Michael Widner is in the joint employ of the Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages and the Stanford University Libraries, where he works as an Academic Technology Specialist. He works with faculty and their research assistants as consultant or collaborator in DLCL-based digital humanities and instructional technology projects. He also helps organize and present events for the Digital Humanities Focal Group. He is the Director of Technology for Lacuna Stories and the Project Director for Bibliopedia.
He received his Ph.D in English from the University of Texas at Austin. His period specialization is in medieval Britain and France with a focus on romance, fabliaux, and Latin chronicles. He works in Middle English, Old French, Latin, Old English, Python, Javascript, Perl (deprecated), PHP, a few other machine languages, and on the command line.
Prior to entering graduate school, he worked for too many years as a UNIX Systems Administrator at a local ISP that was eventually absorbed by the corporation now known as AT&T. He can set up a LAMP stack in his sleep. He's learning to ride a skateboard and can do a few tricks.