# David Durand

> David Durand is the CEO and co-founder of Tizra, the Providence-based digital publishing platform that helps associations and scholarly publishers sell, organize, and deliver high-value content. A PhD computer scientist who has worked with markup languages and hypertext since 1984, he helped shape the standards that quietly run the web - XML, TEI, HyTime, XLink, and WebDAV - and co-wrote the first in-depth guide to HyTime. He taught at Brown, served as Chief Scientist at its Scholarly Technology Group, and turned decades of document-engineering research into a company that powers digital libraries for groups like the American Dental Association.

- **Role:** CEO and Co-Founder at Tizra
- **Organizations:** Tizra, Brown University, Scholarly Technology Group, Ingenta plc, Dynamic Diagrams, Boston University
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BA, Brown University, PhD, document engineering and collaborative editing, Boston University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Tizra, a digital publishing and library platform used by major professional associations including the American Dental Association and American Hospital Association, Co-authored 'Making Hypermedia Work: A User's Guide to HyTime' (1994), the first in-depth guide to the HyTime standard, Contributed to foundational web and document standards: XML, TEI, HyTime, XLink, and WebDAV

## Career timeline

- **1984** — Began working with markup languages and hypertext
- **1989** — With Steven DeRose, built an emulator and FRESS demo for the ACM Hypertext Conference
- **1994** — Co-authored 'Making Hypermedia Work: A User's Guide to HyTime' with Steven J. DeRose (Kluwer Academic Publishers)
- **1990s-2000s** — Chief Scientist at Brown's Scholarly Technology Group; Adjunct Associate Professor in Brown's Department of Computer Science
- **1990s-2000s** — Contributed to the XML, TEI, HyTime, XLink, and WebDAV standards efforts
- **2000s** — VP/head of software architecture at Ingenta plc; CTO at Dynamic Diagrams
- **2006** — Co-founded Tizra with Abe Dane in Providence, Rhode Island
- **2008** — Tizra raised a Series A round

## Achievements

- Co-founded Tizra, a digital publishing and library platform used by major professional associations including the American Dental Association and American Hospital Association
- Co-authored 'Making Hypermedia Work: A User's Guide to HyTime' (1994), the first in-depth guide to the HyTime standard
- Contributed to foundational web and document standards: XML, TEI, HyTime, XLink, and WebDAV
- Served as Chief Scientist at Brown University's Scholarly Technology Group and as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Computer Science at Brown
- Earned a PhD in document engineering and collaborative editing
- Rebuilt and demonstrated FRESS, an early hypertext system, for the ACM Hypertext Conference

## Latest updates

- **2021-09** — Featured on Tizra's team page as the visionary behind the content delivery platform
- **2020-01** — Recognized in Brown CS's 'Celebrating A Half-Century Of Hypertext' for his early hypertext work and FRESS demonstration

## Links

- Website: https://tizra.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/david-durand-521a07

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/david-durand
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-13