I build data systems
for problems that matter.
Over 30 years I've worked at the intersection of public institutions, digital infrastructure, and emerging technology. Most recently I've served as Head of Web Development at the Smithsonian Institution, where I lead platform strategy and architecture for one of the world's largest public-facing digital ecosystems.
Alongside that work I'm independently building four open-source platforms. Each addresses the same underlying problem: data that exists in silos, fragmented or invisible, made useful across boundaries.
I'm not looking for a job. I'm looking for collaborators, partners, and organizations doing serious work who want to build something together.
Humanitarian Intelligence Platform
Real-time crisis intelligence for humanitarian response.
Aggregates and synthesizes crisis data from global humanitarian sources, surfacing accountability gaps, data quality issues, and aid distribution anomalies. Built with Claude AI for narrative synthesis and Cloudflare for edge delivery.
hip.lemondeweb.com/crisis/SDN →Digital Platform Risk Monitor
Ecosystem visibility for large institutions.
Enter a domain and DPRM discovers all subdomains, then runs comprehensive tests covering certificates, availability, accessibility, security headers, CMS detection, governance signals, and risk scoring. Produces an executive risk report. Designed for institutions that don't know what they're running.
Link forthcomingUnified Cultural Search
Unified semantic search across major cultural collections.
Search Harvard Art Museums, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Smithsonian Asian collections simultaneously through a single vector search interface. Built on Nomic embeddings and Qdrant. No LLM in the loop. Pure semantic similarity at scale.
lemondeweb.com/linkedculture →Phrase-Chunked Reading Engine
A better way to move through text.
Takes source text, breaks it into deterministic phrase chunks, and plays them in a fixed reading zone at a configurable pace. Reading position lives in the URL. No accounts, no storage, no tracking. Bookmark or email the URL to resume anywhere.
reader.edwardmonk.com →Offline Field Data Collection
Offline-first data collection for scientific fieldwork.
A JSON schema-driven data entry system designed for researchers working without connectivity. Stores locally, syncs on reconnection, and can generate static websites from collected data for immediate sharing. Built for field scientists, ecologists, and conservation teams.
Link forthcomingThe work is grounded in a simple idea: important data is usually trapped somewhere it shouldn't be: in silos, in spreadsheets, in systems that don't talk to each other, or in environments with no infrastructure at all. The interesting problem is always the same: how do you make it useful, accessible, and durable? That question has driven 30 years of work across institutions, consulting, and independent research.
At the Smithsonian, Edward leads web development strategy and platform architecture for more than 200 public-facing websites across 19 museums and research centers. His work there focuses on platform standardization, accessibility governance, Linux infrastructure, and emerging AI capability.
If you're working on something serious and think there's a conversation worth having, reach out.
contact@edwardmonk.com