Ben Collins-Sussman is the engineering Site Lead for Google's Chicago office.  A founding developer of the Subversion version control system, he co-authored O'Reilly's "Version Control with Subversion" book as well as "Team Geek".  Since joining Google in 2005, he ported Subversion to Google's Bigtable platform, led engineering teams for both Google Code and Google Affiliate Network, and now manages engineers working on the DFP advertising platform.

Ben collects hobbies which explore the tension between art and science. He has given numerous conference talks about the social challenges of software development.  He writes interactive fiction games and tools, and was the co-winner of two different independent game competitions. He has co-authored several original musicals and shared multiple awards for theater composition in Chicago, L.A. and Philadelphia.  He has an Extra-class FCC license for amateur radio, and also spends time doing semi-professional photography, singing in barbershop quartets, sketching in colored pencil, and playing bluegrass banjo.

Ben is a proud native of Chicago and holds Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Chicago with a major in Mathematics and minor in Linguistics.  He still lives in Chicago with his wife, kids, and cats.