Ben Schwartz has been a member of IFFP since 2021 along with his wife and son, Katie Kennedy and Justin (2yo). Ben grew up in Owings Mills, MD and attended University of Maryland, College Park where he earned his bachelor’s degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He earned a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Stanford University and is currently working as a principal engineer at AWS Elemental, an Amazon Web Services subsidiary, focusing on cloud services that address the media and entertainment market.
Ben and Katie married in an interfaith ceremony in 2018 and joined IFFP in 2021 before Justin was born. They have been virtual members, first in Baltimore and now in Minneapolis (since 2023). Occasionally, they are able to attend an event in person when they are visiting family in Maryland. They hope to return to the mid-Atlantic when Katie completes her fellowship in Neurotology at the University of Minnesota in June 2025. In his spare time, Ben enjoys cooking, baking, playing chess, hiking, and playing with his vocal and excitable cat, Buttercup.