EDUCATOR · BUILDER · WRITER · MUSICIAN

JEFF RITTER

Thirty years in higher education. Now building AI tools for learning, civic transparency platforms, and a screenplay about a man who fixes everything except himself. Pittsburgh.

Building things that help people know where they stand — whether that's a student before an exam, a college facing closure, or a citizen watching their city council vote.

I'm a retired educator with a Ph.D. and thirty years in higher education. I've watched institutions promise students they'd help them succeed and then lose them to a gateway course nobody diagnosed. I've watched colleges close when the community around them had the will but not the framework. I decided to stop watching and start building.

I play guitar every day and in a band called The Analog Dogs — playing music that makes people happy is a big thing for me. I ride motorcycles out of Pittsburgh in any direction. I wrote a screenplay that took eleven years and earned a 9/10 on dialogue from professional coverage. I enjoy movies, music, and I built seven websites because I don't wait for permission.

Pittsburgh has become home from away — originally from New Jersey, and I love NJ, but this is different. I live here with my wife, Kate Borger, our dog, and a kitchen we both use. I cook for us. We walk outside. Short adventures and occasional travel — Chile, Brazil, Spain, Costa Rica, Cape Cod. Always looking for great food.

I keep up with the New York Times brain twisters and the news and opinion. Everything I build is informed by the belief that people deserve to know where they stand — whether that's a student in College Algebra, a community facing a college closure, or a citizen trying to understand what their city council just voted on.