Django and Cocoa II Instructor Juan Pablo Claude is originally from Santiago, Chile and came to the US to attend graduate school in chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After earning his Ph.D., Juan Pablo became a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, teaching and doing research in the area of physical inorganic chemistry. In his research, Juan Pablo often had to write data acquisition analysis programs, leading to his interest in computer programming and technologies. After spending several years in academics, Juan Pablo decided to make a career out of computers. He joined the Big Nerd Ranch in late 2005 as a Cocoa and Django programmer.

Juan Pablo cut his teeth programming in C for PC's running DOS to squeeze data out of recalcitrant instruments during graduate school. He then moved on to write data analysis applications in C++ for Windows. When OS X was released he was immediately compelled to return to the Mac and he hasn't looked back since. These days, he is delighted to write Objective-C and Python code in such a cooperative platform.

iPhone Instructor Joe Conway has been writing software on the Mac platform since he was a teenager. Originally wanting to become a game developer, Joe learned a wide variety of programming skills and cultural histories. Ironically, on the way back from his interview with the Big Nerd Ranch, two game developers sat behind him on the plane, griping about how little fun the game industry was. This solidified his decision to join the Big Nerd Ranch.

Joe quickly moved to Atlanta to begin consulting work for the Big Nerd Ranch after graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 2007, where he also competed as a long jumper for the track team. After being in Atlanta for a total of eleven hours, Joe had his first meeting and secured his first consulting project.

Joe still enjoys an occasional run, but most of the time you will find him at his computer with a pair of headphones on, trying to perfect whatever project he is currently infatuated with.

Objective-C and PHP/PostgreSQL Instructor Mark Fenoglio has over 12 years of experience in database and web-based application development in technologies ranging from SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and 4th Dimension to ASP, PHP, Ajax, Cocoa, and Objective-C. He was hired by the Big Nerd Ranch in September 2005 after asking too many annoying questions at the Cocoa Bootcamp that March.

To support his PHP development efforts, Mark has crafted his own PHP application framework. The framework features a PostgreSQL-friendly ORM and predicate library, a lightweight template-based rendering engine, and an innovative workflow approach to application design.

When not slaving away at his computer, Mark puts his Masters Degree in Geophysics from Stanford University to good use by pounding away at rock walls in quarries, searching for elusive treasures for his mineral collection. (Consequently, he never mocks anyone else's hobbies.)

Ruby Instructor Brian Hardy has been developing software in some form since the heyday of MS-DOS and QBasic. Fortunately, that era is now a distant memory, and he has spent the last decade professionally developing applications on and off the Web, for projects ranging from the tiniest shell script to massive content-driven web sites such as CNN.com.

With experience spanning many languages and platforms, Brian brings a well-seasoned blend of expertise to the classroom. His infatuation with Ruby was ignited with the release of Ruby on Rails, and he has since come to cherish the language as a model implementation of many powerful object-oriented and functional programming design patterns. In his opinion, making powerful software has never before been so much fun.

His passion for Linux and the Unix Way kept him from adopting the Mac platform until the release of OS X, which married a simple and beautiful user interface to industrial-strength underpinnings largely powered by open source software. Since then it has been his platform of choice for work and play.

As a natural extension of the Mac environment, Brian has lately devoted much of his time to mastering iPhone development, which brings the power and flexibility of programming on the Mac to the challenging and flourishing mobile arena. With an application in the store and more on the way, this promises to be an exciting new avenue for learning and instruction.

Cocoa and Cocoa Touch consultant Mark Miller has been creating software for over 18 years. While attending Purdue University, he discovered the campus NeXT computer lab and instantly became a fanatic of the platform.

Mark started developing applications for the iPhone after completing the Big Nerd Ranch iPhone Bootcamp course. After working years for large corporations, he joined the Big Nerd Ranch in 2009 as a Cocoa Touch programmer.

Recently, Mark has developed and deployed iPhone applications for various noteworthy clients around Los Angeles and Cupertino. When not developing iPhone applications, Mark enjoys a delicious pie.

Advanced Mac OS X instructor Jeremy W. Sherman graduated from New College of Florida in 2008 with a B.A. in Math/Computer Science and a thesis, lovingly crafted in LaTeX, titled "Compiling Imperative and Functional Languages."

Jeremy has been playing with programming and command lines since he got his hands on QBasic running under MS-DOS on an 8088. His first experience with a Unix system came while programming in LPC for an LPMud. He has been using Macs since Mac OS 9, made the jump to Mac OS X as soon as possible, and has had Terminal.app open since.

OpenGL Teaching Assistant Alex Silverman graduated from Georgia Tech in 2007 with a degree in Applied Physics.

He started developing for the iPhone in his free time while teaching physics at a large public high school in Gwinnett County, GA. Making iPhone applications quickly became Alex's passion so he decided to take his skill set to the next level with the Big Nerd Ranch.

With his background in secondary education, Alex is pursuing how the iPhone can be used in the classroom to enhance the learning experience. When he's not programming, Alex enjoys listening to music and reading on the web.