Bio

A little bit more about me…if you’re interested.

My name is Darren Redfern and I’m 48 years old. My lovely wife Tamara and I live in a small town in Ontario, Canada – the same small town I grew up in. I’ve spent time in many other countries including India, Nepal, Egypt, Israel, Greece, France and the UK, but Canada is my true home, where my heart is. While we have our own problems (including a current government I’m frankly ashamed of) it’s still the best country in the world. But most people feel that way about home, wherever it might be.

Here’s a favourite picture of me – taken by Tamara in 2007.

I’ve always been an ideas guy. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been inventing things. As a boy I invented words and new ways to count and organize things. This lead to a love of mathematics which, in turn, lead me to complete my B.Math at the University of Waterloo. In the 1990′s I started a technology company and invented and patented one of the first natural-language search tools for the WWW. For the last seven years, I’ve worked as Director of Research at a Toronto-based software company, dreaming up new products and algorithms all day long.

I’ve also always been a writer. My friend Nick and I wrote a novella in Grade 11 (10?) and I’ve dabbled in fiction and non-fiction ever since. When I started my post-University career, I worked for a company called Maplesoft, which builds the Maple mathematical computation software used by scientists, researchers, engineers, and educators. I eventually ended up being Computational Software Series Editor for Springer-Verlag (a huge technical publisher out of Germany and New York) and authored or co-authored a series of books on Maple, Macsyma, and Matlab.

When I’m not designing algorithms or digging into the structure of the cosmos, I spend my time travelling with my wife, playing cards, writing (and solving) cryptic crosswords, singing, bowling, working with the local Green Party, and walking.

I’m not sure what else to include here – I’m not used to talking about myself. If anyone has any questions about my background, I’m only too happy to answer.

Darren