Dr. Mark Pollack has been a core Spring (Java) developer since 2003 and founded its Microsoft counterpart, Spring.NET, in 2004. Mark now leads the Spring Data project and co-leads the Spring XD that aims to simplify application development with new data technologies around big data and NoSQL databases. Prior to working on Spring project, Mark worked in offline computing in high-energy nuclear physics at Brookhaven National Laboratory and then moved to the financial services industry as a technical lead for front-office trading systems.