portfolio

A timeline approach seemed easier than pretending my work has ever stayed in one lane.

• Early Web
• Web Dev & Design
• Sex & Stigma
• IT Management
• Webcams
• Music
• Open Source
• Quantified Self
• I School
• Writing
• Experiments
• Co-living
• Policy
• PhD prep

Born

Matched with an adoptive family and flown from Northern Ontario to the big city at four days old. Achievement unlocked, and an early sign that I wouldn’t do things the normal way.

Early Web

I came of age online, moving through Prodigy, BBSes, Usenet, and IRC before the web was mainstream. I learned HTML building fan sites on Geocities, and immersed myself in early online subcultures.

Web Solutions

Started a web design company and briefly became one of those annoying teenage dot-com entrepreneurs the media loved to profile. I got sent a new webcam in 2000 to do a live NetMeeting interview for aspiring entrepreneurs, which later inspired another idea. These days I see the web more as my creative playground than work platform.

BDSM Survey Project

In my final year of high school I did a Family Studies project on alternative lifestyles and family norms, which now feels like a premonition of things to come. I performed original research, posting links to my hosted survey script in kink forums, and shared the report on my site.

StephTheGeek.com Born

Figured I'd make myself a website for once, and went with my HS nickname. Created as a personal site and sharing space, I added a public webcam as an experiment in greater visibility to help crowdfund recording an album. My World was a personal FAQ in interactive story game format.

I.T. Management
^{Toronto Metropolitan University}

Bachelor of Commerce in a business management & computer science program, with a near-minor in sexuality studies (if it had been such a thing). Notoriously appeared naked with a robot on the cover of the school paper's Valentine's Day issue.

Webcams

The webcam experiment took on a life of its own and came to define much of my decade. I was among the first “camgirls” (before The Talkies of streaming video) in a corner of the internet largely populated by alt-girls and misfits. My work pushed boundaries around technology, kink, artistry, and unapologetic authenticity.Along the way, I spoke out against censorship, chilling policies, and sex worker banking discrimination, and created a project to help other women decouple themselves from exploitative webmaster arrangements. What started as a playful, defiant experiment grew into a genuinely supportive community, many of whom remain part of my life more than 25 years later.

Not A Victim

The culmination of teenage songwriting, and an early experiment in open licensed, remixable music distribution — years ahead of Creative Commons catching on or later high-profile online album releases.

• Listen

1^st Mobile Webcam

Pieced together what appears to be the first cell phone-based webcam, which one blogger called "like inventing TwitPic in 2004".

CamGirls Documentary

One of four women featured in a documentary on early webcam culture, examining technical experimentation, identity, stigma, and the politics of visibility online.

• IMDB

Drupal CMS & TopNotchThemes

As a Linux user and advocate for open source software, I also found my way to Drupal, rebuilt my personal site into a community platform, and spun that work into a focused web development niche.I helped deliver sites for orgs including Amnesty International & Teach For America, grew an international team of six, shipped a product offering, and co-authored a book. We operated as a for-profit company within a FOSS ecosystem, contributing back where our goals aligned.I handled business development, project management, SEO, conference speaking, and finances, learning firsthand what it takes to run a small business at scale.

Lifestreaming / Quantified Self

Ran sustained experiments in lifestreaming & self-tracking, publishing 24/7 webcam feeds, live web browsing activity, fitness tracker data, and emergent microblogging. I co-hosted early Quantified Self meetups and explored the social & ethical implications of exposure, personal data, and investigated a prediction market mediated wellness concept.

YYZ 🛬 SFO

Sacred & Profane Chamber Choir

• Sicut Cervus (octet)
• La Koro Sutro

Master of Information Management & Systems

Enrolled in the I School to step back from building and reflect on nearly a decade of radical personal transparency. I was interested in how people narrate themselves and communicate through online systems, and what happens when visibility, data, and identity collide.Master’s thesis – MeLo: The Meaningful Location Project

📉🤯💔🏠➡️🏘️

Writing

An essay I posted on Medium unexpectedly reached tens of thousands of readers, which suggested I might be able to write about more than just technical topics.

• A Psychospiritual Emergency
• Not A Victim: stories of shame, sex & stigma
• Weren't you that girl in the wheelchair?
• Building A Personal Chatbot: Planning Your Personality

Adult Industry Projects

Explored a range of adult-adjacent projects, focusing on platforms, payments, and education. These included early experiments with adult creators and cryptocurrency, a Sexy Selfie School video channel, Naked Reality coaching, and ongoing engagement with the evolving adult creator economy.

Experiments

Games, experiences, & general creative tinkering.

• Perpetua(l)
• Public Key Photography
• 20m-opoly

Tech Policy Primer

Selected for the Aspen Institute’s intensive program in technology policy and public governance. My final project examined enhancements to entrepreneurship-based immigration, which we presented as part of a federal policy briefing.

• View project

20mish Reboot

20mish (née 20mission) is a 40-bedroom co-living space in San Francisco, originally founded as the first crypto hacker house. Today I help run it as a kind of ongoing startup in human systems: managing recruitment, operations, and the day-to-day realities of putting forty people into close quarters, including leading post-pandemic recovery and community rebuilding.

• 20mish.com

Resound Ensemble

• Website

Psychology & Beyond

Coursework & training to help pivot into the social sciences.Highlights: Abnormal Psychology, Gender & Sexuality, Responsible AI for Mental Health, Ethics of Psychological Research, Cognitive Science, Public Health, Peer Support Specialist Certification.

Substack Launch

Compass Not Included, coming early 2026.

PhD - Human Sexuality

Planning PhD applications for Fall 2027 entry, with research interests in human sexuality, stigma, and the support needs of highly marginalized sexual populations.