-down-as-an-organization/">OpenHatch</a>. She also continues to serve as a founding organizer of the <a href="http://seagl.org/">Seattle GNU/Linux Conference</a>, an annual event dedicated to surfacing new voices and welcoming new people to the free software community.</p>
 

	
 
<p>Deb received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Bradford College and lives with her husband and her lucky black cat in Cambridge, Massachusetts.</p>
 

	
 
<h2 id="denver">Denver Gingerich - FLOSS License Compliance Engineer</h2>
 

	
 
<p>
 
Denver works part-time managing the technical side of Conservancy's
 
license compliance work, triaging new reports and verifying complete and
 
corresponding source (C&amp;CS).  His roles elsewhere have recently
 
included financial trading software development on GNU/Linux and
 
previously involved writing system software for hardware companies,
 
including driver writing for the kernel named Linux at ATI (now AMD) and
 
Qualcomm.  He founded a company that designs and builds magnetic stripe
 
readers for security hobbyists where he designed the hardware and
 
developed the device's tools and firmware, which are both free software.
 
Denver also writes free software in his spare time, with patches accepted
 
into Wine, the kernel named Linux, and GNU wdiff.  Denver received his
 
BMath in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo.  He gives presentations
 
about digital civil rights and protecting the free software ecosystem,
 
having spoken at conferences such as CopyCamp Toronto, FOSSLC's
 
Summercamp, and the Open Video Conference.</p>
 

	
 
<h2 id="dimesio">Rosanne DiMesio - Technical Bookkeeper</h2>
 

	
 
<p>Rosanne DiMesio is the Technical Bookkeeper at the Software Freedom
 
Conservancy where she handles incoming and outgoing accounting
 
activities for all its member projects as well as financial operations
 
for Conservancy itself. Rosanne has been volunteering with the Wine
 
Project since 2008 where she focuses on user support and documentation.
 
She has worked as an English teacher, a freelance writer and as IT
 
support. She is passionate about helping free software projects improve
 
their user experience. Rosanne received her Masters in Communication &amp;
 
Theater at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her Bachelor&rsquo;s
 
degree in English from the University of Chicago.</p>
 

	
 
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