About

I'm a software engineer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I focus on privacy and machine learning applications, and I currently work for xD, a small team within the United States Census Bureau that uses new and emerging technologies to improve government services. I have also contributed to several open-source projects, especially with the group OpenMined.

Prior to joining xD I worked for a government contracting firm at NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View. At NASA I contributed to a variety of aerospace projects as part of the Simulation Laboratories (SimLabs) organization, most notably the Air Traffic Management-eXploration (ATM-X) research project where I helped build a software platform and web application for exploring methods to integrate drones and air taxis into existing air traffic control infrastructure.

Before NASA I worked at several Bay Area startups including Mode (acquired by ThoughtSpot in 2023), a web platform for data science teams, and Ayasdi (acquired by SymphonyAI in 2019), a platform that combined traditional machine learning approaches with topological data analysis (TDA).

I've made a few pivots in my career via coding bootcamps and online learning. I accelerated my machine learning and data science skills thanks to Springboard's machine learning engineering program. Several years before that I was in one of the first cohorts of the coding bootcamp Hack Reactor, which enabled my transition into web development. Prior to Hack Reactor I worked as a data analyst and field engineer for the energy consulting firm DNV for several years. I originally moved to Northern California after completing undergraduate degrees in physics and math from the University of North Texas. As a born-and-raised Texan in the Bay Area I like to refer to myself as a NorCal Texpat.🤠

Outside of my regular working hours I enjoy writing posts for this website, exploring new programming languages and machine learning techniques, experimenting with Raspberry Pi computers and other IOT devices, as well as learning all I can about cryptography and how to preserve privacy when it comes to the web and machine learning processes. I've also begun working on an online course platform for privacy-enhancing technologies such as differential privacy.

In the non-digital realm my hobbies include reading all categories of books (especially fiction and history), cooking, meditation, martial arts and personal fitness, and studying languages (previously: German and Spanish, recently: Urdu, continually: Japanese). I also enjoy traveling and my favorite travel experience so far was getting to live in a dojo in rural Japan for a summer while training in Aikido.

About This Site

This site is based on an awesome template created by Timothy Lin. It's hosted on Github and Vercel.

Tech Stack

Language: TypeScript

Framework: Next.js using React and MDX

Styling: Tailwind

Version Control: Github

• repository: https://github.com/curt-mitch/personal_blog

Cloud Platform: Vercel

Site Analytics: Plausible