Kirsten Lum
Lead architect for Schemantic as well as the primary architect and lead developer of the (S)uper (H)ard r(EL)ati(O)nal (B)enchmark.
Previously at Amazon for over six years, Kirsten led data science, engineering, architecture, and analysis, along with economics, instrumentation, and technical product management. She is an alum of the Amazon LeAP program (~500 out of 1,500,000 employees) and was recognized by the S-Team, Jeff Bezos' direct leadership team, as a "rockstar of rockstars" for her work resolving global data architecture problems.
She is the lead inventor for over 50 patent claims granted by the USPTO in related fields and taught analytics at the University of Washington, where she graduated with Honors. She is writing a book and making an app about Christian mysticism. Her husband (Wing Yew) and Phil think she'll create a bridge that reconciles orthodoxy and mysticism.
Wing Yew Lum
Tries to be helpful.
A long-time veteran of Amazon (AWS, Marketplace, Alexa), Wing Yew led most functions—data science, engineering, product, programs, ux research, analytics, and marketing. He took on and delivered both S-Team and board-level goals, including by turning around at least one org described as a "dumpster fire" by Jeff Bezos' leadership team. Goals he delivered produced "stock doubling" (S-Team's words) effects via billions in incremental, A/B validated dollar impact. He eventually left Amazon, founded one of Inc Magazine's fastest growing companies and an incubator, which included building Schemantic.
Prior to corporate life and mostly thanks to the encouragement of his mom, he (barely) finished college at the University of Washington where he graduated with degrees in business and literature + ironically led the honors college. Pre-college, Wing Yew graduated high school with his mom's encouragement. He did win a half dozen or so state chess titles, and for having the highest standardized test scores out of ~400 students, received a dedicated parking space and peaked.
He is a former member of the board of directors for World Vision.
Sheffield Leithart
Does a lot of engineering and algorithms.
Six-year engineering veteran of Amazon, across AWS and Marketplace. He is a filmmaker and photographer. He went to the University of Idaho for computer science but dropped out to become Zac Brown Band's tour photographer. He dropped out of the Zac Brown Band tour to start a family.
He is a National Merit Scholar (99th percentile) with near-perfect ACT scores (99th percentile).
Garrett Fiddler
Does a lot of science.
Over a decade of experience in machine learning and data science, having built high-performance models across half a dozen verticals.
Garrett enjoys playing music, reading books in dead languages, building impractical NLP projects, floating Pacific Northwest rivers, and casually cosplaying Lord of the Rings characters — and he swears he will get back to writing fiction more regularly any day now. In the meantime he is happy to give extemporaneous lectures at no additional cost on subjects including all-in-one basketball metrics, the problem of reference, how Louis Brandeis saved America, and what really caused the bronze age collapse.
Garrett holds more than 20 patent claims from the USPTO and graduated from Yale University with honors. He holds near perfect GRE scores (99th percentile) and near perfect SAT scores (99th percentile).
Jonathan Brownell
Does a lot of engineering.
Over 30 years in the technology sector. Has led the development and delivery of solutions to global companies including Hewlett-Packard, Walmart, John Deere, SUSE, General Motors, and the U.S. Dept. of Defense, and has assisted a host of startups in launching successful products and services.
Jonathan spent his formative years with a juggling & unicycling troupe before concluding that it might not be his greatest calling in life. He was disappointed to find that prowess with torches & machetes was deemed neither relevant nor appropriate for data center environments.
Because Wing Yew has insisted that Jonathan overshare: Jonathan was homeschooled as a child and has insisted on inflicting the same upon his own progeny. He comes from five generations of music teachers and strives to be the most insufferable of them all.
Jaimil Dalwadi
Does a lot of engineering.
Previously, Jaimil was a software engineer/quant building trading models at Bloomberg in New York.
Prior to that, he interned with the Schemantic team, where at some point Wing Yew started shouting at Jaimil: "I, Wing Yew, declare you the strongest (intern) of them all!" #madara #guy #the8thgate
Somewhere between that pivotal moment, Wing Yew saying "I'm pushing to main, mane!", and Jaimil contemplating what must be "done for the plot," he accepted a role as a founding engineer.
Jaimil graduated with high honors (magna cum laude) from Waterloo's Computer Science program (3.9 GPA, 8x Term Distinction).
Wing Yew, who barely graduated college, still asks: "High honors good. But why no highest honors?"
Anna Kepes
Does a lot of whatever it takes.
Before joining, Anna went to school and spent time volunteering in and around war zones delivering humanitarian aid. By partnering with the team, Anna discovered that ontological frameworks, data provenance, and the MECE outlay of reality are, improbably, where she has the most fun. She almost became an event coordinator at what Wing Yew called a "Tier 4 non-profit" before Wing Yew and divine forces (so he claims) conspired to redirect her.
While Anna does not come from a conventional analytics background, and no one is 100% sure why we hired her, the decision has held until now (March 25th, 2026 at 9:51 AM PST). Related, Anna has developed a habit of volunteering + being volun-told for tasks described as "functionally impossible" and against most of the odds, made them less impossible by deconstructing and rebuilding them from scratch — earning the nickname "Annabolic".
Outside of that, she cries at sunsets, has 2x raged out not super respectfully at Wing Yew after 11 PM local time, and credits an aggressively curated childhood diet of LOTR and Star Wars for her strong sense of justice.
Unlike Jaimil, she graduated summa cum laude.
Erin Torgerson
Does a lot of product management and quality assurance.
Erin is our founder Kirsten's sister and was given a series of potentially less fair advantages in life, including: (1) learning to code, evaluate data, and build machine learning models directly from Kirsten as well as (2) getting patent assignments for her first technical project almost 5 years ago. She's completed and deployed dozens of machine learning models and over a hundred intensive analyses across multiple verticals.
She's the resident AI expert for an emerging incubator in Seattle, studied data science at the University of Washington, and true to regional Seattle vibes, is a certified trauma-informed yoga instructor.
Philip Gallo
Does a lot of product evangelism.
Phil has spent nearly two decades building, advising, and scaling technology companies. He founded QubeWorks, a software company serving Department of Defense and Intelligence Community agencies handling Top Secret/SCI work, and led it through a successful acquisition. He went on to grow a new vertical at Domain7 into $2M+ in revenue, owned the purchase funnel for Xbox at Microsoft, and ran applied R&D for Point B, a national consulting firm.
Phil raised $7M to acquire a small business and helped scale a startup from 55M to 75M+ monthly engaged users. He holds a security clearance background from his Pentagon-adjacent work and has a habit of making things operational that others leave theoretical.
Wing Yew, who writes some/most of the bios, says Phil is among the best fathers and friends any human could know. He says while Phil is a blend of the kindest people he's ever met, Phil is also merged with the saltiest internal monologue Wing Yew has encountered.