Mike Valvo

Biography

Me:

I'm from Buffalo, NY and I've been living in Houston since 2000.  I have a BS in electrical engineering from SUNY Buffalo.  I've been working at NASA JSC since 2000.  Most of my work has been on the Robonaut project (http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov/). My main area of expertise is FPGA development, software development, PCB design, and robotic sensor integration. I'm also involved in the NFIR (natural features image recognition) project.  When I'm not working, I'm usually playing/teaching/performing guitar.  I also love movies, running, and hanging out with my friends.  I also plan on travelling internationally once per year. I currently live in League City with my dog, Owen.

Music:

I've been playing guitar since 1994.  I started playing playing rock/alternative for bit, but in my first year of college I took lessons from Christian Stomsvik, who introduced me to the world of classical guitar.  After Christian moved to NYC, I took lessons from John Sawers (formerly of the Buffalo guitar quartet).  When I moved to Houston in 2000, I took lessons from Valerie Hartzell.  After a couple years, I became proficient enough to teach some of Valerie's students.  My public performances have been open-mics, coffeeshop gigs, weddings, and private parties.  I'm very excited and passionate about classical guitar as well as fingerstyle steel-string guitar (such as Michael Hedges, Don Ross, Antoine Dufour, Andy Mckee, etc).  I prefer early 20th century S. American and spanish classical guitar (Tarrega, Villa-Lobos, Barrios, etc.).  I'm also committed to create my own albums, which will most likely be a mixture of classical and contemporary steel string music.