129 Hours: The Pabst Mine Disaster is a source-grounded centennial exhibit built from 1926 newspapers and local memory.
Matt Trefilek · Madison, Wisconsin
I build AI products, and I use the same tools to help my family learn.
I'm Matt Trefilek, a software and machine-learning engineer in Madison, Wisconsin. Tref Software is where I keep my software, research, family projects, and the notes I write about them.
What I work on
WorkBuilding productsSoftware, machine-learning systems, and research from work and my own projects.At homeLearning at homeWhen my family gets interested in a subject, we use the same tools to research it and make a game or project together.
I like learning by making something. That applies to software at work and to a learning game at the kitchen table.
01 · Current and recent
Featured work
Duel for Middle-earth
I'm building a fan-made two-player web adaptation with live and asynchronous play from the same persisted game.
Links coming soonRead about the game →
Liberty Letters: March to Victory
This Revolutionary War–themed letter-recognition game has a browser activity and a printable PDF.
Private learning with foundation models
My 2021 paper tested foundation-model features as a baseline for differentially private learning at low ε.
02 · At home
Liberty Letters
One of our kids was working on letter recognition, so I made a browser game with a Revolutionary War storybook theme. A child hears a letter, chooses it from three tiles, and advances the scene after a correct answer.
I also made a printable PDF letter activity for practicing away from the screen.
- Status
- Active, 2026
- Category
- Learning game · early literacy
- Browser activity
- play Liberty Letters
- Printable activity
- letter-recognition PDF
- Write-up
- project note
- More like this
- Learning at home
03 · From the blog
Latest from the blog
04 · About
About me
I've worked as a full-stack developer, finished a master's in computer science at UW–Madison focused on machine learning, worked on NLP and infrastructure problems at Rentable, and now work as an AI engineer at MoveIn. My about page has the rest of my background and older projects. You can email matthew.trefilek@trefsoftware.com and I'll answer.