2025 Board Nominations: Time to Vote
By Kathy Davis
Clojurists Together is in the process of electing new board members to fill the four volunteer positions that are expiring this year. These positions are for two-year terms (approximately Nov. 2025 - Oct. 2027).
The board is responsible for governing the organization, selecting and administering the projects that are sponsored, and interacting with sponsors. It also facilitates decision-making and implementation for the future plans of Clojurists Together.
We received 10 applications from the Clojure Community. 4 are from current board members who would like to continue to serve. All of the candidates are talented Clojurists that we would love (and be honored) to have on our board.
The board has nominated all 10 candidates for the current board election (in alphabetical order of last names):
- Felix Barbalet (current board member)
- Daniel Compton (current Treasurer/Secretary)
- Rafal Dittwald
- Arthur Fücher
- Heather Moore-Farley (current board member)
- Felippe da Motta Raposo
- Christoph Neumann
- Max Penet (current board member)
- Howard M. Lewis Ship
- Daniel Slutsky
Next Steps
All current Clojurists Together Members should have received a link to their ballot to vote via email. If you haven’t received a ballot by 9th October (and you’ve checked your spam folder to see if it’s hiding there), please contact kdavis@clojuriststogether.org.
Voting will close on 16th October at midnight Pacific Time. The top four candidates, as voted on by members will fill our open slots. Please note that our bylaws stipulate that “there may not be more than two members under the control or close influence of the same entity. If this threshold is crossed then members must stand down until there are no more than two members from the same entity”. This year, there are 3 candidates from the same organization. So depending on the election results, we may need to make an adjustment after the votes are in.
We will announce the winners shortly afterward and you’ll be able to meet them at the Annual members meeting at 10 am Pacific time, October 29, 2025
Your Vote is Important!! Please Vote!
Meet the Candidates
Felix Barbalet
Company: Psithur
I’ve really enjoyed contributing to the Clojurists Together board over the past two years, and I hope I’ve brought a helpful view and been able to make a difference to help grow the Clojure ecosystem.
I’ve been using Clojure professionally for 5+ years and I’m now running a small software/data company which uses full stack Clojure. Clojure has been the continuation of a life-long learning journey for me, and I don’t see that slowing down. The kind of things I’m interested in are figuring out how to raise the profile of Clojure as a smart choice for large enterprises all the way down to startups, and to help reduce the barriers to entry to Clojure as a profession. I want to see Clojure continue to grow and I’d love to see more corporate support to bring Clojure to more people.
Bio: I’ve spent >15 years working as a technologist in a range of roles including analytics, data science, data engineering, software architecture and software engineering. I have experience across highly-regulated industries (Government), consulting and startups. I have a B Economics (Honours) with specialisation in advanced econometrics, statistics, game-theory and behavioral economics and a graduate certificate in Cyber Security.
Daniel Compton
https://github.com/danielcompton
x.com/danielwithmusic
Company: Whimsical
I’ve been a board member of Clojurists Together since the beginning, as well as the secretary/treasurer. I have been the main board member running day-to-day operations of Clojurists Together since we began.
Bio: I’m Daniel Compton. I live in New Zealand and have been a board member of Clojurists Together since it began, as well as the secretary/treasurer. I have been the primary board member running day-to-day operations of Clojurists Together since we began. I’d like to continue to serve the community through running Clojurists Together.
Rafal Dittwald
Company: Bloom Ventures
I see this as an opportunity to serve and give back to our great community. Clojurists Together is a critical part of the Clojure ecosystem, and I want to see it and the community grow. I believe CT could serve as the foundation, for, well, a Clojure Foundation, supporting the Clojure commons in various new ways - such as financial host on Open Collective, an intellectual property host, and maybe experiment with community participation in selecting projects (via, say, quadratic funding). …if other members are supportive, of course.
Bio: Rafal has been working with Clojure for over 10 years, primarily building web applications (many of which are open-source). He organizes Clojure Camp and has given a few talks (such as Solving Problems the Clojure Way). He has been a Clojurists Together member since its inception. He has served on the board of 3 for-profit corporations and 2 non-profit corporations.
Arthur Fücher
https://www.linkedin.com/in/arthur-fucher/
https://github.com/afucher ; https://www.youtube.com/@clojure-br
I am also member of InnerSource Commons (https://innersourcecommons.org/about/members/)
Company: Nubank
I’ve been working with Clojure for over five years, including three years on platform engineering and developer experience, building tools and infrastructure for developers. I also contribute to open-source Clojure projects and organize ClojureBR, the Brazilian Clojure community, which promotes meetups and content in Portuguese.
Clojure and its community have given me a lot, and I’d like to give back by helping Clojurists Together strengthen the Clojure ecosystem globally and bring the perspective of Brazil, where many companies and developers are producing high-quality open-source. My experience in tooling, open source, and community organizing equips me to evaluate projects, contribute ideas, and help make the organization more inclusive and impactful.
Bio: Arthur Fücher is a Clojure developer who in recent years has focused on improving developer experience and platform tooling. He contributes to open-source Clojure projects and organizes ClojureBR, the Brazilian Clojure community. Arthur is passionate about Clojure and dedicated to growing its community, sharing knowledge, and supporting initiatives that help more people discover and use the language.
Heather Moore-Farley
**Company:**Peerspace
I’ve been on the board for the past 4 years and have a good idea of the time commitment and work involved. I love working with Clojure and like learning about and funding projects that are important for the Clojure ecosystem.
Bio: Heather has been a software engineer for over 10 years and has been using Clojure and Clojurescript for almost 8 years. When she’s not coding, she’s biking and drumming.
Felippe da Motta Raposo
https://github.com/felippemr/
https://www.reanard.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/felippe-raposo/
Company: VitableHealth
I am inexperienced with Clojure and could provide a beginner’s perspective on projects and community initiatives that help people accelerate their learning experience. I could also help with creating targeted industry guides for fintech and healthtech – helping people clearly understand Clojure’s value proposition outlined to their specific needs.
Bio: Felippe has over a decade of experience building software, from a database-as-a-service platform managing thousands of resources to large-scale systems that power automated money movement in the venture ecosystem — and more recently, in healthcare. He’s contributed to open source projects and spoken at Python community events in Brazil. Outside of work, Felippe enjoys reading with his kids and has recently introduced his six-year-old son to the Captain Tsubasa manga.
I currently live in Sandy, UT. USA.
Christoph Neumann
Company: Nubank
I believe that it’s vital to fund open source development for Clojure to grow and remain viable for years to come. I’d like to join the board because I love the work Clojurists Together is doing, and I would like to help. I think I’m a good fit because I’ve been active in the Clojure community for a decade, and I’m the developer advocate on the Clojure core team.
Bio: Christoph is a Clojure fanatic, entrepreneur, and the Clojure team’s developer advocate. After earning a MS in Computer Science and most of a PhD, Christoph left academia to take functional programming and user-centric design back into industry. He went on to make exceptionally-reliable, high-performance Clojure systems for live sports and esports production. He’s worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, including the NFL, Wimbledon, Call of Duty, and The Overwatch League.
With his friend, Nate Jones, he hosts the “Functional Design in Clojure” podcast. For more than 100 episodes, they have helped object-oriented developers escape the perils of side effects through immutable, functional programming. Visit christophneumann.dev for links to everything.
Max Penet
Company: Exoscale
I’m committed to continuing to make a positive impact on the community through CT’s work. I genuinely enjoy helping out whenever possible, especially through the various discussion channels. Having benefited greatly from this community myself, it feels only fair to give back by contributing my time and effort. Given my long-standing involvement and reliance on a healthy, thriving Clojure community for both personal and professional projects, I believe I could be a good fit for this role.
Bio: I currently work as a software engineer at Exoscale, a European cloud provider that depends heavily on Clojure. I’ve been an active member of the Clojure community and have used Clojure professionally for over a decade across various fields. Over the years, I have authored, contributed to, and maintain several open-source libraries. I also stay closely engaged with the community on a near-daily basis, always aiming to offer help whenever possible. Most importantly, I deeply appreciate what CT is doing and would love to be able to help sustain that effort for two more years.
Howard M. Lewis Ship
https://lewisship.net/
https://github.com/hlship
Company: Nubank
I have long experience contributing to the open source community as an individual and as a representative of my employers (such as Walmart and Nubank), and have a new role at Nubank leading our open source enablement team, where part of my mandate is to engage with existing open source organizations and communities. I’ve been interested in Clojure since approximately 2010 and actively using it professionally since 2013.
Bio: I’ve been involved in open source projects since at least 2003; starting with Java (and the Apache Tapestry framework, which I founded) and continuing more recently with Clojure projects, including the Lacinia GraphQL framework, the Pedestal web framework, and org.clj-commons/pretty, as well as other less prominent projects.
I’m very much interested in contributing back to the Clojure open source community, as I think these efforts are critical to the long-term viability of the Clojure language.
Daniel Slutsky
Company: consultant at Daniel Slutsky LTD, full-time contractor for endor.global.
I deeply care about the Clojure open-source communities and Clojure growth, and these topics have been my main focus during the last few years, at Scicloj and elsewhere.
Bio: I’m Daniel Slutsky, a mathematician and data science consultant who has been working with Clojure since 2013. I co-organize Scicloj, where our mission is “Helping Clojure grow in new fields” - including academia, research, education, and domains beyond traditional software engineering.
My approach to community building draws from years of experience in local social activist groups, emphasizing inclusive collaboration and helping newcomers find their place in action-oriented projects.
I help maintain several open-source projects including Clay (literate programming), Noj (data science toolkit), Tableplot (data visualization) and ClojisR (Clojure-R bridge). Through mentorship programs, conferences like SciNoj Light and Macroexapnd-2025, and ongoing study groups focused on tooling, AI, and real-world applications, I work to create accessible pathways for people to explore Clojure in their fields of interest.
As a recipient of Clojurists Together grants in 2024 and having collaborated with a few other grantees, I’ve seen firsthand how this support enables community-driven work that expands Clojure’s reach. I would welcome the opportunity to help CT in supporting projects that both strengthen our existing open-source ecosystem and welcome new voices from diverse fields.