About me
John leads work at the intersection of emerging technology, planetary stewardship, and human dignity.
He works across research, design, and engineering to develop systems that make complex spatial data verifiable, interoperable, and more useful in practice. His approach blends theoretical insight with practical implementation — building infrastructure that’s meant to last, and meant to be used.
John is the founder of *Astral*, an open-source initiative building location-aware infrastructure for the decentralized web, and co-leads a research team at the University of Maryland studying proof-of-location systems, peer-to-peer geospatial data management, and verifiable geocomputation frameworks. Previously, he co-founded Toucan, a pioneering climate finance platform. He also co-chaired the World Economic Forum’s Web3 Climate Action Working Group and co-authored the WEF report Blockchain for Scaling Climate Action.
An early member of the Kernel community, John has spent the past several years advising and collaborating with technologists, researchers, and institutions committed to building a more open, resilient internet. He holds an MSc in Spatial Data Science and Visualisation from University College London, where he graduated with distinction.
His work spans climate, conflict, conservation, and the creative reimagination of public infrastructure. Offline, you’ll likely find him sailing, snowboarding, cycling, or in search of wild, quiet places.
