Independent work
I conduct independent research in public policy and the sciences, and design and direct the development of software systems and tools.
Current work
Navigate complexity. Build with clarity.
Portolan is a workspace for coordinating projects and AI assistants. It organizes the conversations, documents, tasks, and decisions that make up a portfolio. Doers use it to synthesize complex information, manage work in progress, and keep objectives clear.
AI systems and workflows
Good AI work begins before a model is asked to produce anything. I translate a real problem into a system of roles, context, tools, decision points, verification, and human review—then refine the arrangement until it is useful, understandable, and proportionate to the work.
The aim is not automation for its own sake. It is to extend what a person or organization can do while preserving the judgment, responsibility, and understanding that make the result worth using.
Turning complex or recurring work into a clear operating structure: what AI should do, what conventional software should do, where human judgment belongs, and how the pieces work together.
Designing source-aware workflows for discovery, triage, analysis, drafting, citation, revision, publication, and the preservation of useful context over time.
Creating the questions, instructions, roles, memory, and bounded work packages that let models operate with purpose rather than improvise from a thin prompt.
Building challenge, verification, testing, uncertainty, correction, and approval into the workflow so fluent output is never mistaken for reliable work.
Combining deterministic processes with model judgment where each is strongest, while keeping the system understandable, stoppable, and accountable to its owner.
Developing practical dashboards, research systems, publication workflows, and local tools that turn an idea into something that can be used, evaluated, and improved.
How I work
Every project begins with a question and a willingness to follow the evidence wherever it leads. The work is shaped as it unfolds—bringing order to complexity, testing ideas against competing views, and revising both the argument and its form when the record demands it. The aim is not merely to arrive at an answer, but to make difficult subjects clearer and create work worthy of the public’s trust.
Research Method in Practice
My principal independent research project is the American Restoration and Resilience Project (ARRP), a sustained examination of structural problems in American government and potential institutional remedies.
Its published work demonstrates my approach to primary-source research, legal and policy analysis, methodological transparency, auditing, and revision.
Explore ARRPA primary-source and existing-law analysis of institutional conflicts, eligibility rules, and a proposed statutory cooling-off period.
Read the example ↗DOJ-003An issue map connecting public records, charging comparators, statutory reporting structures, oversight design, and stated uncertainty.
Read the example ↗ELEC-011A comparative policy and legal analysis developed into a model-state approach with auditable safeguards and explicit implementation limits.
Read the example ↗