Mark D. Oppenneer

Technologist, Researcher, and Educator in Saratoga Springs, New York

Mark D. Oppenneer

Technologist, Researcher, and Educator in Saratoga Springs, New York

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Hello. I am an open source software bricoleur, bread baker, researcher, storyteller, educator, veteran, wordsmith, mythologist, and musician.

By day, I am Director of Web Systems at Excelsior University (a private, non-profit online higher education institution) and by night, I am web developer for the Joseph Campbell Foundation. By weekend, I do web work for private clients. Once a month, I organize the WP518 WordPress Meetup Group for Upstate New York.

I have a food blog called Blue Bowl Breads focused on the tradition of home bread baking that my mom, a well-known baking instructor and cookbook author, passed down to me.

I am the founder and director of The Ethnos Project, a research initiative that ran from 2008 to 2018. The project explored the intersection of Indigeneity and information and communication technologies. My research encompasses the cultural impacts and implications of open source databases for Indigenous Knowledge management, new and emerging technologies for intangible cultural heritage, information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) initiatives, social media used by Indigenous communities for social change, and mobile technologies used for language preservation.

I hold an MS in Communication & Rhetoric from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, an MALS with a focus on Mythology & Oral Traditions from Empire State College, and a BA in English Education from the University at Albany.

Here and there, I write music and play piano, write short fiction and poetry, design stained glass windows, snowshoe, travel, and play a mean game of Scrabble.