Mark Mandel has been a fan all his life and an active filker since the early nineties. His filk nickname would be "The Filker with No Nickname", if anyone besides him used it. At cons and other fannish events he is often accompanied by his familiar, a small red-and-white dragon named Loiosh. In the mundane world he is a linguist (language scientist), retired from the University of Pennsylvania. He has lived in Philadelphia since 2002, after 20 years in the Boston area. As a linguist in fandom he sometimes calls himself "Dr. Whom: Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoëpist, and Philological Busybody".