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John Xuna
Juan in Spanish · Xoán in Galician · born Modesto Álvarez-Vázquez
Born in Vigo, Galicia, Spain, on November 10, 1948. Engineer, software pioneer, physics teacher and professor, geothermal-energy thinker, two-time candidate for the U.S. Congress, and author of The Ignorance of Faith.
For more than two decades he kept his life story on a network of personal websites: xuna.com, xunasoft.com, jxpe.com, zuet.com, ehxs.com and others. Those sites are offline now, but the Wayback Machine kept them. This site gathers that story in one place, in his own words wherever possible.
“Modesty aside, I can say that I have absorbed a wide spectrum of knowledge, since that first day of professional work at Citroën-Peugeot Hispania S.A.”
Highlights
From Vigo to the world
A Citroën scholarship at 13, an engineering degree summa cum laude at 16, then Barcelona, Madrid, Puerto Rico, New York, Colorado, the Dakotas, Florida and Paraguay.
Life story →Software pioneer
Founded Scientific Software in 1978–79. His 1982 dairy-farm database, XUNA D.M.I.S., gave the family its name.
Engineer & software pioneer →Teacher & scientist
Computer-science professor in Puerto Rico (1983), Florida-certified science and physics teacher (2005 on), and Professor of Physics in Asunción, Paraguay (2012).
Teacher & scientist →Geothermal ideas: ZUET
“Zeroing in Underground Energy Technologies”: ways to tap geothermal energy on a grand scale, presented in 2008.
About ZUET →Public service
Ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida in 2002 (District 22, no party affiliation) and 2016 (District 18, Democratic primary).
The campaigns →Author
The Ignorance of Faith (2012), written as Xoán Xuna and published in Spanish, English, Portuguese, French and German.
Books & writings →The story of a name
He was born Modesto Álvarez-Vázquez. In 1982 he finished a database program for dairy farmers that he called XUNA D.M.I.S., from X-referenced, Universal, Nucleolic, Archiving. In his words, “the software name end up being my family's new last name.” He changed his name legally to John Xuna in 1986.
He signs as John in English, Juan in Spanish and Xoán in Galician, the name he chose as an author. His campaign site explained the pronunciation: Juan as “Who-Ann,” and Xuna as “Shoe-Nah.”
Built from the family's copies of his archived websites. Every date and fact comes from those pages. See the Archive for the originals.