Mark Havens
Maker • Scientist • Writer
About Me
Dallas Maker Community
I am Founder and Executive Director of Dallas Maker Community. We are a non-profit organization that helps, promotes, and safeguards all Dallas/Fort Worth area makerspaces that contribute to the public good. This includes for-profit makerspaces, non-profit makerspaces, college/university makerspaces, public school makerspaces, and library makerspaces.
We also work to support other important maker/makerspace interests in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. We believe in the power of making and its ability to change lives. Our goal is to make Dallas/Fort Worth a mecca for Maker culture. By promoting, growing, and living our Maker culture here at home, we will be doing our part to grow and support the Maker Movement throughout the world!
Dallas Makerspace
In 2010, I founded Dallas Makerspace, which grew to become the largest all-volunteer-run community workshop on the planet. Dallas Makerspace is one of the proudest ways I have given back. It serves as a monument to show how people can organize and come together to share their passions, leading to massive impact. People not only impact their own communities through makerspaces, but they can impact the whole world.
Dallas Makerspace is more than just a community workshop. It's a place where people can come together and learn new skills, make friends, and create things they never thought possible. It has everything from woodworking and metalworking tools to 3D printers and sewing machines. It has grown to become the gold standard for community makerspaces all over the world. What started as a small group of passionate people has become a template for an international makerspace movement that has changed the way people think about making things.
Academic Research
I'm an academic researcher with a diverse background in data science and machine learning. However, I find more fulfillment studying the softer sciences, such as management science, game theory, and human psychology.
Awarded a Ph.D. fellowship from UT Arlington in 2016, my formal research has taken a number of turns. While researching from a Computer Science perspective, I look for ways to use computing to explore the many ways that humans interact with each other and make decisions.
Writing
I am an occasional writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories. I like to dabble in all sorts of genres (e.g., I've been fascinated by children's fables and often write them for my own children), but I'm always fascinated by the ways people interact with each other, and how they solve problems. My hope is that through my writing, I can help people see the world in a new light.
I'm also a fairly prolific author on Medium, writing on nonfiction topics such as mental health, technology, and fiction writing.
My Other Big Passions
Things I've Done
Worked for the NSF
2018
Supervised a deep learning research team for the National Science Foundation to build a working prototype of a wearable emotion detection device for the autistic and visually impaired.
Worked for the US Air Force
2018
Conducted deep learning research for the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York that could lead to more reliable ways to detect microexpressions in the face from standard video sources.
Worked for NASA
2016
Organized a research team to build a prototype of a Wi-Fi mobile disruption-tolerant ad-hoc mesh network for use on the International Space Station.
Awarded Ph.D. Fellowship
2016
Awarded a full fellowship, funded by the Department of Education, to pursue a Ph.D. in Computer Science at the University of Texas at Arlington.
Finished Masters
2013
Received an MSM in Information Security from Colorado Technical University.
Senior Technical Architect at AT&T
2010
Began designing production datacenter and cloud infrastructure. My most notable project was the development of all datacenter infrastructure blueprints for the nationwide rollout of the iPhone's online billing system.
Began Nonprofit Startup
2010
Began working with members of the Dallas Personal Robotics Group (DPRG) to co-found Dallas Makerspace later that year as the first makerspace in Dallas. It's now a million dollar company.
Worked for Verizon
2006
Began working as a lead systems engineer for core customer-facing voice and internet applications.
Finished Bachelors
2005
Earned a BS in Computer Science from what is now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
Worked for Microsoft
1999
Began working as a SQL Developer & Database Analyst.
Sold Tech Startup
1998
Sold a tech startup that I began just three years earlier.
Finished Trade School
1998
Received an Applied Associates Degree in Computer Science Technology from Texas State Technical College after taking many programming courses that included mastering COBOL (in preparation for Y2K).
First Employees
1996
Began to hire the first members of my support and sales staff.
First Support Contract
1995
Hired exclusively to provide systems support for a startup Internet Service Provider and its customers.
First Hacker Gig
1995
Hired by a startup hardware manufacturer to decompile and reverse engineer a disk caching feature of Microsoft DOS.
First Government Job
1995
Became the youngest intern to work in what is now the Information Technology and Security Services division of the Texas Attorney General.
First Real Job
1992
At the age of 16, got my first hourly job as a computer technician, where I discovered the unpleasant duty of paying taxes.
First PC Build
1989
At the age of 13, built an 8088 IBM PC XT clone from free parts I had collected while doing computer repair and upgrade work for various business owners at my church. I then put it to work as a BBS.
First Program
1984
At the age of 7, wrote my first computer program in Applesoft BASIC that went beyond copying from the manual:
basic
10 PRINT "MARK"
20 GOTO 10
Contact
mark.r.havens@gmail.com (mailto:mark.r.havens@gmail.com)
Copyright
© 2023 Mark Randall Havens
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