Curriculum Vitae

This website should give you an idea of my varied interests. Hopefully, my work history speaks to my priorities.

My mother is an English teacher and my father a retired civil servant. They helped instill in me an appreciation for my blessings coupled with the importance of giving back. I began my professional life as a high school physics teacher, convinced that teaching would best leverage my interests and skills to make a difference. I've experimented with information technology as a means for improving democratic dialogue, and most recently, I've come to believe that there's something for me to do in the law.

I live in Massachusetts with my wife and son where I work as a data scientist for the MA Committee for Public Counsel Services (public defenders). I also serve as an adjunct professor at Suffolk University Law School. I used to produce a science-themed video series (The Tabletop Explainer), and occasionally I write science fiction under the guise of speculative legal fiction.

Select Publications:

• Life, Lawyerist (2016 Short Fiction Contest Winner).
• Driverless Cars Poised to Undermine War on Drugs: A Dispatch from the Future, Lawyerist.
• Learning to Code for Lawyers, Lawyerist:
  • Hello, World! Should Attorneys Learn to Code?
  • Online Forms Meet Local Document Automation (Cut-and-Paste Coding)
  • How to Build a Law Bot
• Uncovering Big Bias with Big Data, Lawyerist.
• Bureaucrats and Mathemagicians: Data Science and the Public Defenders, Law Technology Today.
• ABA's First Hackathon: How a Public Defender Built Due Processr, Law Technology Today.
• Eagles for Equality, The Huffington Post.
• The Tabletop Explainer, YouTube Partner. (over 5 million views)
• Heads in the Clouds, the Coming Storm: The Interplay of Cloud Computing, Encryption, and the Fifth Amendment's Protection Against Self-incrimination, Boston University School of Law Journal of Science and Technology Law.
• What if We Don't Raise the Debt Ceiling?, The Huffington Post.
• Full-Body Scans v. Nude Screenings: A Back-of-the-Envelope Calculation, The Huffington Post.
• Let the Two-Way Conversation Begin, techPresident.
• Trading Places, British Council Ezine (Internet Archive cache).
• Debunking Brain Gym, Tilts at Windmills.
• Phylm, AAPT 127th National Meeting.
• Moving Targets, NOVA Online.

In the News. As seen/heard on:

             

        

           

Law (selected coverage)

• ABA Journal: A New Wave of Legal Rebels (print edition); Hacking takes center stage as a tool to improve access to justice (print edition); 'Hackcess to Justice' winners look to increase the reach of their apps; Winning apps in 'Hackcess to Justice' help write wills, navigate disasters and calculate jail time.
• Lawyerist: Podcast #20: David Colarusso, Hacking for Justice; QnA is a Free Tool for Adding Questions and Answers to Your Website.
• Techdirt: The Drug War Is Creating Problems Too Big To Fix; Over 7,800 Prosecutions Questioned After NJ Lab Tech Caught Faking Drug Test Results;
• .Mic: One Massive Statistic Shows Just How Racist Our Criminal Justice System Is.
• WVTF Radio: How Big Data Reveals Bias in Virginia Courts.
• Legal Design Toolbox: QnA Markup to Create Interactive Conversational Resources.
• Lowell Sun: Jury finds man not guilty [of] taking infant in Lowell.
• Boston University School of Law: Meet the Clinic Students; Streamlining the court system: David Colarusso ('11) develops electronic case-management software.
• Justia: LexisTexas: Privatizing Access to Public Courts.
• Futurelawyer: WeJudicate: Citizen Coders Serving Justice.
• Legal Geekery Podcast: Fed Ct Website Updates, Racial Bias and the Death Penalty, Privatizing Access to Justice, Supreme Ct Haikus and More. (around the 33 minute mark)

Design (selected coverage)

• The Atlantic: Picture of the Day: Congress Gets a Fail Whale.
• MSNBC, Last Word Blog: Twitter whale meets partisan fail.
• CYMBacon: Partisan Fail Illustration.
• The Washington Post, BlogPOST: Congress Web sites crash after Obama's speech (#DearCongress).

communityCOUNTS

• NPR's Day to Day: Site Holds Vote on Debate Questions.
• The Nation: The People's Press Conference.
• National Journal 'Ask The President' Declares Victory; Word On The Tweet: @MrPresident Edition.
• ABA Student Lawyer: Circuit Board (Internet Archive Cache).
• BU Today: Testing the Web's Political Power: David Colarusso (LAW'11) creates online forum to press political candidates on issues that matter.
• The Washington Post: Normalizing the Internet; What's Up?: Questions From the People, Sharp to Strange; The Debates' New Face YouTube Users Will Quiz the Candidates.
• Newsweek: Hey, Barack, Answer Me! YouTube and CNN partnered for a debate. Will they rock the vote, or is this just Web 2.0 window dressing?; Stumper's Top 10 Must-Ask CNN/YouTube Debate Questions (Internet Archive Cache).
• The New York Times: On YouTube, Candidates Get an Eyeful.
• cnet: Presidential hopefuls to debate with the aid of CNN and YouTube.
• The Christian Science Monitor: A debate where citizen is star: Monday's YouTube event nudged the format into cyberspace, but it was no Internet breakthrough.
• Boston Globe: Net gains: How technology could save presidential debates.
• The Seattle Times: Tonight's Democratic debate.
• Silicon Valley Mercury News: Democrat hopefuls to take questions from YouTube.
• techPresident: Community Counts: Real Participation in the Debates.

10Questions (selected coverage)

• OJR: OJR speaks with a co-creator of 10Questions.com about how the site is helping empower popular discussion about the U.S. Presidential campaign.
• Wired: TechPresident Ends Experiment in Online Presidential Debates, Declares Success; Web 2.0 Project Taps 'Wisdom of the Crowd' to Probe Presidential Contenders.
• The Washington Post: A Timeless Debate Format? Or a Dated One?
• The New York Times: Beyond the YouTube Debate: You Ask, They Answer (We Hope); New Web Venture: 10 Questions for '08 Field.
• The Guardian: The presidential primary debate 2.0.
• General Coverage of 10Questions in 2010.

Education

• Lexington Minuteman: Teacher brings presidential race to you, YouTube; Exchange teacher returns from Scotland; LHS teacher wins Fulbright Award; Blast off!; Lexington High School kids 'dominated the competition'; Wishing on a star: Teachers create attendance program.
• edu.blogs.com: Brain Gym: worthwhile or wasteful?
• Evil Mad Scientist: Make a physics education video and win the Phylm Prize!; Weekend project: Phylm contest entry.
• Ciencia Hoje: Uma id�ia na cabe�a e uma webcam na m�o. (Machine Translation: One idea in the head and one hand on webcam)
• Teachers Teaching Teachers (podcast): What does Obama's Online Town Hall Meeting have to do with our classrooms?
• Vancouver Sun: Deciding when to be a cyber-parent: Finding out what your kids are up to in cyberspace can be touchy, but experts say parents must try.