Originally from Canada (Swiss-naturalized since then), Shawn completed a double-honours degree (BSc in ‘Computer-Science' and ‘Combinatorics & Optimization' 1990) at the Faculty of Mathematics of the University of Waterloo. Years later, at the EPFL while teaching the 1st-year course Introduction to Networks and Protocols, he published his doctoral thesis (PhD in Computer-Science ). He was welcomed into the role of 1st assistant in the Electrical Engineering Dept. at EPFL working on telecommunication-architectures with Alcatel/Orange/Siemens, then built relational databases at Charles Veillon S.A., followed by working on e-government applications (civilian and military) at Networkers S.A., to move into system-administration/teaching/web-development at the World Health Organization collaborating center GFMER in Geneva. He finally returned to the EPFL and UNIL to do database-support and IT-support for the researchers in multiple labs. In 2025, Shawn is at EPFL helping researchers in LMOM and SML labs.

In addition to his work at LMOM lab LMOM.epfl.ch, Shawn also did a 3year stint at the LTP lab (principally Windows lab) http://LTP.epfl.ch, and at the ARVE lab replaced since with "DavisGroup" (Mac/Linux)(wp.unil.ch/davisgroup). Look for Shawn in the usual places on social media (TW,FB,YT,FL,PI, LI, GoogleScholar, ResearcherID...).