I was born in Yaroslavl', Russia in the 80's and grew up there during the 90's. In 2001, because of continuing degradation of Russian economy, I and my mom immigarted to United States. In high school I became fascinated with fine art, at the same time I developed an obsession with computers and code.
Interest in these two seemingly incomatible fields led me to persue a BS in Digital Media degree in Drexel University located in Philadelphia. If that degree name sounds hazy that's because it kind of was. We were essentially given opportunity to explore various combinations of applied art and computing. That meant one could specialize in digital animation, visual effects, web design or any combination thereof. I ended up following the web track, although I did take fine art and animation classes that interested me. To this day a pretty big chunk of my works are drawings/illustrations, although I never sell any of my fine art.
During my time at Drexel I also got involved in student activism. In particular I got with new SDS and several progressive organizations around Philly area. Mostly I volunteered to create flyers, posters and an occasional pamphlet.
I graduated with my 4 year degree in 2009. This was during the economic recession following 2008 turmoil. Which meant fewer job opportunities in my field, so I worked in catering for a while. By 2010 I was quite sick of it and applied to grad school. I was accepted to New Shool in NYC where I chose to go for MFA in Design and Technology. There I gravitated more towards open source hardware and software, leading me to explore interaction design and physical computing. I came out of it being more knowledgeble about Linux, web development and some basic electronics.
Currently I'm employed full time by MCNY as an in house web developer. I continute to volunteer for various progressive/labor organizations, most recently IWW and Brandworkers. These days my volunteer projects mostly involve designing and deploying small-scale websites. In my free time I mess around with open source hardware and ride my bicycle.