About

I am a senior systems engineer in the enterprise division at the Linde Group. I have experience with both the operational and research sides of infrastructure in environments including the enterprise, government agencies, academia, and startups.

I research and solve problems at the intersection of security, identity management, and user experience–far too often treated as separate domains. Expertise fusing these domains is critical for new applications in mobile devices, social networks, and messaging platforms. I do this by studying how people interact with technology and how technical infrastructure and policy enables and constrains social behavior. My dissertation, Online Identifiers in Everyday Life, explored these topics in-depth. I received my PhD in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2010.

I have over fifteen years of experience that spans research environments, federal funding agencies, press, startups, and large companies. My previous work includes consumer internet services, infrastructure operations, strategic consulting, and successful research grant applications.

My past roles include leading a project at Google to integrate multiple identifiers into a single Google Account; developing a competitive analysis of identity management systems for the Microsoft LiveID team; project coordinator for National Science Foundation’s Digital Library Initiative; and visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information. Additional details available on my experience and publications pages.

I am also a researcher for the Highlands Group and the online editor for Messaging News. You can read my On Message column and my columns in the print edition of Messaging News. Follow @bengross on Twitter. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Contact Me

Ben Gross

Phone: +1-415-520-7606